ROSALIE
My neck aches as if I’ve slept in a strange position. I lift my hand with a groan to grab at it, my vision blurred.
Was it a good night out? I’m not sure. My head, my neck, and my body are all shouting loudly at me in the most uncomfortable way, but as I gave up drinking I don’t know how many years ago, it seems weird I don’t remember having a fun time.
Instead there’s a creeping sense of dread. Wasn’t I…abducted…by aliens?
I want to shake my head to clear my vision, to clear the thought which persists. But my neck hurts too much. Instead, noises make their way into my brain. Shouting, yelling, banging, andgrowling?
I don’t think there are any bears in England. In fact, I’m sure there are not. I’m more confused than ever. This isn’t a dream, but it can’t be reality…can it?
Reality comes rushing in like a hurricane force wind. Iwasabducted by aliens. I’m on an alien planet, I’m surrounded by the huge scaly things…
And one of them just bit me!
“Keep Dante away from here!” I hear Kerra yell. “Keep him back while we check on Rosalie.”
I’m surrounded by my friends, a motley collection of women who have all, somehow, ended up here, with me on a planet filled with aliens who can turn into dragons.
“Are you okay?” Maggie asks me. “Let me have a look at your neck.” She gently pulls my hand away, and while I expect her to wince, instead she stares.
“What is it?” I ask, lifting my hand to explore what has to be a wound of some sort. She grabs at it and keeps me from touching.
“It’s…well there’s not much there. Just some…er…red dots. Lydia?” She grabs the shoulder of a diminutive, dark-haired woman who is apparently keeping look out while my two friends, Kerra and Scarlett, shout into a box on the brushed steel wall.
“Oh!” Lydia says, putting her hand to her mouth but then leaning in for a closer look. “That’s not what I was expecting. Didn’t you say he bit you?”
“He…did.”
I was bitten.
I was bitten by one of the aliens, a great blue-green male…Dante!
“Yes, yes,” I say louder. “He did.”
“For a male with fangs the size of his, he didn’t do a great job,” Maggie says, staring at my neck.
“Sarkarnii have healing venom,” Scarlett calls over to us. “Has it worked on Rosie?”
Maggie shoves my head to one side and looks closer. “Yes,” she calls back.
Kerra and Scarlett look at each other.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I say, my voice shaky.
Kerra puts a hand on Scarlett’s shoulder and walks over to where Maggie and Lydia are gathered around me, before checking where I now have a dull ache.
“Oh, Rosie.” She shakes her head. I gaze at her as she gently takes my hand. “I think he bit you because he believes you’re his mate.”
“What?” Maggie explodes. “Darax and Dexx didn’t do that to you and Scarlett. What the actual fuck? They can just walk up, bite us and that’s okay?”
Lydia puts her arm around Maggie’s shoulders, but she shrugs it off.
“No,” she says. “It’s not okay at all.”
“It’s Dante,” Kerra says.
“It doesn’t matter which warlord did this. It’s not right, and it shouldn’t have happened,” Maggie spits.
