The Dracons' Woman: Book 1 of the Soul-Linked Saga

by Laura Jo Phillips

  Garen shook his head. “No,” he raised his hand, palm out, as Lariah started to ask another question. “Patience, sharali, I will explain.”

  “Sorry,” she said, her face pink with embarrassment. Garen smiled at her and Trey stroked her legs in a soothing gesture that sent a quick thrill deep into her body.

  “Again, there is no need to apologize for your curiosity sharali,” he said. “It is simply easier for me to explain first, before you ask questions.”

  Lariah smiled, but remained silent.

  “Our species is not human, Lariah," Garen continued, “nor are we much like humans other than our appearance. In our species, a woman always becomes pregnant with triplets, and the babies are always the same sex. The mother will give birth either to males, or females, but never both at the same time. If the fetuses are males, and one is lost before birth, the other two fetuses will perish as well. Always. There is no exception to this. If the fetuses are females, and one, or even two of the fetuses are lost before birth, the remaining female can still survive and be born into the world.

  “The reason for this is simple. Male triplets share what we can best describe in your language as a soul. They each carry a third of it, and if one of them perishes before birth, the others will succumb as well. Once born, it is easier for the remaining brothers to survive should one be lost, though in truth, they do not generally become strong enough to survive a sibling’s death until they mature.

  “Females, on the other hand, have their own souls. Each is born with a soul destined to match with another soul set, or, in other words, a soul that will match the soul shared by one set of brothers. Females also carry the ability to link the souls together. Females can link their soul only to the one that is their destined match, but when they do, they also link all three of the brothers’ souls together. Once the four of them are soul-linked, the relatively minor magical ability born into all of us is magnified a thousand-fold.”

  “That’s just amazing,” Lariah said in a hushed voice. There was something about it that felt almost familiar, though she was certain she had never heard of anything like this before in her life.

  “If there were males who had magic strong enough to travel space, then they must have been soul-linked, right?” she asked. Garen nodded his head, watching Lariah as she tried to work it out for herself. “So, why did their magic weaken?” she asked so softly that he understood she was asking herself, not him. He waited, enjoying her curiosity and intelligence. Finally she raised her eyes to his and he saw the sadness there. “Their women died, didn’t they? That’s why they lost their magic.”

  “Yes,” Garen replied. “They died, or, as some believed, their women traveled so far away from them that the link between them was lost. Whether that was true or not, it is what most believed, or said they believed. There were only males left, and most of them were young enough that they had not yet found their soul-link, or, as we say, their Arima. There were only about 500 older, more experienced males, and all of those had been mated. Our species could not afford to lose them, and their knowledge, due to grief. The thought that their Arimas were alive, but distant, gave them hope for a time.”

  Lariah sat silently for awhile, running the story through her mind. They were beginning to know her a little now, so Garen, Val and Trey waited patiently for her to reach the question they knew was coming next. It didn’t take her long, and they were pleased with her quick intelligence.

  “So you had 3500 males and fewer than 900 human women. I think it’s safe to assume that the human women did not have the ability to link souls together, so obviously there was no more strong magic. But there is something else, isn’t there? There are still mostly males on Jasan. Why is that?”

  Garen nodded. “Yes Lariah, you are correct, there is something else. Human women are unable to bear us female children.”

  Lariah was stunned. And, after a few moments thought, appalled. “So, every time males are born, they are doomed to go through life with divided souls, knowing that they will never find the one that matches and completes them. Never realize their full potential or destiny.”

  She looked at the three men, one at a time. “That is what you have suffered your entire lives, isn’t it? Always wanting that one, special person, always knowing you will never find her.” She fell silent for a moment, an ache in her heart for the men of Jasan. “Have any of your females ever been found?” she asked softly. “Obviously you no longer need magic for space travel. You must have looked.”

  “We have searched, of course, but no, we have found no sign of others of our species, male or female,” Garen replied.

  Lariah shook her head. “That is so sad,” she breathed softly. Garen watched her, almost able to see the wheels turning in her head. When her eyes widened he was not surprised. “Wait a second…how long ago did you say your people landed here?” she asked suspiciously.

  Garen bit back his grin. “About three thousand years.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Garen, that makes no sense. If there were 900 women, and they could not give birth to females, then your species would have died out after only one generation.”

  “That is absolutely correct,” he replied casually.

  Lariah’s eyes widened even more as she worked out the implications of that statement. “Oh, please don’t tell me you are three thousand years old! Ugh...you guys are waaaay too old for me!”

  Garen laughed. “Not quite. Though, I would ask that you not mention your feelings on that subject to our mother.”

  “Your mother?” she asked. “But...how?”

  “As I said, we have magic. We do not have the strong magic of our ancestors without our soul-links, but we still have magic. It is not so difficult to correct the genetic anomaly that causes aging in humans.”

  “So, how old are you?” she asked, far more interested in the answer to that particular question at the moment.”

  “We are 412 years old,” Garen replied. Lariah gave her head a little shake and wished she hadn’t asked. She decided to think about that later. Much later. She changed the subject.

