9. Lois #2
“Lois,” he says, his tone soft and smooth, and I realize now he’s not gotten down on his knee to propose, but to be less imposing – less intimidating.
Something about that realization makes my shoulders release tension, and my pulse kicks up a notch at the same time.
“I need you to know that I would rather hack my own horns off with a malfunctioning plasma saw than do any harm to you. Do you understand?”
I swallow thickly, not sure what that feeling bubbling up inside me is, but knowing I need to keep it down – way down. “Got it,” I chuckle softly, glancing down, avoiding that stupidly sincere look on his face. “No more murder jokes.”
I feel one of his hands leave mine, only to reappear with a finger tucked under my chin, lifting my gaze back to his. “Does harm to females happen that often on Earth?”
I blow out an unamused laugh but nod my head.
Az’s mouth sets into a hard line. He stands to his full height again, the touch of both his hands now lost to his thoughts. By his side, I see one of his fists flexing as he contemplates my answer.
He looks like he wants to swoop in and play savior for all the women on Earth a million-gazillion miles away.
I raise my brow back at him. It’s not that simple, is it?
And besides, it’s not as though Xavianns have created some utopian society where we’re all skipping through daisy fields and sliding down rainbows on the backs of unicorns.
If it were, then maybe I’d be up for it – hopping on a spacecraft and going back to Earth to round up as many women as wanted to come.
Especially my mom.
For a long while, it looks like Az is going to suggest just that. Or that he’s going to go declare open war on the men of Earth.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he clearly thinks better of that ludicrous plan and shakes the notion from his head.
Before I can even register what he’s doing, Az’s wrist lifts to the wall beside my head, and I hear an electronic beep.
The wall behind me – the wall Az had backed me up against suddenly shifts, two doors splitting directly behind me, making me start to fall backward.
Az is faster, though. Even before I’m able to get the yelp out of my throat, there’s a big, gray arm looping around my waist, pulling me back up against his bare chest, saving me from falling on my butt.
“What-”
I actually do yelp then, when Az lifts me with that one arm, pulling me up against his body until my feet feel like they’re dangling. He takes three long strides forward, and all I can feel is the supple play of his muscles and the firmness of his frame.
When Az sets me down again, my feet hit what feels like sand. I’m unsteady at first. Those few moments had happened so quickly, and he’d been so-
Az supports me with that strong arm again. “Steady there,” he rasps, chuckling softly.
God, I hate him… except, I really don’t. Not at all.
Taking the opportunity to look around – to look at anything but him, really – I dust off imaginary dirt from my skirt and twist out of his grasp, only to stop dead in my tracks as I take it all in.
We’re… we’re on a tropical beach?
Well, the part we’re standing on is sandy, and there’s a body of water, but it’s more a lagoon than a sea. And beyond that is a thick forest.
But we’re not outside. The wall I’d been pressed up against on the other side is still behind us.
It stretches out on either side before circling around the mini jungle in front of us.
I squint upward. Lighting orbs float and bob here and there, and I think there’s no ceiling or roof, but there is a faint, shimmering glow like there’s some kind of force field up there.
It’s like we’re in some kind of huge, exotic walled garden the size of a small town.
“What is this place?” I hear myself ask in a far-away, bewildered kind of voice.
“This is my girls’ place.”
I get about one second of scowling time to aim at Az before he’s putting his fingers in his mouth to whistle.
And then, I hear it. I feel it, too. The shifting of something big.
Monstrously big.
There’s a horrifyingly eerie clicking sound – like someone said ‘give me echolocation, but make it the soundtrack to my nightmares’.
“C’mon ladies, I’ve got someone special to introduce you to,” Az calls out, both hands cupped around his mouth to project the sound to the far walls of this… strange place.
The water in the lagoon ripples and the trees shudder as something large moves behind them.
I step closer, and ever so slightly behind Az. “You didn’t happen to extract the DNA of an ancient mosquito trapped in amber, did you?” I ask, my mind whirring. How did they survive that movie, again?
Az throws me a quizzical look, but my attention is firmly on the two enormous reptile-looking things emerging from the jungle vegetation. Gasping, I grip Az’s forearm with both hands.
As I watch, the creatures step forward; except where I’m expecting two separate bodies to go along with the two-horned heads and scaly necks, only one steps out from the trees.
The thing is a dark blue in color, but there’s a pattern on the scales – kind of like a tiger’s stripes, except these stripes are rippling with hints of so many other colors, some in shades of blood-red, others in sunset orange.
“There’s my girls,” Az coos like a proud parent. “C’mon, get over here.”
Az’s ‘girls’ make a trilling noise, like the greeting of a pussycat, except this pussycat is easily twenty feet tall plus tax.
And has two mother-freaking heads!
“Is that… is that your drak?” I ask. But my voice draws attention from the huge beast, and suddenly, I find myself under scrutiny from two sets of reptilian eyes.
“Yeah,” Az replies excitedly. “Lois, meet Lady and Puff,” he then steps aside and, with two large hands on my upper arms, nudges me forward, “Lady and Puff, meet my Lois.”
He sounds almost comically proud, but I can’t concentrate on that or the fact he called me ‘my Lois’ because a huge, two-headed alien dragon is stalking forward like I’m its next meal.
“Az?” I ask, looking back at him, unsure as he holds me fast.
He ducks his head and whispers close to my ear, “They’re gonna love you.”
I only manage to get out, “Like as an appetizer or-” when my words are cut off by a squeak as a huge, T-rex-like snout pushes right into my belly and almost sniffs my clothes off. “Oh, my God,” I whisper. “Oh, my God, oh my, God! Az, help me!”
He lets go of me and shoves at the gigantic dragon head. “Puff, I know you’re curious, girl, but that’s no way to get Lois to like you,” he says, positioning himself in front of me now. He turns back with a grin. “Trust me, if I thought it would work, I would’ve tried it already.”
In my shaky state, I let slip a weak chuckle that only makes Az grin wider.
One of the dragon heads growls.
“Ah!” Az snaps back, stepping forward and pointing up at the head on the left, which must be ‘Lady’ if the other one who nuzzle-sniffed me is ‘Puff’.
Incredibly, the colossal beast takes a couple of steps back as Az advances confidently, its growl cutting off completely.
“Now, I know you don’t normally take to new people, Lady, but she’s special,” he says, pointing behind himself – pointing to me.
I try really fucking hard not to let my mind latch onto those words.
“Now, if you don’t treat her kindly, then you and I are gonna have problems.”
Lady blinks down at him… and then to me.
“Az…” I whisper, not really sure what I want to say. My pulse is throbbing behind my ears. One wrong move and that thing could swallow me whole.
The head called ‘Puff’ starts leaning in toward me again, only to be snapped at by her twin.
Puff rears with a screech, two huge wings flaring, their webbing an orangey-pink color in stark contrast against the dark blue of the scales that frame them.
I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed the wings before, too wrapped up in the fact that this creature has two freaking heads.
Lady… or Puff… whichever one is controlling the wings settles them back down on their back when Az steps forward again, a calming hand held out to settle them. “Hey, now! Be polite, or Lois and I aren’t taking you girls for a spin tonight.”
“…WHAT?”