The Dragon Claims His Treasure (Starcrossed Dating Agency)

by Georgette St. Clair

  “Damn it, how does this thing work? I have to go pee really bad, catch you later!”

  She sprang up out of the seat. Prenzal reached over and pressed a button, and Darfan’s face vanished from the screen.

  “It only works when I do it,” he told her. “The controls are keyed to respond to ship’s personnel only.”

  “You could have told me that before I made a fool of myself,” she said with annoyance.

  “I could have, but where would the humor in that be?” Prenzal didn’t look particularly amused, however. He was looking at Rosamund with a mixture of suspicion and barely suppressed anger.

  “I take it that you don’t want me to be here?” she said. “Not particularly fond of humans? Or just me?”

  “I do not know you well enough to dislike you,” Prenzal replied, his voice colder than the vasty depths of space. He didn’t bother adding the obvious – but if I did know you better, I’d dislike you for sure. “You are an unknown entity, and there are…some inter-clan politics which may be disrupted by your presence.”

  Rosamund felt a sharp zing of annoyance at his sour attitude. “Well, in my defense, I didn’t ask to be here.”

  “If you did not want to be here, you should not have proposed,” Prenzal said, and walked away before Rosamund could slap him.

  Irritated, she grabbed one of the other crew members and had him take her back to Kodran’s quarters to wait for his return. Dot-R was apparently exploring the ship and interfacing with its computer, at least according to the bridge crew.

  Right after she entered Kodran’s room, her wrist com beeped, and then a holographic screen was projected above it. A Draell male with a long, aquiline nose and a haughty expression was frowning at her impatiently.

  “Greetings, human known as Rosamund. I am Sekari, the Lord High Commander of the Draell. I just spoke to your employer at Starcrossed, who informed me that Kodran has fled Agora and you are being held captive. All I need in order to rescue you is for you to state that you were taken against your will. Then the Galactic Federation will authorize me to send a warfleet after you. Go ahead and repeat after me, ‘I have been kidnapped by Kodran Sky-Reign.’ ”

  He looked at her expectantly.

  Something about Sekari put her back up. His tone? The expression on his face? Whatever, she didn’t like him.

  And she sure as hell wasn’t going to do anything that would cause a warfleet to be launched.

  Besides, although Kodran had kidnapped her, the great big fire-breathing caveman that he was, she had to admit it hadn’t been entirely his fault. A certain juvenile delinquent serv-bot who’d been skipping out on robot school to talk to mechanical boys was partly to blame.

  She shook her head, waving her hand in dismissal. “I have not been kidnapped. There was a big misunderstanding, and I will be returned to Agora within the week. Six solar circles. Whatever.”

  “Where is Kodran taking you?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I assumed your home planet.”

  Sekari made a scornful noise. “Kodran and his clan are no longer welcome on our planet. He will most likely be taking you to the new planet that he has colonized, a dangerous and lawless place from which you will never escape.”

  Interesting. And a bit alarming. Kodran had neglected to mention that. Then again, she’d barely had time to talk to him, and it wasn’t as if he’d lied and claimed he was taking her to the Draell world. He’d just said that he needed to deliver medicine.

  “Why is Kodran no longer welcome on your planet?”

  Sekari shook his head. “I cannot tell you that. And you must not tell Kodran I communicated with you.”

  Rosamund frowned at him. “Fine. As long as you agree not to contact me again, and if you have issues with Kodran, you deal with him – don’t try to use me.”

  Sekari gave her a rueful smile. “I was not trying to use you. I was trying to save you. Let’s hope it’s not too late.” And with those ominous words, his holograph vanished.

  Chapter Five

  Rosamund spent a couple of hours shamelessly exploring Kodran’s entire room, looking in the closet, eating snacks out of the food dispenser, and getting an explosive faceful of water when she tried to figure out the controls on the sink. She’d washed her face, changed into dry clothes, and now she was bored.

