11. Lois
Lois
The saddle is soft, worn leather. The kind of leather that warms quickly after contact.
My step-dad, Jerry, had owned what he’d claimed to be a real leather recliner chair that took pride of place right in front of the TV.
He loved that thing even though it always felt cold.
No one else was allowed to sit in it when he was home.
Right before things got really bad – when money got so tight, having cereal for dinner started to become a regular thing – he tried to sell it.
The guy who came to pick it up refused the price Jerry was asking because he claimed it was cheap, plastic faux-leather.
Jerry ended up refusing the sale, stating he’d rather keep the chair if he can’t fetch a decent price for it.
That was right before he started asking Mom to-
I shake the memories from my head before I start wandering down avenues and alleys that lead to darker places.
Fuck, I miss my mom.
Sighing, I brush the pads of my fingers over the elaborate embroidery that runs along the edges of the saddle.
Az had been about to swing his leg – about to seat himself behind me. But he pauses, ducking his head to look me in the eye. “Is all well?… I promise you, Lois, I will not let harm come to you.”
A humorless chuckle escapes me. “You better not!” I say, trying to avoid any further probing.
It doesn’t work.
Az still hasn’t sat his ass down in the saddle. Instead, he balances there, one foot in the stirrup as he waits for me to say more.
I don’t want to say more.
I shake my head again, looking down at the gold-thread embroidery.
Absently, my fingers trace a swirling script that my translator belatedly reconfigures until my brain can read it properly in Earth English: Prince Az Zerradaeth Xeverrique, Ninth Son of King Zeelix Xeverrique IV, Second Prince of the Northern Principality, First Drak Rider, Seven Times Xaviann drakball Champion.
I pull my hand back, realizing I’ve been caressing Az’s very long, very illustrious, very… formidable-sounding title. “Uh… I just-… I’ve just been missing my mom, that’s all.”
The truth slips out. I can feel my cheeks start to heat.
What I want is to either get off this creature or for Az to hurry up and get going with this ride. But he doesn’t move. Instead, he waits for me to look at him.
And it’s such an unexpectedly comforting sight when I finally do. His pretty brown eyes with pinkish flashes scan my face, briefly flitting down to where I’d been idly, unknowingly, stroking his name.
“Your mother was fond of drak-riding, was she?” he finally asks when it’s become very clear I wasn’t going to say anything else.
The joke is welcome. It feels like a key that’s unlocked the sudden tightness in my heart.
I still give him a shove right in the middle of his naked chest for it, though.
Az moves with my half-hearted attack, even though I know no amount of shoving on my part could move that giant of a male – not even with my whole strength.
He chuckles and finally swings his leg over the back of the saddle to seat himself directly behind me. Somehow he still feels like a massive presence, even without being in my line of sight, like my whole body is aware of the mass of strength and warmth and… life behind me.
Az grips the multiple reins that control both heads in one hand, his other coming to firmly span my middle, keeping me secure…
and somehow making me feel anything but.
He makes a quiet clicking noise with his mouth, and the drak starts to move beneath us – still on the ground, but slowly walking now, its gigantic frame lumbering around in its enclosure.
“Will you tell me about your mother?” Az asks from behind me, the heat from his chest seeping through to the back of my neck and down my spine.
“Now?!” I ask, my frame turning rigid.
Az effortlessly steers the drak with the slightest bit of pressure from the reins in his one hand. He doesn’t answer straight away, but after a moment, he comments, “You are very tense.”
I want to bite back that ‘Of course I’m tense – I’m sat on top of a double-headed alien dragon… thing’. But I don’t.
Az leans closer, the warmth of him enveloping my whole back.
He must duck down because when he murmurs, “Loosen your hips, little female,” I can feel the heat of his breath on my neck and shoulder.
That one big hand that spanned my front slides to my side.
“Move with the drak, not against her,” he says, gently guiding my hips to ride the movements of the colossal creature.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, and I can imagine the way his hips must be moving behind me in the saddle, too.
Now, why is that so hot?
“I will not press you for your secrets, Lois,” he says before sliding his hand back to my front, securing me tightly against him.
“Not tonight, at least,” he adds, giving a little whistle sound and a kick of his boots in the stirrups.
