Alien Dragon (3 page)

“Thank you,” I nod. I know he must have risked his neck for me in there with the captain, and I appreciate it. Spontaneously, I wrap my arms around him in a hug, and he tenses for a moment. Then he relaxes his body and hugs me back.

“Take care of yourself,” he says quietly, then he leaves.

“No hug for me, thanks,” Tank says with a smile. He nods at me, then follows Elf out of the room. When they’re gone, I turn back to Hal.

“What happens now?” I ask.

“Now?” He says. “Now I make you Taneyemm material.”

He grins, and I get the feeling that I’m not going to like how Hal prepares me for my new life.

I’m not going to like it at all.

My room on the ship is small, but comfortable. After a shower, I wrap myself in a warm, white robe. Nothing this soft has ever touched my skin before and I try to savor the moment while it lasts. When I re-enter my room, I’m not sure what to do with myself, so I sit on the bed and stare at the painting on the wall. I assume it’s a picture of life on Taneyemm, but I don’t know. There’s so much I don’t know. Everything has happened so fast. I’m not sure if I should feel relieved, sad, or happy. Maybe I should feel scared. Maybe I should feel horrified. I don’t know.

The painting on the wall is beautiful. The grass in the picture is green and lush. It reminds me of when I was a little girl. My mother would take me to the playground and we’d have a picnic in the grass. It was so soft beneath my feet, beneath my hands.

I haven’t felt anything like that in a long, long time.

When I close my eyes, I try to remember a time before the interplanetary wars, but it’s so hard. Sometimes it feels like the world has always been at war with other planets. Of course, Earth lost those wars many years ago.

When humans could abandon their mother land, they did so as quickly as possible. No one seemed to care that Earth was our home. From where I stood, it seemed like no one really cared that Earth was done for. It feels wrong when I think about it, but then again, I was young.

I’m still young.

I have a feeling that when I arrive on Taneyemm, everything will feel different. Earth will seem like a very long time ago and I will believe I used to be innocent.

After awhile, there’s a knock on my door.

“Come in,” I say, and stand. I wait with my hands folded in front of me. A tall woman enters the room. Her hair is piled high on top of her head and she’s wearing a uniform similar to the ones I saw on the bridge. The woman looks me up and down, but doesn’t smile. She looks tired and a little bit fierce.

“So you’re the human who managed to get a last-minute ticket,” she says, and I nod.

“Yes, ma’am. Mr. Elf and Mr. Tank were kind enough to allow me to board. Apparently another female backed out at the last second.”

“Yes,” the woman says. “That happens sometimes. We don’t give refunds, of course, but every once in awhile someone decides they want to stay with their one true love or some such.”

“Do you do this a lot?” I ask hesitantly, wondering how many missions to Earth she’s been on.

“I’ve picked up refugees from many planets,” she says. “This is my second and final Earth trip. The planet is dying. We cannot come back again.”

“I understand. Thank you for accepting me, ma’am.”

“Don’t thank me yet, honey.” The woman is so tall that I have to stare up at her. I feel about five years old as she looks down on me. For a second, I have the overwhelming urge to hug her, but I refrain. The last thing I need to do is draw unnecessary attention to myself. Chances are that this is already going to be a tough situation for everyone involved. An unplanned for earthling? And one who is going to be awake for four years? How’s that going to work?

As if reading my mind, the woman pats me on the head, almost tenderly.

“I know four years is a long time to be awake. I can’t promise the journey will be easy, but when we arrive, you’ll have a chance to stay on the planet.”

“Please, ma’am. Can you tell me anything about that? How do they decide who gets to stay? How can I improve my chances?”

She waves her hand.

“I’m just the ship manager, doll. I don’t control any of that, but Hal is going to be in charge of you. He’ll tell you everything he can about the planet and try to give you the best possible chance of staying.”

So he’s going to train me?

Like a beauty pageant contestant?

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything, sweetie.”