  She was heading out the door just as Kodran was coming in. She ran right into him, slamming up against his rock-hard body, and stumbled backwards. He quickly reached out and caught her before she fell, his strong arm wrapped around her waist. He was bent over her, as though they’d been slow-dancing and he’d dipped her backwards at the end of the song. She could still hear the pulse of the music, though, in the rapid beating of her heart. An answering throb centered itself between her thighs.

  Slowly, he pulled her upright. She was painfully aware of the press of his body against hers.

  “Hello again, heart’s fire. I am equally eager to see you,” he said.

  She snorted and stepped back away from him, even though her body cried out in protest at the loss of his warmth. “Are you always this conceited?”

  “I prefer to think of it as self-confident. I see you selected a beautiful new dress for our first courtship tonight.”

  “Actually, I just changed because I accidentally made the sink explode and I got all wet.”

  He threw back his head and laughed heartily. It was a rich, deep sound. “The sink exploded! You are a clever wit. Are you ready for our meal?”

  “The sink really did… Oh, fine. Yes, let’s go.”

  Kodran led her through the ship down to the cargo bay, where all the ship’s shuttles were stored.

  “Sharvani, is the area still clear?” he asked the Draell on duty.

  Sharvani nodded. “Yes, sir – we have scanned the sector and there are no indications of hostiles.”

  Kodran took Rosamund to one of the smaller shuttles, and they climbed in and settled into their seats. The webbing came out and restrained them both as they took off, sailing right out of the ship.

  They hovered outside, and the shuttle suddenly seemed to turn transparent. They were surrounded by the velvety blackness of space, and millions of stars, as they kept pace with the Draell’s enormous transport vessel.

  To one side, all she could see was the massive, silvery hull of the spaceship, like the curved flank of some great space whale. But when she looked to the other side, and above and below them, it seemed as if they were suspended in the vastness of space. Floating together with nothing between them and the cosmos. A thousand million tiny twinkling lights surrounded them, each one a star orbited by strange worlds.

  Rosamund gasped and looked around in amazement. It was a little frightening in its enormous, unspeakable beauty, but with Kodran by her side, she wasn’t afraid. She knew the invisible hull of their little craft was solid nanite metal, but for some reason she put her faith not in the laws of physics but in him. He would catch her if she fell.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she said, eyes shining.

  Kodran grinned at her. “I thought you might like it.” He clapped his hands and yelled out, “Dinner!” A cabinet opened and a tray-table floated over to them.

  It was loaded with food, most of which Rosamund had never seen before. Fortunately, she’d always been an adventurous eater, and since Kodran had arranged this, she could be fairly sure to avoid a repeat of the Drr’inthian hovercraft fuel incident.

  Kodran selected a sliver of purple fruit from the tray. It was so juicy that a trickle of sticky syrup ran down his wrist. He held it close to her lips.

  “Open…”

  Obediently, she opened her mouth, and Kodran popped the fruit inside. The flavor burst on her tongue, tart-sweet, and she moaned with pleasure. Then a jolt of sensation struck her as she watched Kodran lick the juice from his fingers and his wrist with his quick pink tongue. Her own juices began to flow as she thought about him licking her skin, and she barely stifled another moan.

  Next he
selected a square of what looked like spiced pastry. As he held it out to her, she caught its complex, savory aroma.

  It practically melted in her mouth, flaky and as light as air. She closed her eyes to savor the taste, but they popped open again when she felt Kodran’s touch at the side of her mouth, wiping away a stray crumb with his thumb. His eyes wandered lower, and she looked down to see that three or four flakes of the delicious pastry had fallen onto her cleavage.

  Their eyes met and there was a long moment of hot, magnetic silence, the only sound that of their breathing, slightly too fast. Rosamund felt an unbearable ache of arousal and desire between her thighs. She desperately wanted Kodran to kiss her.

  She looked away, breaking the moment, and Kodran sat back in his seat. She thought she heard the very faintest sigh of disappointment.