Before I get the chance to turn and tell him not to bother, Lady throws her head back and roars.
The giant, webbed wings behind us stretch and perform a few practice beats, whipping the dusty ground below us up into little tornadoes.
And then, we leap up into the air, and my stomach feels like it’s fallen clean out of my body.
There’s screaming, too – screaming coming from me, but I can hardly hear it with the night air violently whipping past my ears.
The shimmery forcefield thing seems to melt away as we approach it, and distantly I wonder if a drak can only fly free when mounted by a certain rider?
I can feel Az chuckle at my back, as he holds me tighter while we climb higher and higher, and higher still – gaining height with every powerful flap of the beast’s wings.
Is this thing aiming for outer space? Because I’ve been there, and I don’t want to go back.
Az gives the reins a shake, and suddenly we stop ascending to just glide.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” I mutter to myself, my fingers gripping the saddle pommel so tightly it hurts.
“You can open your eyes now, Lois,” I hear from behind me.
Had I even closed them? I hadn’t noticed. The only thing I’d been aware of was the fact that my heart had been trying to break out of my ribs with the force of a battering ram.
I hold my breath and do as he says, gasping at the sight of the city lights far below.
That pommel I’m still gripping onto for dear life now not feeling like enough to keep me anchored onto the back of this thing as we float way too fucking high.
“I need-” I squeak, one hand daring to leave the leather to start patting uselessly around me, behind me onto Az’s thigh, then to the hand spanning my middle.
“What do you need?” he asks calmly in my ear.
“Something more secure to hold onto. Or a-a… seatbelt or something! I feel like I’m one gust of wind away from falling off this thing!”
Az chuckles again and removes his hand from my middle. At first, I miss it instantly – it had been the only bit of security I had felt. But he offers it to me, a massive palm right in front of me. “Hold onto me, if you like.”
I don’t even hesitate. I grab that hand and forearm with both of mine, wrapping it tightly to my chest like I was a toddler with separation anxiety at daycare drop-off.
I feel Az stiffen a little behind me, but I’m too batshit terrified to analyze it.
“Uh…” he clears his throat and tries again. “Here, lean back against me. It will make you feel more secure.”
I do as he says, my shoulder blades pressing against his front. It helps… I think. With his arm banded up and across my chest, it kind of feels like being strapped in a very solid, very secure seat – a warm seat that breathes and shifts its lower half behind me.
My ‘seat’ unfurls its hand from my tight grip and gently holds my jaw from beneath. “Back a little more,” Az urges until I let my head fall back against his clavicle. “That’s it,” he coos, his thick, calloused thumb softly stroking along my jaw as I feel my head tuck perfectly under his chin.
I try to catch my breath now that I feel almost completely surrounded by Az. “We are…” I start, still feeling jittery from nerves. “We are so high up. Crazy high up. Stupid high up. Why would anyone want to be this high up, Az? Why?!”
“Okay,” Az laughs lightly, but I can feel the rumble of it against my back. “We need to get you to calm your breathing-”
“But-”
“Can you do that for me, Lois?” he interrupts, his voice smooth like caramel.
“Breathe with me, in time with my breaths.” He then pulls me even firmer against himself, using that arm banded across my chest like a tightening seatbelt.
“Breathe in,” he says, and I feel his chest expand behind me. “And out.”
I follow along, matching his inhales and exhales.
All the while, Az keeps stroking along my jaw and down my neck until his fingers brush against the lace collar he’d made me put on before leaving the house.
He stills. The slow, steady breathing at my back dies in a sharp inhale, and he tries to pull his hand away.
I say ‘tries’ because I am still holding onto that muscled forearm of his like a stubborn barnacle attached to a ship’s hull.
“I-er…” he swallows behind me – I can feel the movement where my head is tucked up beneath his chin. “Sorry, I shouldn’t-”
“Don’t bring your weird Xaviann throat fetish into this now, Az,” I snap.
“You were actually doing a good job of calming me down and making me feel more secure up here flying around in God’s waiting room on a double-headed lizard.
” I move his hand back to my neck, fitting his big warm palm over my throat until it feels like he’s anchoring me to him completely. “Now do that breathing stuff again.”
There’s a soft snort behind me as Az flexes his hand around my throat. “Yes, my Lady.”