Chapter 5
Kate had lost her virginity to a dragon.
She could barely believe it, but her body ached with the memory, the sensation between her thighs an unrelenting reminder of how his hardness had conquered her soft sex.
She felt… different. Her entire body was relaxed and full and satisfied.
The dragon’s seed still coated her inner thighs and her mound.
She had been filled with him over and over again and he had left his mark on her and inside her.
Now they lay together in a post-coital repose, saying nothing, simply breathing the same air and being close to one another.
Kate had to admit to herself that so far the fruits of her exploration through the portal had been very sweet.
The dragon had not been entirely kind at first, he had dealt with her as an intruder, but that made sense on some level and she couldn’t precisely blame him.
Now that they had coupled, he would no doubt see things from her point of view.
If anyone was an invader, it was him. He had invaded her inner territory and forever transformed it.
She felt him sit up, brush her hair from her forehead and press a kiss there. It was a sweet gesture, one that made her smile. Then she felt the bed shift as he got out of it. She turned to look at him curiously.
“What are you doing?”
* * *
Vilka had hoped the human was asleep. It would have made what he had to do next much easier on both of them, but he could not exactly ignore her question.
As he looked down at Kate, he felt a rush of emotion, a tenderness he had not experienced before.
She was so beautiful, and every move she made spoke to him.
It was more difficult than he had imagined it would be to be stern with her—and he knew she would not like the answer to her question.
He could lie to her, but Vilka did not like to lie. The truth was ultimately all he had, and he would not tell this human untruths simply to stop her from being angry.
“We are going to close the portal,” he said. “It cannot be allowed to remain open, our worlds leaking into one another. There is too much risk. Erias believes he has found a way to close it from our side.”
“No!” Kate begged. “That’s my only way back. Please, you don’t understand. I can’t stay here forever. I have a home. I have a life.”
“If what can be viewed from the portal is any indication, you do not have much of a home,” he said.
“And as for a life, you seemed eager enough to possibly lose it entirely by entering our realm. I have told you, Kate, some things, once done, cannot be undone. Your arrival here in our world is one of them.”
“You can’t keep me prisoner forever,” she said, her face flushing with rebellion as she threw back the covers and sat up naked, her pink-tipped breasts drawing his gaze and moderating his ire. Even when she was being an utter brat, she was alluring.
“There you are very wrong,” he growled in response.
“I can and will keep you prisoner as long as you make it necessary. You can study our world, Kate. I will grant you that. I will show you places in this realm which contain wonders beyond your imagination. But you will not return to your world. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you will have your freedom.”
Her face collapsed into a shifty pout that he knew did not bode well for either of them.
Best that they closed the portal soon and shut down all discussion of the possibility.
Of course, it was still technically possible to open one from their side, but doing that would require gathering resources she did not have—and that was a problem for the future.
The problem of the moment was the portal she had opened already, and he would breathe much easier once the wound in their world was closed.
* * *
There had to be some way around this, some way to prevent him from having the portal closed.
The very idea of being trapped in a world of dragons gave Kate the beginnings of a panic attack.
It was one thing to want to explore new realms, something entirely different to be trapped within one forever.
“I think you’re overreacting,” she said. “I need to be able to return to my world. And it could be useful to you to have a working portal too. Our realms don’t have to be separate. We can work together. I could go to college during the day and return here every night.”
“Except for the fact that one day in your world is ten of ours. Your body would likely not adjust well to the constant shifting of time either.”
The time differences made things interesting.
She had been in the dragon realm for almost a day, but it was doubtful that anybody would have noticed that she was missing yet—if they ever noticed at all.
Her rent was paid up for another month… almost a year in the dragon realm…
She sat and chewed her lower lip, trying to think her way out of the situation.
“I have to be able to go back,” she said, saying nothing new.
His golden eyes seared into her with a heat that made her quiver. “You’re not going back.”
“Why? It’s not fair!”
“You came here once. If I allow you to return again, you will be able to open new portals perhaps for humans other than yourself. Less innocent humans intent on war. The last time your kind opened a portal, we lost hundreds of our best—and humans lost thousands. I make this decision to save lives on both sides of the divide. You will stay here. You will be mine.”
“No…” Kate shook her head. “I can’t live here. You don’t understand. I have a career…”
“A career in creating chaos, I take it. That is what comes of these gates between our worlds.”
“This isn’t like the first one,” she argued desperately, repeating herself. “I opened a small, stable portal, not a gaping hole in the sky. I’ve improved on the technology hugely. It’s not dangerous the same way the last one was.”
Vilka gave her a look of pity. “Do you believe our worlds went to war because of the shape or size of the portal? Dragons and humans do not belong together. There can be no peace between our peoples. My father was a general in the first dragon war. He watched the betrayal and lies unfold before his eyes. We offered a retreat once. If war comes again, there will be no retreat. And we will not lose the battle. Do you understand why it is so essential that all portals between our worlds are destroyed?”
A cold shiver ran through Kate. “I understand,” she said. “But we already know how to make portals, so another one is inevitable.”
“But humans have never been able to survive in our realm…” He paused as if he were thinking of an exception. “Most humans,” he added. “You are curious in that regard. What allows you to withstand our atmosphere?”
“Oh, it’s an anti-radiation treatment, it’s actually based on the samples of dragon DNA held in…” She stopped talking as a bolt of rage went visibly through Vilka.
“And how did you obtain these samples?”
“They’re from the war. Colleges all over the world have samples. A lot of research is still being done on dragons. People are fascinated. This is the closest thing to true alien technology anyone has seen.”
He tapped his long fingers. “This treatment… how many people know how to make it?”
“Just me,” Kate said proudly. “I developed it myself in my spare time.”
* * *
Vilka looked at her smiling face and felt an amused pity for the girl.