“What about the other girls? The guys said that there were others. How do they find out about the planet? I suppose that being awake, I’ll have quite a few chances to learn things like customs and behaviors, but what about them? How will they be trained?”

“They won’t. The cost of feeding 200 earthlings is incredible even if we only did it for a day, but for four years?” She waves her hand. “We’re already operating with a skeleton crew. We don’t need that many mouths to feed. You got lucky, honey, and you’ll have a small idea of what to expect when we arrive, but those girls are going to be in for a shock.”

I try to let it all sink in, but already my mind is in overdrive. What’s going to happen when we arrive? How will I know if they’ll let me stay? What if they send me away? What if they kill me? Who decides?

“What’s your name, doll?” The woman’s voice is gentle, but I still feel like panicking.

“Riley,” I tell her. “My name is Riley.”

“I’m Jenika,” she says. “I’m the ship manager. I’m not the captain. I don’t make major decisions about the course of the ship or anything like that, but I manage most of the crew. We’re going to be on board a long time, so it’s important that you understand one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t mess with anyone. Don’t cause trouble. Hal will tell you what to do and you need to do it. If Captain Drake gives you an order or if I do, you obey. Do not disobey.”

“What happens if I disobey?” My voice comes out as a tiny squeak, but I already know I don’t want to know the answer.

“For starters,” she steps closer, and I can smell her perfume. She’s so close to me that I could touch her, but I don’t move. “I’ll pull you over my knee and spank you until your bottom is bright red and you’re begging me to stop.”

A spanking?

She’s threatening to spank me?

The thought makes me blush. I don’t think my parents ever spanked me even as a child. The idea is terrifying to me, but the way Jenika says it is almost exciting. My body starts to feel warm and suddenly, my room feels very tiny.

I wish she would step away, but she doesn’t. She invades my space.

“And after my spanking?”

“If you’re still wild after that, darling, it’ll be Captain Drake’s turn, and he’s a lot harder on his toys than I am. Now be a good girl and stay in your room until Hal comes for you.”

Jenika turns and leaves the room. Her high-heeled boots sound sharply on the polished floor of the hall as she disappears, and I collapse on my bed.

I’m on top of the blankets, but I can’t help myself as I slide my fingers under my robe and between my legs. Something about the way Jenika talked about a spanking got me completely riled up. Heat shoots through my body as I think about the way she promised to turn my bottom red.

Will she pull me over her knee if I’m naughty? Will she glide her hands over my soft skin before striking it? I wonder if she’ll warm me up softly or start with hard, swift swats.

One finger slides inside my body as I picture her touching me. I might not be very experienced, but I have a very active imagination, and there is nothing hard about picturing Jenika touching me.

Four years is a long time to be without physical touch and part of me, a naughty part of me, hopes she’ll actually follow through on her promise to touch me.

It doesn’t take long for me to near orgasm. Soon I’m breathing hard and rubbing my clit quickly, legs splayed on the bed as I picture being bent over a desk and spanked by naughty Mistress Jenika. Just as I’m about to climax, just as I’m about to come, my door blasts open and Hal bursts in.

“No!” He says, grabbing my hand. He pulls it away for me and immediately, I let out a whine.

“What are you doing?” I cry. I was so close. I was so very close and he completely stole my orgasm away. Tears fill my eyes and I’m seriously about to start sobbing in front of Hal. I don’t even know this guy, but I was my damn climax. “Why would you do that?” I say.

“Shh,” he covers my mouth with his hand and kicks the door closed with his foot. “I’m only going to say this one, so listen very carefully. The people of Taneyemm are very different than people on Earth.” His voice is very quiet and I struggle to listen, but I have a feeling that this is very important. “They have certain…abilities. One of those abilities happens to be a very keen sense of smell, so unless you want to attract every damn member of the crew to your room, I suggest you keep your arousal to a minimum.”

What.

The.

Fuck?

I nod, and he releases my mouth. As soon as I’m free, I wipe the drool from my mouth and turn back to him.

