Alien Dragon's Mate: Braxan (Science Fiction Alien/BBW Romance) Read online

  She stayed down on the sand and deliberately didn't look up, but she could feel the dragon's presence in the air above her. It was as if it exuded danger, a danger she could pick up with her whole body.

  And then she heard the calm beating of its wings – a strong, deep sound as the dragon soared.

  She knew it would burn her at any moment. And it irked her.

  No. If she had to die now, she would look it right in the face.

  She got to her feet on legs that were stiff with fear. And she looked at the dragon.

  It looked as if it was made of gold. A dull, flat gold, not jewelry, not polished or shimmering or glinting in the sunlight. Just ... gold. Smooth and metallic and still clearly not armor. No, that was the dragon's own skin. Golden and seemingly bulging with strength. It was a sleek thing, and Amelia could see thick ropes of muscle along its sides and its chest and back, bulging in ridges and grooves.

  It was the size of a bus and it looked like it consisted of only power and danger. She could just make out individual golden scales on its skin, and the claws on its powerful legs were impossibly pointy and looked like curved knives.

  And then its head. Sleek and smooth, with a high forehead and pointy ears that rotated slightly as the dragon inclined its head. Golden ridges, horns and blades stood up from his skull in perfect symmetry and made if look as if it was wearing a crown.

  It had a small, square snout and two sharp ridges running down its muzzle. The proportions were natural and so different from the clumsy-looking dinosaurs she had seen in movies that this clearly was a very different being.

  But the thing that hypnotized her was the eyes. Two big, yellow eyes with star-shaped pupils, moving calmly. There was doubtlessly intelligence behind them. A considerable intelligence, even. They were set deeply in its head, with thick black hairs surrounding them, making her think of some kind of natural mascara.

  But it wasn't makeup. This dragon was not a 'she'. And it was certainly not an 'it'. This was a he. Amelia felt it with her whole being.

  Inexplicably, the realization sent a surge of heat to her core, and there were unmistakable tingles down below. That dragon was more of a he than anyone she had ever laid eyes on. A super-male. He was the most stunningly beautiful thing she'd seen in her life. And here she stood in front of it, completely vulnerable.

  It hung in the air above her, a master of the sky and the ground. Everything and everyone were inferior to it, there was no question about it. This was the ultimate being, the pinnacle of creation.

  Amelia could hear her own breath, ragged in a dry throat. Her heartbeat throbbed in her head. All of her felt like ice.

  Except her girly bits. Down there, she was downright throbbing with lust. As if in resonance with the dragon ... the male dragon ... the power he had over her, the power to take everything from her ... or to give her life ...

  She swallowed again. So this was what her death would feel like. And look like. A golden dragon, heart-stoppingly beautiful in all its menace and power and effortless mastery. Probably not the worst way to go.

  But he hadn't killed her yet.

  He looked at her, and she felt examined, like he was measuring her up, taking her in. It was not a cruel killer, this – he was not just sadistically making her wait for the inevitable. She was sure of it, and his overwhelming male-ness made her start to think that maybe, just maybe his menace was not directed at her. He was genuinely interested.

  Then there was a voice in her head, and it was not hers. It was intrusive and unstoppable, but smooth and pleasant at the same time. A man's voice, deep and resonant.

  You are mine, it said.

  That was all. But the truth of it made sudden tears spring to Amelia's eyes, and the breath caught in her throat. She had never heard anything so true before. Or so beautiful.

  What the fuck?! She shook her head hard. Get a grip on yourself, woman, she told herself. That was not my own thought.

  The golden dragon hung in front of her and beat the air lazily while its luminous, yellow eyes pierced Amelia's soul.

  Fine. Her soul wasn't that pristine to start with. She found some courage and defiance deep in her being, and suddenly she remembered the railgun still in her hands.

  She stared right back at the dragon, and it took all her willpower to not break eye contact and look down. At the same time, she slid her thumb along the side of the railgun until it encountered resistance. Then she pressed harder and felt the reluctant click as the power slider settled at the very end of the scale.

  Emergency power.

  “I'm not kidding,” her instructor had told her during training less than a year earlier. “That setting is for very fucking last ditch use only. Okay? Don't ever fucking use it or I'll seek you out and murder you in your sleep. And afterwards everyone will say I did the right thing. Because you never use E power. We clear?”

  She remembered nodding, thinking she would never use that. Because why would she need to? Outward Expansion was a civilian organization, completely peaceful.

  Well, now she might. One shot with the emergency setting would fuse all the bullets in the gun to a single solid bar of steel and depleted uranium and fire it as hard as it could. It would completely drain the power supply and wear out the rails in a split second, ruining the immensely expensive gun once and for all with one single shot. If ever there was a time to use it, it was now.

  She whipped the muzzle up, aimed roughly at the dragon's golden chest and pulled the trigger. She felt the gun adjust her aim and then she heard a whine increasing wildly as the capacitors were charged beyond their design maximum.

  The world exploded in her hands. The next thing she knew, she was on her back on the pink sand with throbbing arms, ringing ears and a sore shoulder. The gun had wrested itself out of her grip and was on the ground several feet away.