She was evidently intelligent in many respects, but her bragging had just sealed her fate for certain.
If she knew how to create a treatment that could potentially allow humans to invade the dragon realm, then she could never be allowed to leave.
“How much of this treatment do you have?”
“Well, I have enough to last several Earth weeks. I don’t know what that means over here, there’s a time shift obviously.
I might have enough to last several weeks here, or I might have almost a year’s worth, depending on whether my cellular processes stay steady, or slow with time—or I might have less than I think, if I age more quickly here. I can’t really say.”
“And how will you know?”
“I can take blood and measure my levels,” she said. “If they drop at the normal rate, I will assume that my cellular processes remain at the normal level. If they drop faster or slower… then I will know the same. But either way, I will have to return to obtain more.”
“There are other ways to allow a human to live in the realm without any need for a treatment,” he said. “I do not take them lightly, but I cannot risk your return any more than I can risk your life. And it may be that what needs to happen has already been done.”
“What are you talking about?”
Vilka ran his hand over her belly. “I am talking about what may grow when a man’s seed meets a woman’s womb.”
Her eyes went wide, as if she were shocked by the possibility. “You think I could be pregnant?”
“Do not tell me your science has left you with such little knowledge of the matter of mating,” he said with a raised brow.
“Well… no, of course not, but… you are a dragon. We are not the same species. It should not be possible for us to procreate.”
“It is possible for dragons and humans to couple successfully,” Vilka said. “I know this very well. Without a shadow of a doubt, indeed.”
“How?”
His expression became instantly guarded. “That is a subject for another time.”
“Well, I can tell you that there is no risk of me being pregnant,” she said. “I have an implant.”
“What do you mean?”
“In my arm,” she pointed to her right upper limb. “It’s a little tube. It regulates my periods. It also means I cannot conceive. So even if it is possible for a dragon and a human to mate, which seems unlikely to me, conception wouldn’t occur.”
“You have never been mated, and yet you have something embedded in your body which prevents pregnancy,” he mused. “It is a strange world you come from.”
“It also stops me from bleeding every few weeks, ruining my underwear and being unable to go anywhere or do anything because of cramps,” she said. “It’s not easy being a woman, Vilka.”
“Evidently not,” he replied, unable to hide his smirk.
He reached out and ran his hand over her arm, his dragon senses more attuned now.
Sure enough, he could sense it, a very small cylinder of material that was not flesh.
It seemed strange that something so little could have such a powerful effect.
“That will have to be removed in time,” he said. “I want my seed to grow inside you. I want to see you grow ripe with my progeny.”
He waited for a burst of outrage, but it did not come. Instead she blushed and lowered her eyes. She could be so bold one moment, so shy the next. Everything to do with the act of mating seemed to make her retreat into a more demure state of mind.
“We hardly know one another,” she murmured toward the bedding. “How can you talk about that so soon?”
“Because I know what I want,” Vilka replied. “I have claimed you as my mate and you are mine.”
“It’s so simple for you, isn’t it,” she said. “Close the portal. Take the woman. Knock her up.”
“Almost as simple as invading another world and expecting there to be no consequences,” Vilka replied.
She was spoiled, this one. She needed discipline to teach her the effect to her cause.
His palms were beginning to itch with the desire to spank her bratty bottom.
She did not understand how merciful he had been.
There had been no punishment at all for entering his realm unbidden, and then demanding the right to continue to invade it as she pleased.
“You don’t understand,” she said, her tone returning to the strident, demanding one he really did not care for. “You have to let me go.”
“I think it is you who does not understand,” he said sternly. “But I think I can make it clear for you.”
He reached out, took her by the wrist and hauled her squirming, complaining body over his lap. Her bottom was adorable, and it would look even better marked red. He elevated his thigh so the rounds of her cheeks were turned up nice and high, perfectly positioned for his hand.
“God, Vilka! What are you doing? Let me go! Stop it now!”
Her demands were not met, but her bottom was swiftly introduced to the flat of his hand as he started to spank her, keeping a good hold of her waist as she immediately burst into bratty shrieks and complaints.
“You are ungrateful, demanding, and spoiled,” he lectured as his palm turned her cheeks a rosy red.
“Your presence here could easily be interpreted as an invasion, an act of war. And yet I have shown you mercy. I have given you pleasure when I could have given you pain. I have explained my reasoning when I owed you no explanation at all, and in return you have taken no responsibility for the consequences of your actions and demanded that I allow you to do as you please.” His hand drummed against her writhing cheeks.
“The answer is no. The answer will always be no. I am your master and you will stay on my leash if you have to, for as long as it takes for you to understand that.”
Kate squealed and swore, her legs kicking fiercely as she tried to wriggle out of the grip he had her in, but she had no chance of doing that.
Vilka kept a firm hold of her as she fought against the spanking until she managed to tire herself out and lay panting across his lap, her pink bottom still ripe for punishment.
“You’re going to learn, Kate,” he growled down at her. “Things are simple here. I am the lord, I am your master, I am your mate. You obey me.” With that his hand came down hard on her bottom, searing her flesh with a harsh slap that made her shriek.
He ignored the high-pitched wails and cries in favor of making sure her rear was bright red and hot to the touch by the time he was finished with her. He spanked her until she began to sniff tears back, and her tone took on less attitude.
“You stay here,” he said when he was satisfied with the state of her bottom. “I’m going to bolt these doors, fix the portal, and then I will return. Get some rest. You need it.”
He slid her from his lap with one last pat to her bottom.
She curled up on the bed, muttering curse words to herself and sniffling into the bedding.
He knew that she was unhappy, but that would pass.
Soon he would show her the pleasures and wonders of his realm and she would remember why she had come there—and forget her desire to return to Earth.