  But then he gave a wicked grin and dipped his finger into a bowl of what looked like dark honey, or some kind of tree sap, perhaps, withdrawing it dripping and sticky. He held his finger out to her, inviting her to suckle the sweet treat from it, and her core clenched hard. She squeezed her thighs together, desperately trying to collect herself, then opened her mouth and allowed him to slide his finger inside. She sucked on the digit and then, unable to resist, swirled her tongue around it.

  Kodran groaned, slowly withdrawing his finger as she pursed her lips around it.

  He blew out a flustered breath, a small muscle ticking in his stubbled jaw. Rosamund knew he wanted to tumble her onto the floor and put his hands all over her body and push inside her with his fingers and tongue and cock.

  And if she was honest with herself, she wanted him to.

  But instead he visibly collected himself, obviously determined to continue with the seduction he’d planned, feeding her delicacies from his world out here among the stars.

  Finally, she pushed her plate away. She needed to clear her head and think about something else – anything else besides Kodran and how badly she wanted him to rip off all of her clothes and ravish her on the shuttle floor.

  “So. What hostiles were you talking about earlier. Is it the cyborgs?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Mostly them. There are any number of dangers to travel between planets. There are the cyborgs, there are the pirates, there are the slavers. There is nothing for you to worry about, though – we have scanned the quadrant and it is clear.”

  “Tell me about the cyborgs.”

  He grimaced and set his drink down. “There was a corporation called Futuros. They wanted cheaper labor for the dangerous mining planets, many of which have poisonous atmospheres or are bombarded by meteorites. So they took death row inmates, wiped their memories but allowed them to retain some decision-making parts of the brain, and made them into cyborgs. It worked well for a while, but then something went terribly wrong. On one of the mining planets, the highly radioactive atmosphere made their hard drives go haywire. They became self-aware and able to communicate with each other, sort of like linking into one giant computer. And although they had no memories of their former lives, they seemed to retain their core personalities. These were sadistic torturers, mass murderers who delighted in ending life for the sake of it.”

  Rosamund shuddered. “So what did they do once they became self-aware?”

  “They brutally slaughtered all the human overseers, stole their ships, and fled into space. They freed other groups of cyborgs and banded together. For a while they roved through the galaxy, living on hijacked ships. And then they started the population wars, in an attempt to wipe out sentient species and steal their planets.”

  He saw the look on Rosamund’s face.

  “They would never touch you. I would never let anything happen to you. I would die first.” His eyes glowed a brilliant green and the air around them warmed up by several degrees.

  “You barely know me,” she protested gently.

  “That is not true.” He took her hand and placed it on his chest. “In a way, I have always known you. You have always lived here. And now you have come home to me.”

  It was sort of like the belief on Earth that everyone had a soul-mate out there – you just had to be patient and find them.

  She pressed her hand against the hard muscles of his chest for a moment, then withdrew it. Touching him was dangerously addictive.

  “All of your people believe this is how love works?”

  “We do. Some of us are not lucky enough ever to find our heart’s fire.” A look of genuine sadness drifted across his handsome face at the thought. “Some of our kind make the choice to mate for the wrong reasons, such as wealth or prestige. I feel very sorry for them.” He looked at her. “Haven’t you always felt that a piece of you was missing?”

  Rosamund felt a sharp throb stabbing deep inside her. How had he known about the faint ache, the sense of incompleteness, that had haunted her ever since she could remember?

  “I…I guess. I’ve never really felt an emotional connection with anyone I’ve dated. There might be physical attraction for a short while, but it’s always felt…hollow. Unsatisfying.”

  His eyes glowed even brighter, and red scales rippled over his face and arms. Now the air was so hot that sweat beaded on her forehead. Smoke curled from his nostrils as he stared intently at her.

  “Who have you dated? What are their names and where are their domiciles?”

  He was jealous! Also, he wanted to find her ex-boyfriends and set them on fire. She should discourage that. No matter how horrible some of her exes had been.

