by Alana Khan
If I do what I’m thinking, I’ll be betting on the longshot of all longshots, but I have nothing to lose. Absolutely nothing.
“A’Zul,” I whisper in a singsong voice so low I doubt he can hear me. There’s something about the way I’m looking at him, though, that catches his attention. “A’Zul,” I whisper loud enough for him to hear.
A’Zul’s eyes are riveted on me. His glowing green irises flare as if something inside him is coming to life.
“A’Zul,” I say. “I think our time together is going to come to an end very soon and I want to live out one last fantasy. Are you game for some hot sex?” He sits up, his chest puffs out, interest and understanding spark on his face.
“A’Zul’s a good boy,” I say, not like I’d say to a little boy who just helped clear the table, but like I’d say to a male while I held his cock in my hand. And what do you know, he pulls off his clothes and his body reacts just the way I was hoping. His cock pulses and hardens as I watch.
I’m sitting on my bed, facing my mate. He’s standing, his back against the bars as he looks at me. I have every reason to believe we’re being surveilled, but I don’t give two shits. That might work to my advantage. Whoever’s in charge of watching might be too busy jacking their own cock to realize what’s happening until it’s too late.
I kick off my shoes, pull my pants off, and sit back on my bunk, my legs open wide. A’Zul sits up taller and his eyes slide down my body, lodging on the space between my legs.
“That’s right big guy. See this? Want this? Did you ever dream of this when you were on To’mah? Hmm? Did you dream of a mate who loved you? Who wanted to give herself to you? I bet you never smelled it when you were imagining it. Did you? Not the real thing.”
I’m not only giving him the full monty, I’m going to add a little olfactory sensation to the pot. Up the ante.
“Smell me?” my voice has never sounded so tempting. It’s dripping with honey. As is my pussy, although I don’t know how I manage to be aroused in a situation like this.
A’Zul’s hard as a rock. He’s making soft grunting sounds in the back of his throat.
“Oh yeah. Like this? Mmm?” I open myself even wider then, put the soles of my feet on the edge of the mattress, and splay my knees out.
“I’m going to let you have this. We can do it through the bars. Your cock is certainly big enough to reach through if I come closer, right?” I’m not asking for answers, I’m tempting a recalcitrant animal from its hiding place.
“You want this, right?” I slide two fingers through my dripping folds. “Right?” I flick the tip of my tongue up a wet finger. “You want a taste, don’t you?” Another salacious lick. “Right?”
A’Zul stifles a noise between a squeak and a moan. His eyes drift up and down my body as if he doesn’t know where to look first.
“Oh, yeah. You want to lick this cream?” When I became a femme fatale I have no idea, but I could win an Academy Award for this.
“This is all for you. The taste.” One more long, flirtatious lick with the flat of my tongue. “The smell.” I breathe in deeply for emphasis. “Your cock in my warm hole. You want that, right? Right?”
I stand lithely and stalk to the bars as if I’d been brought up in a nudist camp and was a stripper my whole adult life. I don’t give two fucks who’s watching. I don’t care that I’m acting like the biggest whore who ever lived. There are only two living beings in the entire universe who matter right this minute.
A’Zul and me. I’m desperate to lure Dranii out.
Sliding to my knees, I kneel, my hands gripping the bars that separate our cells.
“Come fuck me.” I’m back to whispering. “Fuck me. It’s you I want. I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
A’Zul is looking at me as if he wants to jam his cock down my throat. But that is not the deal. That will not save our lives.
“A’Zul,” I say in that deep, throaty voice that is only used for one thing—asking your man to fuck you. “Fuck me.”
I don’t have the time or mental energy to assess if this is working. I hear the motors powering up. We couldn’t have more than a couple of minutes before we launch into hyperspace and then Dranii becomes a liability instead of an asset.
Reaching my hand through the bars, I put my palm up. “I want your cock. I want your cock in my hand. Then I’ll suck it into the warmth of my mouth. Then I’ll scoot closer . . .”
I work my knees partway through the bars, my legs wide, giving him a perfect view of my dripping pussy. The smell alone has to be driving him wild. A’Zul’s hand is gripping his cock. He looks me directly in the eyes, his mouth partially open, panting. A’Zul’s green eyes change. They’re the same chartreuse, but now have a vertical black pupil. Dranii’s right there. He’s close enough now I can talk directly to him to pull him out.
I suddenly cover my eyes with both hands and sob, “What am I doing? This isn’t working to distract me from my fear. I can’t do this. I am so scared, A’Zul. Petrified. They are going to kill us. Probably rape me, then torture and kill us both. I am so scared!”
It’s not hard to make the fear sound real, since it is. The tears come and I sob with all the drama I can channel. “A’Zul, we need Dranii, only he can save me,” I wail.
Something changes. I feel it in the air, sense it, before I see anything.
