by Calista Skye
I’ll take it. I’ll absolutely take it.
Caronerax increases the passion in his kiss, letting his hands roam all over my naked body, reacquainting my skin with his touch.
I drop the sewing stuff and lay both arms on his shoulders, letting him take charge.
He runs his whole face down my body, sniffing all the while as if he really likes my natural scent, like he’s a wild animal, the softness of his nose tickling me here and there on the way around me.
Then he licks and kisses all over my chest and back, stroking and exploring and sniffing and tasting.
“My senses like you,” he growls and gently nibbles my ear. “Your warmth is pleasant.”
I whimper at his sudden and intense exploration, lifting legs and adjusting limbs so he can get full access everywhere he wants. And he wants access to all the places.
It feels like he tastes all of me, my back and my feet and my shins and my forearms, kissing and licking, eyes half closed and groaning in what has to be total enjoyment. He’s not judging at all, only having a good time.
And just like that, I can have a good time, too. Accepting myself because he so obviously doesn’t only accept my physical body, but really, really likes it.
His mouth and tongue gradually work themselves closer to my center, working up my legs and down my stomach. The expectation creates a sucking feeling in my gut and a surging heat in my girly parts. Something good is coming. Something really good.
He lets me wait, though. Wait and anticipate and expect. He is unreasonably good at this, making my own mind do a lot of the work.
And when he suddenly gives my whole slit a long, deep lick, from the bottom to the top, stopping to flutter lightly right at the clit, I could come right there.
But he doesn’t let me, breaking contact right before it gets that far.
Again he teases, delighting other parts of my skin with his expert treatment before he gives my pussy another lick.
Those licks become more and more frequent until that’s all he does, savoring my center as if this was for his own benefit, and not so much for mine.
But I get the best part of the deal. By far. His tongue is long and dexterous, textured and agile. When he decides that I finally deserve the climax, he simply concentrates his focus and movements on all of my sex. As in, all of it at the same time.
I come, of course. I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to. Heck, ten wild dactyls couldn’t stop that now.
I thrash and squeal and groan, but the dragon holds me firmly and doesn’t let my girly flesh escape. Not that it wants to – as far as my pussy is concerned, she would invite him to make his stay permanent. Invite him very insistently.
“You’re unbelievable,” I sigh as the last of the aftershocks fades out. “In the best possible way. But I think you know that.”
“Yes,” Caronerax says and scratches his bearded chin. “I agree that I am.”
“And I think you like it when we have an audience. Is she still watching?”
“I believe she is.”
I sit up again, all mellow and relaxed. “Are we being terrible, doing all these things in her love nest? Where she would most of all want to do it with you?”
“No dragon minds being terrible. It goes with the territory. How are my pants coming?”
I pick up my sewing needle. “A couple of stitches left, and it will be done. But it won’t be pretty.”
He stands up and stretches, a strangely human thing for a dragon to do. “What? I’m outraged. I demand pretty clothes.”
I re-thread the needle and make another little hole in the tough fabric with my knife. “Then you should come to Earth with me. We have the prettiest clothes you ever saw.”
He glances at me. “Yes? What kind?”
“Suits and jeans and shirts and overcoats,” I tell him. “All much better than this thing. I mean, with the boots these pants looked kind of fancy, although ancient. But you in a white tux… that would be a sight for sore eyes.”
“Hm. How far away is this planet of yours?”
“Well,” I say, thinking fast because this topic is absolutely to be avoided with dragons. “All we know is that it’s far.”
The dragon squats in front of me and gently takes my chin with one hand, lifting my face. “How far, little Jennifer?”
He’s smiling, but he has a dangerous light in his eyes, and his voice is tense.
A sudden bolt of ice shoots through me. “I don’t know. Why?”
He frowns briefly, then brings my mouth up to his own, giving it a sweet, little peck.
“It might be useful to know. But not all that interesting, now that you ask.” He stands up again and prods his wound. “Except you said they might be able to heal me there.”
I breathe out. “Almost certainly they would. Caronerax, what will you do? I mean, after this. After you find your cache and you heal. Then what? Will you leave again and report to your king?”
“That was certainly the plan,” he says. “Now I don’t know. There might be better options.” He quickly runs his gaze up and down my still naked body. “Much better.”
I tie a final knot in the thread and cut off the excess. “Such as?”
“It’s strange how one can go one’s whole life with something missing and not know it,” the dragon says thoughtfully. “And then one suddenly has that missing thing, and going back to not having it simply is not an option. Did that ever happen to you?”
“It has,” I admit. “Quite recently, in fact. Want to try your pants on?”
He completely ignores the garment I’m holding out to him. “Recently, yes. It has for me, too. Now I wonder how I can combine what I have always been with the thing I don’t want to lose. It’s surprisingly hard.”
“Tell me about it,” I sigh. “My old life and existence suddenly don’t seem so tempting to go back to, if it means losing that new thing that… that has opened a new world for me. But I struggle to see how it can continue, how I can get both.”
“And yet,” Caronerax ponders, “anything other than both is unacceptable in the extreme.”
