Chapter 1 #4
“Oh. Fuck. Me,” Aria cursed. Her celebratory joy dissipated into fear as the dragon’s head rose high and peered down at her. It moved toward her, slow and waddling on the ground, but no less fearsome for it.
Thunk!
One large dragon foot landed on the very nose of the plane, holding it steady as the dragon’s arms came toward her.
There was a brief flash of time where Aria almost believed that maybe the canopy of the cockpit would still save her.
But seconds later it was torn open by powerful claws and she found herself looking into the face…
or rather, nose of the dragon, its fearsome head inches from hers, hot sulfur breath making her gag.
So this was how it was going to end, a one-bite morsel for a demon lizard.
Aria drew her sidearm and unloaded it at the beast, shot after shot making her ears ring as most of the projectiles simply bounced off the creature’s plated body and landed harmlessly in the dirt.
Only one made any kind of impact—the one that went up its nose.
The dragon reared back, snorted, and then sneezed, covering her in a thick, gelatinous mucus.
“Ugh!” She swiped the dragon-y discharge off her helmet’s visor. “You’re gross, you know that? And ugly!”
“It’s not very polite to speak that way to the one who just saved your life.” A heavily accented, devastatingly deep voice replied.
She had missed the moment of transformation while covered in goop, but the dragon was suddenly gone.
In its place was a man, of sorts, standing next to the open cockpit.
It was a very tall, very broad, very naked man with hard plating around his shoulders, biceps, and chest. He was handsome.
She wasn’t surprised. The dragons who had been spotted in their human forms had all been pretty attractive by human standards.
Like most of his kind, the planes of his face were hard and quite angular.
He looked like he had been carved rather than born.
His eyes had a golden hue and those catlike pupils sent a chill through her.
Her eyes lowering out of an undeniably natural instinct, she looked down and saw his cock, thicker and plated at the base.
Essentially, everywhere humans had body hair, this dragon seemed to have plated scales.
His hair was shaggy and almost fell to his shoulders, dark and laced with fire-red streaks.
His skin was similarly tinted in parts, tan and then a deeper red hue where the scales plated his body.
“Like what you see?”
Aria looked back to his face to see him looking at her with a cocky smirk. He was enjoying this.
“I wasn’t…” She trailed off. She didn’t need to explain herself to him. He was the enemy. The enemy who had just saved your ass, an unwanted part of her mind reminded her.
“Fuck you,” she swore at the… thing. She kept her gun raised and pulled the trigger several more times. It was useless of course. There were no magical bullets in the chamber. She was out of ammunition, and out of luck.
“Are you done?” He cocked his head and smirked at her, enjoying her struggles.
“I won’t be done until you’re dead,” Aria hissed.
“Brave words from a brave little warrior,” he acknowledged. “But you do not have it in you to kill me, human. So put that useless piece of metal down and step out of the machine.”
The wreckage of the Tornado was the last protection Aria had left. No way was she getting out of the cockpit, no way was she getting anywhere near that damn lizard.
“Hell, no,” she refused.
The dragon man raised his eyes to the sky in an expression she found very reminiscent of human exasperation.
“I have to insist,” he said. “It would be a waste of time saving your life simply to see you die moments later.”
“What are you… hey!” Aria screamed as he darted forward, grabbed her, and physically hauled her out of the wrecked cockpit, slicing through her straps with his bare fingers as if they were nothing at all. He carried her kicking and screaming across the desert, running at a good pace.
Thirty seconds later, she understood why.
Fwomp!
What was left of the Tornado caught on fire, ruptured gas from the tanks hitting an open electrical line, probably. She should have thought of that. Would have thought of it if she hadn’t been confronted by a fucking dragon—who now held her cradled in his arms in a way she found very disconcerting.
“You must be terrified,” he mused. “To be prepared to burn in your craft rather than come with me—or extremely stupid.”
Aria narrowed her eyes at him, but did not speak. She had nothing to say to the lizard. These monsters were not to be talked to. They were to be wiped from the face of the planet.
He set her down and she brushed herself off, as if a little dust was the most of her problems.
“What is your name, human?”
Her name and rank she would give. “Aria Thomas-Jones, First Airman.”
“Well, Aria Thomas-Jones, First Airman,” he said. “My war is not with you. You will not come to any harm with me. I give you my word.”
His word was not worth very much as far as Aria was concerned. He was the enemy and she was now a prisoner of war—and the dragons never had signed the Geneva Convention. She was fair game to these reptiles.
“Liar,” she hissed at him. “Go back to your nest… be glad you lived through an encounter with me.”
The dragon threw back his head and laughed, a deep throaty sound. “Oh, your delusions of grandeur,” he chuckled. “Really quite something, the arrogance your kind possesses.”
He shook his head, momentarily distracted by his amusement.
Aria took the opportunity to flee, running across the dusty ground as fast as she could.
She didn’t have a solid plan for her escape, she had pure instinct and the sense to get away from the dangerous lizard.
If she could find some cover, if she could hide, perhaps she could escape and make her way back to the base, perhaps…
Swoosh!
A great shadow passed over her and a moment later great talons wrapped around her, capturing her in their grip.
They could easily have crushed her, but instead they held her secure as the dragon soared high into the air.
Aria held onto the talons tightly, terrified of the long fall that awaited her if the evil creature were to let her go.
The military had drilled her in what to do in the event of being taken prisoner.
They had trained her to resist interrogations.
They had taught her to survive in difficult conditions, endure pain and even torture.
But they had never taught her what to do when she found herself swept several miles into the air by a beast bigger than a 747.