Lydia
I am warm in a way I feel like I haven’t been warm since forever.
There’s a soft scent of spice, of wood smoke, like if I were in a little cottage in the woods I could call my own.
One where no one will bother me, where I can bake bread and cakes, where I have a tabby cat on the windowsill, where I have all my knickknacks and cute, cosy throws over old chairs and a clock ticking in the corner, marking time in a way which is easy and slow.
Only there is no cottage.
There are no cosy throws or ticking clock or tabby cat.
There are scales. There are claws. Burning eyes with slit pupils and the very tip of a forked tongue.
There is a huge alien dragon staring down at me.
“Little ember,” he rumbles.
I scramble away from him until my back hits a wall and I can’t go any further.
This Sarkarnii is not like any of the others I have encountered.
His long hair is matted in places, his scales dirty, his face streaked with what could be mud but it’s hard to tell as his hair is hanging over most of it.
His eyes gleam in a way which makes me want to look away.
He is as if a Sarkarnii has been left on an uninhabited planet for a very long time.
He crouches down, leaning on one knuckle, staring at me as if he’s working out if I’m a snack or worthy of a main course.
“What…what do you want?” My words come out with a wheeze, my chest far too tight for comfort.
“You,” he says.
“I…I’m not available.”
I’m not available? What sort of ridiculous response is that?
“If you have another Sarkarnii, give me his name, I will rend him into pieces and give them to you on a platter.”
“Oh god.” I swallow the bile rising in my throat. “What?”
“I will kill him before he tries to do the same to me.”
I don’t know if the clarification makes this situation any easier.
“I meant…I meant I don’t belong to you. Not that I have a mate or a Sarkarnii you can kill,” I say as quickly as I can before some poor Sarkarnii warrior has to contend with this particular behemoth, who has to be one of the warlords, even if I’ve not seen him before.
“You are with me. You belong to me,” he rumbles.
“No, I don’t,” I say, far braver in the face of an enormous dragon than I ever expected to be. “I don’t belong to you or anyone.”
The Sarkarnii huffs out a big cloud of smoke and turns away from me, rising as he does.
He is, as I’ve already determined, absolutely enormous.
Close to Dalox in height, I think. His wide shoulders drop to a thick, muscular waist which dips to a ‘v’ where he’s poured into his pants.
I think even his muscles have muscles. He could do whatever he wants to me, and there’s no way I would stop him.
The whimper I release is not one I wanted to.
Instantly, he snaps around.
His eyes narrow.
He bends, only slightly, reaching down an arm towards me.
I have nowhere to go, nowhere to flee. I can’t do anything but watch as his ragged, clawed fingers get ever closer. Then I can’t watch. I turn my face away, squeezing my eyes closed, waiting for…
An oh-so-soft touch on my chin, a gentle, firm pressure turning me, tilting my face upwards. I open my eyes, more in surprise than anything else. He holds me, like a butterfly under a pin.
“Who…”. His tone is low, demanding, dangerous. “Who hurt you?”
I stare up at him. How does this vast creature know about me? How can he possibly know I nearly let go of my bladder because…
“Why do you care?” I blurt out.
He takes a step back, as if I’ve shot him, his finger instantly removed.
“I…don’t,” he rasps, uncertainty flitting across his face, which is, now I can see it better, quite handsome in its dirty way. “I don’t care.”
“Thought so.” I fold my arms.
He had his chance to eat me, and he didn’t. Not that I trust him, but in this moment, it would appear I have won a reprieve.
I doubt it will last long.
“You are my captive,” he says, with more force than before.
“No shit.”
“No, there is no shit.” His eyebrows crease together. “You will have access to a sanitary area.”
“Good. Then I need to go.” I glare at him.
“You cannot go. You are my captive,” he growls.
“I mean I need to go to the sanitary area.” I glare at him until I remember how big he is and how little I am. “I need to urinate.”
“A little scrap like you needs to piss?” He glares back at me. “You are too small to piss.”
“Pardon me?” I can’t quite believe I’m having this conversation. “Everything needs to piss…urinate.”
“Spaceworms don’t.”
“How do you know?”
He inclines his head. “I just know.”
“Bet they do.” I push myself slowly up the wall. “And I do too.”
He blinks at me. Not a clearing of the eyeballs but a pressing together of the eyelids in such a way I wonder if it’s to do with his brain resetting.
His lips lift to reveal incredibly sharp fangs.
I attempt to push down the fear rising inside me with the knowledge if he wanted to eat me, he’d have turned into a dragon long before now.
“So unless you want me to urinate here, I suggest you let me use the sanitary facilities.”
I’m not sure, but I think he might be contemplating it. Possibly just to see if I do, actually, piss.
“This way,” he says roughly.
My legs are like a newborn deer as I attempt to stride past him with some confidence. I have zero confidence. I’m surprised I can even stand. In fact, I’m surprised I haven’t wet myself with fear.
Once I’ve passed him, he follows me, almost as if I know where I’m going.
But this place we’re in, I’ve never seen it before.
It’s comfortably furnished, looking like a modern living room, not a cave or anything, which he would look more at home in.
One wall is made of glass, or the Sarkarnii equivalent, and it looks out over a lush valley, the likes of which I haven’t seen since we got to Vorostor.
I look back over my shoulder at the dark Sarkarnii.
“What is this place?”