A’Zul’s face changes. It’s so subtle I fear I’m imagining it. At first, it’s just the shape of his jaw, then the color of his skin, then a few iridescent midnight blue scales, then his bulk.
“That’s right, Dranii. Come to me. Save me. I’m begging. Dranii, don’t leave me here to die. I need you to help me.”
I should have known those words would be the final pull. He might be a dragon, incapable of higher thought, but he’s part of A’Zul, and protecting and helping are the two things that make him tick. Of course, his inner dragon would have the same strong desire.
I hear the high whine of the motors engaging at the same time I see A’Zul shimmer and fully shift into his golden Greek God form, then into a dragon.
The animal grows bigger and bigger, it’s eyes never leaving mine.
The dragon can only be described in two words—beautiful and fierce. Dear God, its shimmering cobalt scales are magnificent even in the low light of this crappy brig. Its broad head is bowed to fit under the ceiling. There is a line of increasingly large spines that run from the back of his head all the way down his back then grow smaller to the tip of his enormous tail. Its wings are tucked to its sides, and still one of them almost intrudes into my cell.
He came out for a reason. Butting his head against the bars of my cell, he wants to get to me.
“A’Zul! If you’re still able to hear me, you’ve got to get out of that cell and prevent this ship from taking off.”
I can almost see the internal fight being waged inside the magnificent beast’s head. A’Zul’s sober intelligence asserts itself for a moment, then the animal takes over, swinging its enormous spikey head toward the bars where I’m standing.
“Dranii.” I get his immediate attention. “They’re going to kill me if we don’t get out.”
He shakes his great head, all scales and teeth, and dangerous beauty, now fully on board with the task at hand.
He butts the top of his head against the door to his cell. With each thrust, he presses harder. It dawns on me that the dragon hasn’t been out for years, perhaps a decade. It probably doesn’t remember much, certainly doesn’t know its own strength. Maybe he doesn’t remember how to breathe fire—if he even can.
It turns out the head butting is enough. The door swings open on its hinge, misshapen, and the animal walks through, comes to my cell, and butts my door.
What happens if the animal is so bent on protecting me, that he decides he wants to stay with me and doesn’t get us to the bridge? I have to trust that A’Zul is working as hard on the inside as I am on the outside.
When my door is bashed to
smithereens and no longer serves its purpose, I slip into the hallway and point toward the portal, locked of course, that opens to the main portion of the ship.
The dragon approaches the door sideways and flings its tail against the door with such force that the metal shrieks, moans, and then bends enough for him to pry the door from its catch and enter the next hallway.
I have no idea if A’Zul can hear me, and even if he can, if he can convince his dragon form to follow directions, but I say, “We have to kill everyone we see. We have to get to the bridge and keep the ship from leaving the atmosphere. Once we’re out of atmo, we’re dead.”
Someone inside that beautiful terrible head must hear and understand me because he’s running now. I was in the lead, but I’m behind now. From the back, Dranii’s all tail and scales and flicking wings.
He makes short work of the doorway into the bridge, then thrusts his head inside and lets out a sound so loud, so terrifyingly aggressive it paralyzes me for a moment.
I run to follow him when his tail stops me short. It’s horizontal, about three feet off the floor, and flicks at odd intervals. It serves as a roadblock. Even though he’s facing away from me, and seems fully in beast mode, he’s cognizant enough to want to protect me and keep me out of the fray.
And then I hear a sound more blood curdling than my mate’s roar. The sound of lasers. Firing at my A’Zul, my Dranii. His agonized screech tells me they’ve hit him.
“Fire!” I shout. “Use your fire! Now, Dranii!” Dear God, I hope he can breathe fire.
His tail flicks wildly as he lets loose a roar so deep and so loud I have to cover my ears. Then he breathes fire. I hear the sound of it and feel the heat of it a moment later. Males are screaming, screeching in pain. I hear something behind me and see three roaches thundering toward me as they don their hard-shelled combat gear.
“Dranii! Help!” They’re armed and I’m defenseless. As they aim at me, I feel him turn toward them. He then sweeps me away with the gentle swipe of his wing. He takes a colossal breath in, then exhales a great gust of flame, searing the three males where they stand.
When the flame stops, there are three piles of ash on the metal floor of the hallway. I glance around Dranii into the bridge to see it smoldering, a hole the size of a Volkswagen in the hull.
“We’ve got to get out of here before we plunge back to the planet!” I scream.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew this moment would come. I glossed over the details earlier, just wanting to get A’Zul into his dragon form. But I always knew we wouldn’t be able to land this ship gently. He’ll be able to fly out of that hole. I won’t be so lucky.
He makes his way to the hole, biting the remainder of the captain’s chair, tossing it out the tear in the metal, and letting it fall to the ground far below. I grab onto the instrument panel when the vessel tips sharply on its side.
We’re no longer in a stable orbit, we’re leaning, falling back to the planet below.
“Go, Dranii. Hurry before you die!”
