Chapter 12
GILLIAN
“As you’ve discovered my secret, little mate,” Dalox says, still doing a rather lopsided smile. “And as much as I want to keep you all to myself, if I am to comply with your request, then we will need to return to the surface.”
“Presumably the easy way,” I respond.
His grin, because that’s what it is, widens with even more fangs on display.
“Depends what you consider to be easy.” His tail lashes behind him.
“I’d ride you, but I absolutely do not ever want to be carried the way you brought me here, ever again.”
Dalox sways slightly on the spot, his eyes slightly glazing over.
“You would ride me?”
“If you were a dragon,” I clarify, in case he has the wrong idea. And at least I’m now wearing something which won’t suddenly flap off into the darkness leaving me entirely nude.
Although the weird silvery jumpsuit Lydia gave me is far from flattering, it’s certainly safer.
“In my Sarkarnii form?” His words are somehow half a growl and half a sigh.
I wonder if that’s something which is forbidden, but as I’m not a Sarkarnii and I didn’t ask to be here, I nod my head.
“Yes.”
Dalox sucks in a breath and then releases it slowly with a long stream of smoke.
“You can choose,” he says finally. “The Sarkarnii way or the other way.” He holds up a finger, one dark onyx claw extended. “Providing you do one thing for me.”
Now I’ve done it. Completely backed myself into a corner. But also, I’m intrigued. If I ride him, this time it will be my decision and something I’m in control of. Even if there is a bit of quid pro quo.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to dine with me,” he says. “I know the nova-minute we reach the surface, you will want to be with the other females, and…” Dalox grits his teeth.
“I will not stop you being with the one called Lydia, but I wish you to dine with me, and to allow me to show you what being a Sarkarnii warlord really means.”
Yet more intriguing prospects. I can’t see how this would be problematic.
“Okay. I’ll dine with you.”
“And your method of exiting my lair?”
I put my finger on my chin and look Dalox up and down. He twitches again, which is interesting to see in something as tall and broad as he.
“I choose Sarkarnii.”
Dalox rumbles deep in his chest and I wonder if I’ve chosen correctly.
“Then it is time to go, little spark,” he says, tipping me into his arms.
“Hey!”
“And how exactly do you think we should do this?” he admonishes me as he strides to the entrance into the dark cave system.
“I can walk.”
“And I prefer to carry you. Your legs are too short,” Dalox grumbles.
“It’s all of twenty paces.”
“You’ll still be too slow,” he says, but I see the hitch in his mouth and the flash of his fang.
Dalox is enjoying this, and my stomach does a strange squirm which I’m not used to.
I shouldn’t be enjoying this sparring we have either. I should be concentrated on meeting the other women and then arranging for us to get back to Earth.
I need to get back. I certainly have no intention of staying here, wherever here is. I have promises to keep, and I will keep them, even if the person I promised is no longer there to see me fulfill what she wanted.
Dalox reaches the edge of the platform, looks into the dark abyss, and before I can say or do anything, he steps off. Instinctively I claw at him, bellowing his name and hearing his dark chuckle as we fall and fall into the void.
“Did you think I would drop you, little spark?” Dalox says, his voice deep and velvet in my ear. “You’ve seen how I handle my precious hoard.”
“We’re…”
“I hear the sound rather than see anything in the dark, but we are not falling anymore. Instead there is the noise of steadily beating wings.
“You’re not a…”
“I do not have be in my Sarkarnii form,” Dalox says, still in my ear. “It is preferable because it is less…penetrable, but as I am not fighting, it is not strictly necessary.”
“If I could be a dragon, I’d be one all the time,” I grumble, half to myself.
“And why would that be, my mate?” Dalox asks.
I bristle a bit at the use of the term mate, because I’ve made it very clear I am not his mate, not at all.
“Because then no one would attempt to take advantage of me due to being small and a female,” I growl.
I feel Dalox laughter rather than hear it as I’m pressed against his scaly chest.
“And no one would promise me a ride and then do the exact opposite,” I add.
“If you wish to ride me, then you shall ride me,” Dalox replies.
I can’t see anything, but I can feel his hands move, I feel his body move, I feel it getting larger, and there’s a strange movement before one of my legs butts up against something and I find myself straddling…Dalox?
“Hold on.” His voice booms around me, and I reach forward, finding a pair of bony spikes within arm’s reach.
I have hold of them as a light appears ahead and what I’m sitting on is revealed in all its scaly glory.
I am riding a dragon.
A real life, real alien dragon, which only moments ago was sort of a man.
Dalox releases a burst of flame, and I feel the cinders patter over me as we fly through the remnants. It should be terrifying.
It is not.
As we burst out into the hot air, lit by not one but two suns, I hear myself whooping like a mad woman.
I am riding a dragon, and he’s going to take me home!