Chapter 8
GILLIAN
Dalox hands me the most enormous receptacle filled with a dark liquid which stinks of alcohol. If I wanted to take it, I’d have to use both hands, like a chalice.
“No thanks. I don’t drink,” I respond.
“Does not drink, has no fear, is filled with the fight,” Dalox says, his eyes burning into me, the pupils mere slits in the incredible fire which are his irises. “What exactly are you?”
“Your worst nightmare, if you pull a stunt like the one earlier, flying me here without my consent.”
Dalox’s forehead creases. He turns to the hole in the wall he called a food dispenser and says a word I don’t recognize. Half a second later, a cup materializes with steam coming out of it, and a strong sweet smell which is a bit like tea.
He hands it to me.
“All I did was bring you here,” he says, sweeping his hand at his dragon cave. “Because the neutral sector is no place for a female.”
I think he might possibly have understood that, given what I’ve said so far, I could probably manage the neutral sector and the explosions. His lips turn down at the corners and his eyes darken.
“Because you are mine, and no one takes you from me,” he adds, darkly.
I sniff at the drink he has handed me. It has no alcohol scent and so I take an exploratory sip.
It’s good, sweet, a bit like chai but with a sort of menthol aftertaste.
Given I’ve drunk and eaten things which are akin to cardboard since I left Earth, my emotions swirl at both finally tasting alien foodstuffs and at the same time being hit in the gut about how far away from home I am.
“I’ll ignore that because you know my feelings on the matter,” I respond. “What I mean is turning into a dragon and carrying me into the air without my permission.”
Dalox leans into me.
“When you can stop me, you can tell me what to do.”
I swipe out with my leg at his, hoping his anatomy is similar-ish to a human’s. Turns out it is, and Dalox goes crashing to the floor as I take a step away from him, raising my cup to keep it out of the way of his thrashing tail.
“You were saying?” I look down at him.
With a grace and a litheness which belies his enormous bulk, Dalox flips himself upright and stands, chest heaving.
I don’t think he quite knows what to do with himself. I don’t move, already waiting for his next one. I doubt very much alien dragon men fight in the same way as humans, but it would seem they fall to the ground just as hard.
Dalox fires out a lung’s worth of smoke, along with a few cinders. How they don’t set themselves on fire on a regular basis, I guess I’ll find out if I get stuck here long enough.
“Best of three?” I suggest.
He makes a low, rumbling sound in his chest. It’s not laughter, but I don’t think it puts me in danger.
“Best of three.” He lifts a lip to reveal a sharp fang. “Although you won’t get the same opportunity—”
He goes down once more to the floor as I take out his other leg, then sip on my hot drink and watch as he attempts to work out what just happened.
“I was going to suggest it would be fairer if I had a weapon, but it would seem you’d be the one benefiting.” I finish my drink, put the cup back in the dispenser, and hold out my hand to him.
There’s clearly a war going on within Dalox. His lips raise to show his fangs once more, his eyes flicking to my hand and then to me. He can’t quite believe what’s happened.
“I get this a lot,” I add. “I’m just a woman…so why are you on your back?”
Dalox releases yet more smoke, then he takes my hand and lets me help him to his feet, although I don’t think I do that much helping.
He doesn’t let go of my hand, and I find myself jerked against him, slamming into the wall of muscle and scales.
He’s warm to the touch, which is sort of not what I was expecting, and close up (my face smooshed into his chest), the scales are tiny iridescent things which have a strange and decidedly unearthly quality to them.
“I do not want to risk injuring you, little female,” Dalox rumbles. “You were in the healing pod a long time.”
My mind goes wild.
“Healing pod? Was that the egg-shaped thing?”
“You are wearing the coverings from the pod.” He nods at the blanket I have, still tightly wrapped, around myself. “You were injured.”
“I was?”
“From your time in the pit. For a while, I was worried you had been stung by the dalxci, but the machine advised it was an issue with your head.”
My hand goes to the back of my head, where there is a tender patch but nothing more.
“I don’t…remember much,” I say quietly.
“We were on the planetoid to retrieve my fellow warlord’s warriors, which he carelessly allowed to be taken by our enemy, the Ulep. And I found you,” Dalox growls. “In the pit,” he adds, unnecessarily.
“I remember the pit, but not…” I shake my head as if that might help. It doesn’t. “Just the egg thing. The healing pod?” I look up at him.
He dips his head, his chin on his chest as his burning eyes study me.
“So, I wasn’t a snack?”
“Only if you want to be.” Is that a hint of a twinkle in his eye?
I guess a male like this probably gets by on having a bone structure which would make a Hollywood star weep. I suspect he has women falling in his lap on an almost daily basis.
“Yeah.” I pat his chest and squeeze out from his grip. “Let’s not go there.”
“Little mate,” he rumbles.
“Look, we are not friends.” I point between us. “You and I are not mates. I don’t know you. I’m a stranger here, I just want to get home, and all you seem to be doing is making that harder. That’s not what friends do.”
Dalox cocks his head on one side. “Friends?”
“Yes, friends. If you were my friend, you’d want to help me, not abduct me.”
His brow drops over his eyes. Has the concept of friend not made it to this part of space?
“Ah, my little spark. I do not want to be friends with you,” he says eventually.
I knew it!
“I want to breed you.” He huffs out a great smoke ring. “I want to pleasure you until you cannot scream my name any longer.”