He grabs me with soft lips despite his mouth full of sharp teeth and nudges me onto his back. Dipping his head to the floor, I use his head as a step stool, grab some of the spikes on his head to hang on, and swing myself into position onto the back of his neck in front of his wings.
As soon as I’m settled, I press myself against the spike at my back and hold onto the spike in front for dear life, my knees pressing against him. I yell, “Ready!” and he glides out of the hole then flaps his wings and we stabilize. If I had the capacity to think about what was going to happen, perhaps I would have closed my eyes before leaping out of a crashing spaceship!
A bolt of laser fire comes rushing at us, barely missing Dranii’s right wing.
Two small, round vessels are bombarding us with laser fire. They must be escape pods. Shit. They belong to one of the most evil and powerful males in the galaxy—they’re well-armed.
Dranii is recovering from that narrow miss when another burst of laser fire bombards us. He tries to change course to avoid it, but it hits him in his left wing.
He screams in agony even as he keeps us upright, turns his head, and lets out a screech so loud my eardrums vibrate. The noise transmutes into fire, shooting at first one and then the other enemy pod.
One pod bursts into flames and plunges through the clouds. I watch it, dripping fire, until it crashes onto the ground below, erupting into a giant fireball upon impact.
When I look back up, the second pod is gone. I don’t see another fireball plummeting downward and assume it got away.
The spaceship makes a slow graceful arc toward the ground, miles from the cabin, and crashes in a spectacular burst of flames. A pillar of black smoke reaches toward the heavens, backlit by the sputtering fire.
Dranii is flying slower now, then glides downward toward the barn.
This big creature, its body so well-protected by scales, has wings that are thin and vulnerable. His left wing has an ugly tear through it, singed in black.
After he lands, I climb off his back, and we walk into the barn. It’s dark out, the night lit only by the moon, the burning embers of the house, and the sputtering fire of the pod that crashed a mile or so away.
I help Dranii bed down in the stall where we planned on sleeping, then open the weapons container and pull out two rifles. One pod is at large, and if it returns, I will kill whatever motherfucker is in there.
I grab the crate with the medical supplies. Seneca gave me a quick rundown on how to use the gadgets and medications, but I’m not certain I remember everything he said. I guess I didn’t believe I’d ever really need them.
I return to the stall, which is similar to barns back home, surrounded with planking from the ground up about five feet. I was half hoping the dragon would be gone and A’Zul would be waiting for me, but the humongous beast is lying on the bed of hay.
“Dranii, let me see how you’re doing.”
He’s lying on his right side, his injured left wing tucked protectively against his body. He’s breathing shallow huffs of air in a cadence that’s a testament to his pain.
Although it’s dark in here, the dim light of the moon drifting through the doorway illuminates a dark dribble of what has to be his blood dripping down the stall door.
The hole through the thin film of his wing doesn't explain the amount of blood.
“Dranii. Where are you hurt, boy?”
He rolls farther from me, exposing a wound on his side.
“Shit.”
After running back to the pile of supply boxes and rummaging until I find a laser light, I bring it over to examine the damage. His protective plating of scales has been burned away in a ragged oblong hole about a foot wide. The gouge of missing meat is a fairly clean cut and not deep enough to damage any internal organs. I guess I should be thankful that the lasers did the damage, I think they cauterized as they made the cut.
“Poor baby,” I say as I rummage through the supplies, trying to remember what the medic told me.
When I look at what’s in the kit, it all comes back to me. I use the med-scanner to get a diagnosis.
“Laser wound,” the machine’s female voice says. “Moderate in severity. Step one . . .” The machine slowly talks me through the process of cleaning the wound, applying topical antiseptic and analgesic, and covering the belly wound with protective plas-film. I follow the same procedure with the wing and pray it will mend.
Cleaning was the worst part of the procedure, not only because it was the most painful for the dragon, but it was bloody and gross.
It’s hard to know exactly how much the big beast understands. Maybe A’Zul is right near the surface and running interference. However this process works, though, my patient was more cooperative than I had a right to expect.
I croon to him throughout the procedure, telling him what a good boy he is over and over.
It’s the middle of the night and there’s nothing more I can do. I’m dead on my feet, but am afra
id to fall asleep because of the errant pod that’s somewhere out in space. Rifle in hand, I lie next to Dranii, and succumb to sleep a few moments later.
The next morning I wake instantly and turn, hoping to see my big green male at my back. No such luck, there’s a spikey iridescent dragon, his eyes the glowing chartreuse of A’Zul’s.
“I love all you guys, but I wish we could figure out how to get you back, A’Zul.”
He chuffs, his warm breath stirring my hair and causing hay to fly.
Over the next two days, the dragon recovers at a speed that is nothing short of remarkable. I guess shifters have superior healing. I wonder if that was how A’Zul survived the mine for so many years longer than anyone else. The med-scanner is helpful, tutoring me every step of the way on how to change bandages and administer painkillers and antibiotics.