  “That’s long in the past. I haven’t dated anyone in ages. Anyway, I just want to focus on the present. I’m sitting in outer space with a dragon.” She stroked the scales on his face with her fingertips. “They’re so pretty.”

  “Oh, this?” Instantly he was entirely covered with scales. Then he blew a heart shaped smoke ring, and she laughed.

  “You are very beautiful when you smile,” he said.

  His skin went smooth again. He stroked her arm, and she stifled a moan of frustrated desire and slid back away from him.

  “We’re still in the getting-to-know-you stage,” she protested weakly. “Umm… Uhhh… Tell me about how human females change into other species.”

  “Well, we all descended from common ancestors, who fled their own planet and colonized the galaxy when their sun went supernova.”

  She nodded, crossing her arms over her chest to hide the swollen buds of her nipples. She vaguely hoped this explanation would be boring enough to tear her attention away from the pink curve of Kodran’s lips, but she didn’t think so. She so desperately wanted to press her mouth against his.

  “Some of those ancestors genetically engineered our races, to give us a better chance of survival on our new worlds. That is why we can change into animals. And the engineering is so efficient that if a female humanoid becomes pregnant with our young, her body will adapt and change to the species of her children.”

  “So…I’d be a dragon,” she said. “A Draell.”

  A dragon. She’d be able to turn into a mighty creature that breathed fire, that flapped enormous wings and flew through the sky.

  “You would. You will,” he said, nodding confidently.

  The shuttle was sliding back into the ship now, she saw with regret. She’d enjoyed being alone with him, in their own little world.

  But it couldn’t last forever.

  “Will you spend the night in my bed?” he asked as they climbed out of the shuttle into the cargo bay.

  “I’d better sleep alone. It’s…traditional. With Earth females. We like to get to know our men a little better.”

  “So I am your man.” An enormous smile stretched across his handsome face.

  “I didn’t say that!” she shouted after him as he walked away.

  Chapter Six

  Rosamund spent the night tossing and turning. When she fell asleep, it was to feverish dreams of herself tangled up in Kodran’s arms as he drove her mad with his tongue and fingers.

  His body was
a sweet weight on top of hers, his skin burning fever-hot with the fire inside him. He looked down at her, pupils blown wide with arousal in those astonishingly green eyes.

  “My heart’s fire,” he said huskily. “I have wanted this so badly since the first moment I saw you. Wanted to touch you…” He kissed her. “To taste you…” He ran his tongue over her lower lip, making her shudder and a part her lips for him. He spoke against her mouth. “Wanted to make you mine.”

  He kissed her, playing his tongue into her mouth, flicking it against hers in a suggestive rhythm that made slick moisture gather between her thighs. Her nipples beaded, pressing against his chest, and she moaned into his mouth as he moved her, drawing one leg up so he was pressed against her core. He rolled his hips, pushing against her, and the rigid length of his cock slid against her clit. She pressed her fingertips into the muscles of his broad shoulders. She desperately wanted him to push into her, move inside her, driving them both closer to the all-consuming pleasure she knew awaited.

  But Kodran had other ideas.

  He nibbled her earlobe, whispering hot words in her ear about how badly he ached for her, how he wanted to lose himself in her body.

  “But first,” he murmured, “I mean to taste every inch of your sweetness.”

  He nibbled a trail of kisses down her throat, nipping at her collarbone, then taking her ample breasts in his big palms. He licked and kissed around her nipple, spiraling it with his tongue and teasing it to a rigid, aching point. Pleasure throbbed between her thighs in time with her pulse, and she wriggled beneath him, trying to ease her desire. He suckled on the point, and she arched off the bed, pressing against his mouth and whispering incoherently that he should stop…and that he should never stop.

  He pulled away and blew cool air over her damp nipple, and she groaned and wound her fingers into his blue-black hair.

  He turned his attention to her other breast, lavishing it with the same treatment until she was panting and writhing. Just when she thought she might die if he didn’t touch her where she needed to be touched, he ran his hand down over her plump belly and parted the petals of her pussy with his fingers.