  And the dragon had a hole in it.

  Not right where she had aimed, but close to the root of one wing. That wing had started beating more erratically now, and Amelia could see drops of a black liquid falling to the sand beneath it.

  Aah, the voice said inside her mind. You challenge me! You are indeed mine. I will come for you.

  Then it soared easily into the air.

  Amelia was just about to let out her breath in relief when the dragon whipped around and dived right for her. She hit the sand again just as she heard a silky smooth whoosh and she felt the searing heat from the dragon's fire. She squealed in horror, but a split second later she realized that the fire was not directed at her, but something behind her.

  She looked up. The dragon turned in a lazy arc and rose into the green sky to join its three compatriots. As Amelia watched in stunned silence, they flew higher and higher until they could no longer be seen.

  The planet was silent.

  She carefully got back up and looked where the dragon had spewed its impossibly hot fire. The sand had been turned to glass in a large patch, and in the middle of it she could see five dead Pirgks, burned to a black crisp. They must have been trying to sneak up on her. And the dragon had casually taken them out. Its own allies.

  Jean coughed. Amelia had completely forgotten the wounded woman.

  “Shit,” Jean said weakly. “That was intense. But I think you chased them away.”

  Amelia let out her breath. Her knees buckled with delayed terror and she plopped down on the sand beside Jean. Then she laid her head back and looked up into the sky where the dragons had disappeared.

  She didn't know how to feel. She was relieved that she wasn't dead. But she was also afraid for the future of the base. Very afraid.

  She looked to the horizon on the alien planet. The red sun was rising very fast. There was a faint smell of burned flesh in the alien air.

  “You think? Somehow I doubt it.”

  3

  - Braxan -

  “Back to base,” he said, and he could hear how curt his order sounded. It was unlike him.

  The others didn't say anything, just looked
at him with their shrewd eyes as if they knew exactly what had happened. He didn't think they really did understand. He himself was far from sure.

  He rose into the sky as fast as his wings could take him. It was a little slower that usual. Whatever she had shot at him was still lodged inside him. He could feel it as a dull ache with a strong metallic flavor. It was poisoned, too.

  Now that the murderous part of their mission was over, he had time to indulge in some contemplation of what had happened. He usually didn't – nothing good came of it. He did what his emperor ordered him to, and the dragon handled the action with its instincts when he let it loose.

  But it had never done anything like this.

  Who was she? And why here? The humans he and the three other princes had attacked on this remote planet was the enemy, his emperor had said. They were evil and inferior. Destroying them would be doing everyone a favor, the old, silvery dragon had scoffed.

  Braxan wasn't sure who was evil. Their ugly allies, who called themselves the Pirgks, seemed much more evil to him. This other army – they were humans. The Pirgks were not. Definitely not.

  She had stood by a wounded compatriot. Not to loot her belongings while she died, but to heal. Would an evil species do something like that? He had seen enough of the Pirgks' actions to know that none of them would ever have done anything like it. Whenever they took notice of a fallen friend, they would only stop to loot the dying warrior of anything of value.

  Flame, she was magnificent. She stood up to him and didn't cower. She looked him right in the eyes as if she was his equal. The audacity! Her hair, blown back by the air vortexes created by his wings. Her face, pale with just a little hint of a tan. Her eyes, brown and warm, but with a defiant fire in them that he couldn't remember having seen anywhere else before. Her shape, luxurious and round in a way that had done something to the dragon that he had never felt before, something profound. Her face, so soft and delicate it made his world spin.

  He had forgotten all about the battle and had hung in the air, just taking her in and enjoying it. And it had changed him. The dragon he was now was different.

  “You are mine,” he had said. “I will come for you.” And it was true. He meant it. The dragon in him had never said anything like that before. It was almost as if ...

  No. Impossible. The Mate could not be found among alien beings, no matter how human. A dragon's mate must be a female Ultraco, a dragoness who was able to shift into her dragon form, but rarely did.

  No Ultraco female Braxan had ever seen could compete with the attractiveness of this human female.

  Could she truly be his Mate?

  She had injured him, taken him by surprise. That in itself was staggering. A human surprising a dragon? Unheard of. But his chest was numb where she had shot him.

  She had probably felt mesmerized by him. But did she realize that he had also been hypnotized by her? To the point where he had ignored the obvious danger from her gun and let her fire at him? And even hit him?

  He was not in control of his own dragon nature. Sometimes it obeyed him, sometimes its dragon instincts took over and he just had to hang on for the ride. He had sometimes tried to fight it, but the most he had ever achieved that way was to aggravate it and make it sulk. It would still do what it wanted, but it wouldn't enjoy it. And neither would he. He had learned during childhood that it was better to let it roam free, to fully inhabit it when it did its thing and enjoy it. That would give him the best thrills of his life – just pure enjoyment that he could feel for days after, untainted by guilt or thoughts of tomorrow. The dragon lived in the here and now and not anywhere else. Exhilaration was not the word. It was much more than that.

  He was the dragon, and he was separate from it. It rewarded him when he gave it what it wanted. And now, he knew, it wanted her.

  And so did he.