  “Once space travel reached this planet, you were able to bring in more females. Is that right?”

  “Yes, that is correct,” Garen said, knowing where she was going with her question. He decided to head her off. “Even though our mother was human, as was our father’s mother, we are still a race of males. There is something about our genetic code which, simply put, overrides almost all other genetic material. There is very little trace of human genetics in our bodies. The main hint of our human ancestry is our current physical appearance.”

  “So, you can marry human women, and have male children with them, but no matter how many generations removed you become from your ancestors, you will never be able to be complete in the way you were meant to be,” she said sadly.

  “For most of our people, that is true,” Garen agreed, feeling a bit nervous now that they had finally arrived at the crux of the matter. He took a deep breath and plunged in. “Happily, it is not true for us.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why not for you?”

  “Because of you Lariah,” Garen said softly. “You are our Arima.”

  Garen felt Lariah go still. For one long, agonizing moment she did not move or even breathe. Finally, she took a long deep breath, opened her mouth to speak, closed it, shook her head and tried again.

  “I’m human,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “You do know that, right?”

  “Yes sharali, we know that you are human,” Garen replied.

  “Well, obviously I cannot be your Arima,” she said, trying to sound reasonable. “You’ve made some sort of mistake.”

  “There can be no mistake in this, little love,” Trey said. “When a male-set finds their Arima, certain physiological responses occur that do not occur at any other time.”

  “What sort of responses?” she asked.

  “The moment we scented you in the spaceport, our mating fangs desc
ended,” Garen said.

  Lariah’s eyebrows rose as she turned her head to look up at him. “Mating fangs?” she repeated faintly.

  “When we reach maturity, we develop a set of mating fangs which remain buried deep within the top of our mouths,” Garen explained. “In order for our males to successfully mate with human females, they must drink a potion which artificially stimulates their mating fangs, causing them to descend. The only natural way for mating fangs to descend is for a male to scent his Arima.”

  Lariah thought about that for a moment. “So that is why you were there when I woke up at the spaceport?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Val replied. “Garen scented you first, then Trey, then me. We also scented your pain and fear,” he added, his face hardening at the memory.

  The curious part of Lariah wanted to ask what they did with those mating fangs, but she didn’t think she was ready for the answer to that question just yet.

  “So, is that the only reason you think I’m your Arima?” she asked instead.

  “You feel like you know us,” Trey said. “You feel our presence, and our absence. You sense us, and are able to tell us apart with that alone.”

  Lariah shrugged half-heartedly. “That’s true,” she said, “but what has that got to do with anything?”

  “Your soul recognizes its other half in us,” Garen answered. “It already knows that it is where it is meant to be.”

  Something about what he said felt right to Lariah, but even so, she could not quite let herself believe it. How probable was it that she, Lariah Daniels, could be who and what these men thought? She was not remotely special enough to be the Arima that these men, and their entire race, had waited thousands of years for. She was the woman who, at the age of 26, had never had so much as a single boyfriend, who lived her life in books and fantasies, who went home from work at a library every day to a lonely little apartment, her only companion yet another book. There had to be a mistake.

  “There were a lot of people in that spaceport,” she pointed out finally. “I’m sure thousands of people go through there every single day. Isn’t it possible you got your scents mixed up and ended up with me instead of your real Arima?”

  “No, sharali,” Garen replied. “And even if such an error was possible, you did something that only an Arima can do. You sang me out of my blood-rage.”

  “I whated you out of your huh?”

  “When we reached you at the spaceport you were on the floor, unconscious,” he explained. “Sometimes, if we are not careful or we are pushed beyond our limits, we can go into what we call a blood-rage.

  “The sight of you, crumpled motionless on the floor, combined with the scents of your pain and fear, sent me into a blood-rage. In my anger, I lost control and transformed. The only way a blood-rage can be immediately halted is for an Arima to sing to her mate.”

  Lariah’s mouth dropped open, then closed with an audible snap. “There are several things that bother me about what you just said, but the one that rises to the top is what exactly do you mean when you say you transformed,” she asked, her delicate brows drawn into a frown.

  “We are shifters, Lariah,” Trey told her with a casual shrug. “When we transform, we become dracons.”

  “What the heck is a dracon?” she asked, her mind skipping over the entire word “shifters” for the moment. She caught Val’s sudden grin right before he clapped his hand over his mouth and pretended to cough. Her eyes narrowed and she folded her arms across her chest. She did not like to be laughed at.

  Garen thought she looked cute. She was only a fraction of their size, yet she was not the least bit afraid of them. She was intelligent, beautiful, and from what they had seen already, perfect for them sexually. Apparently she had a bit of a temper as well.

  “Don’t you dare laugh at me,” she warned. “How would you like it if I suddenly up and told you I turn into a pink flamingo?”

  Garen opened his mouth, closed it, then decided he had to know. “What is a pink flamingo?” he asked, though every instinct he possessed was screaming at him to keep his mouth shut.

  “Exactly,” she replied triumphantly.

  Garen blinked while Trey covered his mouth with one hand and made a strangled, coughing sound. Lariah transferred her glare from Garen to Trey. “Excuse me,” he said after a moment. “Something caught in my throat.” She arched a brow at him.