“That’s just it. How shall we get through this? How do we combine that which we are with that which we need?”
“Need,” he samples the word. “Need. Yes. I have never needed anything before. Only my hoard, but that goes without saying. Now I need… something different. As well as the hoard. As well as being a dragon.”
“Perhaps you can have both,” I suggest. “Perhaps it’s about being flexible.”
Again the blue dragon squats down in front of me and takes my face in his hands, very gently. “I don’t know. That new thing I suddenly need is immensely sensitive and precious. The dragon I am might seem abhorrent to her.”
“I am sometimes afraid of the thing I need,” I reply, butterflies fluttering in my stomach. “I wonder what he will do to the things I love.”
His blue and yellow eyes pierce me, but there is a warmth to him I haven’t seen before. “Maybe they become precious to him because you are vital to him. Maybe he will leave them the way they are.”
I return his gaze with no problem. I’m fine with him seeing into my soul. I’m seeing right into his, for the first time. “Maybe she will accept the dragon if he does that.”
He strokes my hair with a look of wonder on his face. Then his lips graze mine, and he looks away with a pained expression.
“I might not fight the other dragons,” he finally says. “But I will do something else that could well prove better.”
“But you will not fight against us?”
“I will not. I will allow no harm to come to you.”
I put a hand on his. “We are preparing to go back to Earth. Our planet. As soon as we can. Can you come? Or follow us?”
He stares into the setting sun. “I can’t plan that far ahead. I’m not used to it, things are changing too much. I think that things will work out for the best. Like you said, perhaps it is a matter of being flexible. For both of us.” He
squeezes my hand and climbs up on the bare rocks where the waterfall starts, then stands there and peers south above the treetops.
I pick more fruits and berries while there’s still light, wrapping them in leaves that I place beside the huge fire that Caronerax has built. I light it with one of Dolly’s matches, noticing I have four of them left.
Then we sit by the fire, or rather, pretty far from it because it is so large and hot. I munch on the last of the not-sheep meat, glad to be rid of it.
Then I relax in Caronerax’s arms, getting sleepy and feeling happy and optimistic. I’ll cure Caronerax of his injury, whatever it takes. And maybe I can bring him home to Earth. Maybe things will work out. Like he said, so many things are uncertain now.
But I know one thing.
“I love you,” I whisper into his shoulder.
He nuzzles my hair. “What did you say?”
I clear my throat. “I said, that fire is pretty hot.”
“You said something else. Something much nicer. Jennifer, this is all new to me. I’m beset with emotions and sensations I haven’t had before.”
I kiss his upper arm. “It’s okay. Take your time.”
- - -
The next morning my dress is dry, my fur pouch is filled with berries and nuts, and the sky is overcast. We’re ready to leave, and I’m about to put my mudshoes on when I see movement among the bushes.
“Wait a moment,” I tell Caronerax. “Umm. Be ready to save me if I’m completely misjudging this.”
I slowly make my way past the undergrowth, then squat down a good distance away and wave.
“Hi, Marshie,” I coo to the eye-on-tentacle I spotted. “I just wanted to thank you for letting us use your island.”
The tentacle rises, the eye looks around, and then it inches closer to me.
I look nervously behind me. Caronerax is watching intently, tense and ready to pounce. But I don’t think he’ll need to.
“It is a super cool island you have here,” I continue as the tentacle-slash-eye comes closer along the ground, looking like the world’s most curious snake. “I’m sure lots of other mon— um… creatures would love to see it. Invite someone, maybe?”
The tentacle is three feet away and rises at the end as the eye takes me in.
“I’m sorry about… you know. The things you saw. He and I haven’t had a good place or time to do those things before.”
The eye inches closer, taking us both in. It’s big and round, with a round pupil and a hazel iris. Of course, she can’t hear or understand anything I say, but I’m hoping the meaning comes across.
“Anyway, I’ll let people know you’re single and maybe looking?”
The eye focuses on Caronerax for a long time, but he returns the gaze coldly.
When the eye comes back to me, I slowly reach out one hand and stroke the tentacle right behind the eyeball. It’s warm and feels a lot like touching someone’s finger. “We’ll leave you alone now. Thanks again.”
I retreat, then straighten up and walk back to the swamp.
“Probably the craziest thing I’ve ever done,” I say as I let my breath out. “But I felt I should.”
“Such a strange monster,” Caronerax ponders. “Not at all aggressive.”
“No,” I agree as I give the eye a final wave. “She needs some company, though. Let’s look out for swamp monsters we can send her way. You ready?”
I put my mudshoes on, figure out exactly which direction is due south, and step into the mire.
17
- Jennifer -
The mudshoes makes it all much easier. The mud doesn’t have the same consistency as snow, of course. But it’s not that far off how wet slush would behave, and I never get close to breaking through the firm layer to the treacherous liquid beneath.
We’re not moving as fast as Caronerax carrying me over his shoulder, but much faster than me walking with bare feet. In the afternoon we reach dry land, turn around, and look back across the swamp. The island is only a bump on the horizon, and I can barely make out a dark line in the distant mist that could be the side we came from.