  The other dragon princes in his flight kept sending him curious glances as they soared, cleared the atmosphere, stretched their wings back so the tips just dipped into the Other and set a course for their spaceship in orbit. He demonstratively didn't meet their gazes.

  He had to think, and to do that he had to get back in his human form. The dragon was not a thinker. It was pure instinct and sensation. Killing the Pirgks who had tried to sneak up on the woman was its idea. It was a strange thing to do.

  Then, when he had thought, maybe he would check to make sure.

  The idea of seeing her again sent a spark of exhilaration through him.

  Space was black around them, and the stars were coming out in all their different colors. The dragon saw them as a glittering hoard of gemstones, unclaimed. He saw them as stars – distant suns where he might go someday.

  With her. If not, the experience would be empty of meaning.

  Yes, he definitely had to see her again.

  And soon.

  4

  - Amelia -

  “You saved her life, no doubt about it.” Carl studied his pad and made a note. “You may be the first to use that burn sheet like that. It worked, too.”

  Jean was unconscious in the intensive care unit of the medical dome. She was the only one there. The defenders who had been burned by the dragons had died instantly and there was only charcoal left of them.

  Amelia's hands had stopped shaking, finally. But she was still worried. “It was the only thing I had that would cover the wound at all. I just took a chance.”

  Carl nodded. “The nanogel sealed it and sucked the toxins out. I had no idea the burn sheet could do that.”

  “But is she okay otherwise?”

  The chief medic shook his head. “She got rough treatment from the Pirgks. Bruises everywhere. Clear signs of sexual abuse, too. I'll keep her sedated for a little while. Her body needs rest. Her escape must have been extremely hard on her. And that's before she got cut by a blade of some kind.”

  A chill ran down Amelia's back. She could only imagine what Jean must have been through since she was kidnapped when the Pirgks attacked the base the first time and took everyone by surprise.

  But at least the battle was over for now. The Pirgks had retreated again, even if six of the base defenders had died in the dragon attack. Probably they had been confused that the dragons hadn't finished the job and the golden one had even killed some of them.

  Amelia shuddered again. She had a pretty good idea what those six Pirgks might have had in mind. And Jean's fate was not one she was eager to live through.

  “I hope she will be okay,” she said simply.. She hadn't known Jean that well before the biologist was kidnapped months before, but they were all in this together.

  Carl checked on the IV rig that was hooked up to the unconscious woman. “She will be. Physically, anyway. Mentally – who knows. But where there's life, there's hope. I would say she has both of those now, and that's because of you. One thing is going out there to get her, which was probably insane. But your creativity with the burn sheet worked just the way it should. Any time you want to switch from Admin to Medic, there's a spare set of scrubs just waiting for you right here.”

  Amelia knew it was close to the ultimate compliment, coming from the otherwise aloof chief medic.

  “Thanks, doc,” she said. “I'll think about it.”

  She left the medical dome and walked through the system of interconnected above-ground tunnels and domes that was Belzon Base. The people she met were all obviously shocked by what had happened. They had all seen video recordings of the dragon attack, and probably they all realized that the base might not survive much longer.

  A mother and a little girl came the other way, holding hands. “Hi, Miss Moore,” the girl yelled brightly down the hallway, and her voice reverberated from the curved white walls.

  “Hi, Bonnie,” Amelia called right back. “And Mrs. Marcus,” she added.

  The girl's eyes were shining up at her. “Did you slay a dragon, Miss Moore?”

  Amelia scratched her chin, not sure about how much she should tell the eight-year-old. “U
m... I'm not sure...” she said, and glanced at Bonnie's mother. The kids on the base were usually not told about the battles with the Pirgks, so they didn't have to worry. But this thing with the dragons might be hard to hide from them.

  “Miss Moore helped the dragons fly away,” Bonnie's mother explained with a significant look at Amelia.

  “That's right,” Amelia said. She got it – the kids had somehow been told that there had been dragons, but they didn't know the whole story. “They flew home, I think.”

  She was glad she didn't have kids of her own right now. It would be very hard to hide something like the dragon attack from them on a small base like this, where everyone knew everyone else.

  Mrs. Marcus obviously wanted to keep this conversation to a minimum. She raised her eyebrows apologetically, gave Amelia a little smile and pulled her daughter with her down the corridor. “Bye bye,” Bonnie said and waved.

  Amelia winked and waved back, and then had to support herself with one hand on the wall. If those dragons attacked again, she didn't want to even think about the children on the base. There was only about twenty of them, but they were an important and much loved part of the little society on the base. They made it seem like a real community, introducing life and noise and softness into the social fabric of the base. Each child got a lot of attention from all the adults, and it looked like a pretty good way to grow up.

  Her comms unit beeped. Base commander Hanson was calling her into his office.

  She sat down in front of his desk. He was never big on ceremony or protocol. No one had time for that on a busy planetary base many light years from Earth.

  “Good work,” he said. “You were right about the Pirgks. And you saved Jean's life, Carl tells me. Is that the gun?”

  Amelia still had the broken railgun in her hand. She knew it was worth more than she made in two years, and it had seemed wrong to leave it out on the sand. So when the medics had come running to help her get Jean inside, she had brought it back with her.