Treasured By the Dragon Warlord (Fated Mates of the Sarkarnii Warlords #5)

Chapter 1

GILLIAN

Iface the creature across the pit. This one is different from the last. They’re all different.

This one is a green and brown color. It has a smaller head on top of a larger squat one.

Four upper limbs wave at me while the other four plant it securely against the side of the pit, anchored both to its segmented behind and somehow, to the rough surface itself.

It doesn’t have a weapon. But I do. I have a long, blunt pole. Last time, I had something metal, I wasn’t sure what it was, but then the creature I was fighting was something else entirely. Something gelatinous and when I stepped on it, it disintegrated into a pool of foul smelling goo.

This is my life now. Fighting alien creatures in a pit, presumably until, at some point, I don’t win. Presumably at some point I will die. If I don’t starve first. A lack of food and water, always rationed to the point of starvation, takes its toll on my body. I doubt I’m going to last much longer.

The thing across from me makes a metallic clicking sound. I wonder if it’s trying to communicate. Perhaps it doesn’t want to be crushed by my pole. Perhaps it’s threatening me. I doubt I’ll ever know.

Above the high walls of the pit, my current home, dust swirls.

I’ve become used to being covered in dust, caked in it.

I’m so dirty I don’t even recognize myself and the thought of a bath is long distant.

My clothing, which doesn’t belong to me, consists of a ragged all in one which is more holes than fabric at this point. It’s all I have.

I mean, I suppose I could be naked…again. Because that’s happened too since I was taken from Earth.

If I’d been awake, they wouldn’t have been able to abduct me. But I suspect that’s the reason I was not awake.

The aliens which took me didn’t want a fight. They didn’t want to end up on this dusty planet either. And yet here I am. They are long gone.

The dust above the pit whips into a frenzy. The creature stops clicking and stops moving its arms. In fact, it seems to be slowly backing up the side of the pit to the top.

“Wait!” I yell at it. “Don’t leave me!”

The pole I have is not going to help me vault out of here, but I can damn well try.

I run at the wall, pushing myself up, wanting to reach the thing, to get it to pull me out of the place, but as I reach the other side, the wind pushes back on me, making any such jump impossible.

I’ve never felt anything like it. I’ve never been in a hurricane, but I’ve seen them on TV, and this has to be one.

I fall backwards, landing spread eagled on the ground, my head impacting the solid soil and sending stars spiraling through my vision. This could be it. God, I hope it is the end. I close my eyes and think hard about my mum.

A low, dangerous snarling sound pushes its way past the rushing of blood in my ears.

I want to look, but I’m struggling to get my body to do much of anything.

It would appear the bang on my head has done more damage than I thought.

I don’t think I mind, but I’d probably prefer to be dead before something new eats me.

With a force of will I muster from somewhere, I pry open one eye. Standing over me is something absolutely massive. So large, it blots out the limited dusty light from above the pit. I think there might be a tail…possibly wings.

Something flashes from it. White hot heat. Could it be flame? Does this thing have a flamethrower? Why? I think I might be talking, burbling, attempting to make my limbs work, attempting to get away from whatever this new hell might be.

But I can’t seem to move. Huge limbs scoop me up and it’s as if I’m flying in the air. The dust is blown from me, a stream of it behind in the wind, the smell of metal, and plastic, and not dust, not anymore.

And more growling, more snarling. More flashes of brightness which is not flame but something else. It glitters in the dust-riddled vision I hardly have. It is getting harder and harder to stay awake, to stay locked in the here and now.

I can’t defend myself any longer and I don’t think I want to. I know my mum would be cross. I know she’d want me to hold on, to stay, to fight, to not let them win.

I don’t want to let the aliens win either.

“Sorry, Mum,” I moan, or I think I do. “I did try.”

Because I did. I fought everything in the pit. I’d fight the thing which had me right now, if only my arms would move. If only it didn’t smell like smoke and spice. Nothing makes sense anymore. Not even the burning eye with the slit pupil like a crocodile staring down at me.

And the mouth filled with dinosaur teeth which growls something.

Something which sounds very much like…

“Mine.”