“What do you mean, they can smell my arousal?” I practically screech, but he covers my mouth again.

“Okay, since you can’t seem to get this through your pretty little head, let’s try again.”

I try to shake my head because it hurts, because I’m wearing an open robe in front of this strange man, because Hal is the first person to ever see me naked and I’m completely embarrassed. Waves of humiliation wash over me that he saw me here. Why did I think I could get away with masturbating? What the hell was that? Couldn’t I have waited until later, when I was sure everyone was asleep or busy?

He ignores my fussing and starts talking.

“Do you know what a shifter is?”

I try not to roll my eyes.

Shifter: myth, fantasy, made-up-stories from old Earth days.

“I’ll take that look of stupidity on your face as a ‘yes,’” Hal says, and keeps talking. “The Taneyemms look like humans, but they aren’t. Wonder why they’re all so fucking tall? Sorry, darling, they aren’t men or women. They’re fucking dragons.”

And Hal just went crazy.

Insane.

Am I really going to fall for this stupid story? Oh, I’ll listen to him and I’ll hear whatever he has to say, but dragons?

Fuck me.

“They can shift between each state of being. Sometimes they’re human, sometimes they’re not. Most of the crew is Taneyemm, which means if they get really pissed off, they’ll go down into the arena and fight each other.”

My eyes go wide.

“Oh yeah,” he says dryly. “The spaceship has a battle arena for the dragons. Lovely stuff.”

Maybe he’s not joking after all.

“Dragons are tricky things and they don’t like to be called out on it. You’ll find out soon enough when we reach Taneyemm, but I’m telling you now because, hello, you’re awake and obviously horny. Fuck, it’s a damn good thing I found you before Jenika. She would have been riding your face before you knew what was happening.”

Do my eyes roll back in my head? I feel like they do. I get the most perfect visual of her stripping slowly before climbing up on my body, but Hal must know what I’m thinking because he slaps me.

“None of that, now. None of that.”

He frees me again, but this time, I just stare at him.

“Dragons? Really?” I ask. I tie the front of my robe as I start clucking at him. Stream-of-consciousness is not the best way to address a serious issue like this, but even though I think he’s insane, it would appear that Hal is not joking about the shifter bit.

“Alien dragons,” he corrects me.

Then something hits me.

“Hal,” I say slowly. “Why do they need human females?”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Why does anyone?”

“So they want to fuck us, is that it? They want to breed with us?” How sick is that? Am I some sort of exotic delicacy? Oh, shit. Am I going to be locked away and kept as a baby maker? Are they going to take my babies? What’s going to happen to me?

“Stop whatever you’re thinking and sit down.” Hal motions to the bed and I do as he says. He goes into the bathroom and makes me a glass of water, then brings it over. “Drink,” he says, and pushes the glass in my face.

I do as Hal commands, already finding it easy to obey him mindlessly. After years of caring for everyone around me, being able to just let him take control is pretty damn nice.

The water feels cool in my throat and when I finish half the glass, I hand it back.

“The whole thing,” Hal says sternly, and I obey. “You’re going to get dehydrated if you don’t. We have four years to whip you into shape and I don’t plan to spend it with you looking like you’re starving the whole damn time.”

When I finish the whole glass, I hand it back to Hal. He places it on one of the built-in shelves and turns back to me.

“Rule number one,” he says. “Do not freak out. Things are very different in Taneyemm and they’re very different on the ship. You are not in charge. What you want doesn’t matter. You can’t freak out about it, though, or they’ll dispose of you.”

Dispose of me?

They’ll kill me.

If I’m a huge troublemaker, I won’t be worth what I cost in food to keep. Apparently, staying awake the whole four years suddenly seems less appealing than it did before.

“Riley?” Hal asks. “That’s your name, right? Riley?”

“Yeah. Riley. That’s me.”

“Do you understand?”

“Yeah.”

For the first time, I might just be beginning to understand. And for the first time, I’m starting to wonder if staying on Earth would have been better.