“No smoke signals today,” I observe, putting my hand into the pouch and fishing out a handful of nuts.
“No need,” Caronerax says as he turns and walks on, into the woods. “They already said all they were going to say.”
There’s no reason to hesitate, so I take my mudshoes off, place them neatly on the ground, and follow him, hoping I won’t miss them.
Again the land slopes down, and the trees here are much more like the ones I know from the jungle. There are still pines, but here they’re not the dominant species of tree.
We walk the rest of the afternoon, and I start to look for a clearing that would be good to spend the night in.
After another hour, we stumble across the perfect one. It’s round and big, with a good distance to the edge of the woods, making it hard for anything to sneak up on us. A stream clucks merrily along the edge, the grass is dry and soft, and one side is all bushes bearing not-currants. In the middle is a mound covered with moss and tall grass.
I stop at the edge of the clearing. “Which monster has made this, do you think?”
Caronerax walks a couple steps past me, then stops. “I’m not sure this is—”
Before he can finish the sentence, a long, thin spear comes flying and hits him in the chest, clanging off the scales right next to his wound. It’s followed by another and another, a real hailstorm of spears that are thrown hard enough to force him back.
To my horror, one of them hits the hole in his scale perfectly, and the shaft of the spear sticks out of his chest.
Caronerax staggers backwards, hissing throatily with pain that I think must be incredibly intense.
Then the clearing comes alive as the mound dissolves into a whole platoon of camouflaged cavemen, and more come from behind and from the sides, sharp spears stretched out towards us. And especially towards Caronerax.
A tall caveman with deep blue stripes comes forward, bared sword in hand. “A dragon,” he says with satisfaction. “And a woman from the alien tribe. Truly a great catch.”
“Please lower your spears, warrior,” I say in cavemanese. “We are not a threat to you.”
“Not now, certainly,” the caveman says. “Never again, if I have my way. And I think I will.”
“We are innocent travelers,” I persist. “We have not harmed you or anyone else. Let us go, as honor dictates, and no harm will come to you.”
The caveman sheaths his sword and frowns. “Harm? How would you inflict harm on us now?”
“You know about the alien tribe,” I state, not feeling good about how calm this guy is. “We have many, many warriors on our side. As well as full dragons that breathe fire and are impervious to your weapons. They will all seek revenge on you if anything happens to us.”
“That may be,” the man says, a smirk playing in the corner of his mouth. “But if so, someone must tell them. To be honest, I don’t think I will.”
A chuckle goes through the gang of cavemen. There’s about thirty of them, and I rack my brain to remember if I’ve seen cavemen with those dark blue stripes back at the slayer camp next to the village. I can’t be sure — I’ve been too focused on going home to Earth, not really that interested in the army the married girls have built, along with their husbands.
Another caveman, bigger than most, comes up to Caronerax, grins, grabs the spear shaft, and yanks it out of the dragon’s chest. It’s followed by a short spray of ichor.
“Don’t do that!” I yell. “He’s injured! Have you no honor?”
Caronerax stands still for two heartbeats. Then his hand shoots out, he grabs the man’s throat, there’s a muted crack, and the tormentor collapses to the ground, head flopping loosely on a neck where the spine inside has been pulverized.
The leader draws his sword again, fast, and puts the edge at my throat. “Calm down, dragon. This soft one has no scales to stop my blade. You are fast, but a
re you fast enough?”
Caronerax clearly considers using his great speed and power to attack the leader, and I half want him to. The other half is extremely conscious of the cold sharpness of the steel where it touches my soft throat.
“If you draw a single drop of blood from that female, I will burn you all,” the dragon growls.
“I will draw more than a single drop if you don’t stand still,” the leader says and nods to his men.
Four of them inch closer to Caronerax and tie his hands and ankles with steel wires.
My heart sinks in my chest. For a dragon in human form, and especially an injured one, that should be enough to bind him so he can’t escape. That was how Mia caught Kyandros, using the steel string from her crossbow.
“Why are you doing this?” I try again. “That dragon is not an enemy! He’s friendly, and he will help us against the other dragons!”
“The other dragons are none of our concern,” the leader says as he sheaths his sword once more. “The alien tribe can deal with them if they want. And if they can. Which I understand has recently become much less likely.”
“Why?” I inquire. “What’s happened?”
The leader ignores me. “This is as good a place as any to set up camp for the night, Baliduz’ar,” he says to another man. “Send ten men to hunt and gather food for a feast, celebrating our victory over this dragon. Carry poor Gump’an to the middle of the clearing and prepare him a pyre. He will be avenged before this night is over. Avenged very, very slowly.” He sends an angry glance in Caronerax’s direction.
“Yes, chief,” the man says and walks off.
The chief reaches out and strokes my hair with his fingertip. “And maybe celebrating much, much more. I think it will be a long and uncommonly pleasant night. For some of us.”
I recoil from his touch, but he just chuckles.
“Touch her again, and I will save you for last when I murder you all,” Caronerax says, and the menace in his voice makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
The men around him instinctively draw away, feeling the danger.