“Dalox, I’ve been abducted from Earth. I’ve been kept in a cage. I’ve been crash landed, sold, and put in a pit on the planet of dust. Food has been thrown at me, mostly stuff I couldn’t eat. When I was in space, I had to lick the walls for moisture. I can see there is technology beyond my wildest dreams, but it doesn’t mean I’ve actually been able to use any of it.”
She glares at me, as if she’s daring me to contradict her.
But I can only concentrate on one thing. It fills my accelerant sacs. It raises my blood until it is singing in my ears. It makes my scales itch like I want to rip my skin off. Her scent, her skin, her hair, are all driving me to complete distraction.
“Who?” I growl. “Who hurt you?”
“If I knew that, Dalox, I wouldn’t be here talking to you, I’d be beating them to a pulp.”
It’s all I can do to hold back the groan which wants to escape me. I press my crotch against the wall because if I don’t I’m certain my cock will punch through my pants. Heat flows through me, hotter than any fire. This is not correct. Not at all. A senior Sarkarnii like myself should be able to handle the proximity of a female.
Even one such as this, presumably sent by the ancestors to torture me and make me a better Sarkarnii.
Because a mated male is a strong male.
And I am a strong male.
With a cock that is not even vaguely operating under my control.
“You do not need to do such a thing, little female,” I growl. “I am here now and you are under my protection.”
“No,” she says, her gaze not leaving mine.
“No?”
It’s not a word I am familiar with.
“I fight my own battles.” She bristles next to me.
“And you would fight me, little spark?”
“Any time, anywhere.”
Her anger brings me joy. Her desire to fight makes my heart pound all the harder.
“Here.” I hand her a goblet of ale wine. “Drink this and then we fight.”
GILLIAN
Dalox hands me the most enormous receptacle filled with a dark liquid which stinks of alcohol. If I wanted to take it, I’d have to use both hands, like a chalice.
“No thanks. I don’t drink,” I respond.
“Does not drink, has no fear, is filled with the fight,” Dalox says, his eyes burning into me, the pupils mere slits in the incredible fire which are his irises. “What exactly are you?”
“Your worst nightmare, if you pull a stunt like the one earlier, flying me here without my consent.”
Dalox’s forehead creases. He turns to the hole in the wall he called a food dispenser and says a word I don’t recognize. Half a second later, a cup materializes with steam coming out of it, and a strong sweet smell which is a bit like tea.
He hands it to me.
“All I did was bring you here,” he says, sweeping his hand at his dragon cave. “Because the neutral sector is no place for a female.”
I think he might possibly have understood that, given what I’ve said so far, I could probably manage the neutral sector and the explosions. His lips turn down at the corners and his eyes darken.
“Because you are mine, and no one takes you from me,” he adds, darkly.
I sniff at the drink he has handed me. It has no alcohol scent and so I take an exploratory sip. It’s good, sweet, a bit like chai but with a sort of menthol aftertaste. Given I’ve drunk and eaten things which are akin to cardboard since I left Earth, my emotions swirl at both finally tasting alien foodstuffs and at the same time being hit in the gut about how far away from home I am.