  “Come outside with us and we will show you what a dracon is,” he offered, standing and holding his hand out to her.

  “Alright,” she said after a long moment. She placed her small hand in Garen’s large one. “But I just want to go on record as saying I don’t think this is a very good idea.”

  “Why do you think it is not a good idea?” Garen asked curiously as he guided her toward the door, Val and Trey at their heels.

  “I know you’re really old, but I still think you are gorgeous men,” she replied. “But if you turn into something icky and slimy that’s just going to ruin everything.”

  Garen laughed. “We do not turn into anything ‘icky and slimy’,” he assured her as they stepped out onto the front porch. Lariah didn’t look as though she believed him. Well, they would just have to prove it to her.

  “Stand here,” he said, placing her near the edge of the porch where she would be safely out of the way. When he was sure she was going to stay put, he and his brothers moved several yards away from the porch.

  Lariah watched as the three men spread themselves out. The amount of room they put between each other made her nervous. Then, suddenly, they seemed to just…expand. Instead of three huge incredibly sexy men, she was staring up…and up…and up at three huge beasts with leopard spotted fur, wedge shaped heads, impossibly long fangs, and what looked a lot like wings folded on their backs. She gave her head a tiny shake, noting that one had golden eyes, one gray, and one blue-green, right before she whispered, “Ooookie dokey, that’s just too much.” Then her eyes rolled up in her head and, for the first time in her entire life, she fainted.

  Chapter 6

  Slater Sugetku sat on the floor, his long, narrow back against the wall in the small, rarely used storage room that he had found in an older portion of the personnel wing. The Jasani skyport was enormous, a virtual city orbiting Jasan, bigger, shinier, brighter and richer than anything on his home planet, Onddo. After escaping Onddo just one step ahead of the exterminators by stowing away on a welfare ship, it had taken Slater several years to become accustomed to such places. It had taken even longer for him to learn the basic, everyday technologies that the vast multitudes of people across the galaxy took for granted.

  It was natural for his kind to seek out the dark, deserted, hidden places, and he had quickly discovered the general location of such areas on most ships. Between hiding, and his most secret, most forbidden talent that allowed him to transform into virtually any human or humanoid he wished, he had never been discovered. He was able to maintain such transformations for limited periods of time only, but it had been enough to prevent discovery countless times. Eventually he had learned enough that he began to venture out and blend with the general populations of the ships he stowed away on and the planets he occasionally visited.

  There were times when he thought back to his home world with longing. He had been on his own for so long and there were times when he was unbearably lonely. He could count on the claws of one hand the number of times he had been alone before his escape from Onddo.

  Other times, like now, when he thought about his people, he saw through new eyes how primitive and backward they had become. At such times his life-long goal of returning to Onddo crowned in glory did not lessen. It grew stronger.

  Slater had always known he was meant for glory. He believed with his entire being that he was meant to return to Onddo and be recognized as the greatest of them all. Even the great Magoa would praise him for his mighty deeds.

  The problem was, he did not know what those deeds would be. He had spent his years in exile searchin
g for his purpose, his destiny, without even knowing what it was he was looking for. Until one fateful day when he had stepped off of a transport ship and onto the Jasani skyport and seen with his own eyes the ancient enemy of his people.

  Like every other hatchling, Slater was taught the history of his people before leaving the crèche. He knew of the deliberate destruction of their home planet, Narrastia, along with their entire glorious civilization, excepting only a colony of workers on a distant planet. The destruction caused by a ruthless race of hot-blooded monsters called the Ugaztun.

  Slater did not really remember much about Ugaztun as school had never been his favorite activity. But the first time he saw a Jasani guard transform into a bearenca and sniff a suspected smuggler’s luggage, his genetic memories had kicked in. Actually, the genetic memories had not kicked in until his fear had abated, but nobody need know that. What was important was that Slater had, at long last, discovered his destiny.

  It was not possible for him to annihilate the Jasani single-handedly, though he had spent several days trying to think of a way to do just that. In the end, he decided that was not what he was meant to do. After all, he was only one being. His destiny must be that he would hurt them in some way.

  Yes, he thought to himself, that felt right. He would find a way to hurt the Jasani and, in so doing, he would strike the first blow on behalf of his people in over three thousand years. And then he would return home to Onddo and be celebrated as a hero like no other.

  Once Slater realized what he was meant to do, he was impatient to get it done. He just wasn’t sure how he was going to go about it. Nevertheless, a way had to be found. No, not had to be found, he corrected himself. A way would be found. It was his destiny. He just had to be patient and wait for it.

  Slater settled in at the skyport and spent time learning the place, finding all of the dark hidden areas that he preferred. He felt safer and more secure knowing there were places for him to hide should the need arise. That done, he worked on becoming familiar with the people who lived and worked on the skyport, particularly the guards. He soon knew who gossiped the most, who slept on the job, which guards were most alert, and which ones were easily distracted. During that time he kept his eyes and ear-flaps open, always watching and waiting for the sign he knew would eventually come.