The Dragon's Pet Page 4

  “Not a good idea,” he said. “I wonder at your commanders not instilling more respect in you.”

  “I respect my commanders,” she said, knowing several of them would not keep a straight face if they heard her speaking those words. “But I don’t respect you.”

  “Well,” he said with a smirk. “Let me see what I can do to change that.”

  Aria had a cold feeling in the very pit of her belly as she looked into his oh so alien golden gaze and knew that she was in more trouble than she had ever conceived before.

  He reached out and ran his hands over her body, tracing the curves of her breasts, stomach, hips, thighs, and bottom. He was surprisingly gentle, given his extreme strength.

  “This isn’t going to work,” she promised him. “I will never submit to you.”

  “Then you will be subjecting your species to a brutal annihilation.”

  “What?” His words shocked her.

  “You don’t understand,” he purred, letting his fingertips run lightly up and down her flanks in a touch that was quite soothing, the hard edges of his fingernails scratching over her skin. “This is not merely an exercise in humiliation. This is to prove a point to my people. Many of our leaders believe that humans can only be subjugated by violence. They will tear Earth apart and leave it a smoldering wreck. I believe that you are not only possessed of some intelligence, but can be trained to please us. So, pet, the more quickly you become compliant, the more quickly you save your species.”

  She stared at him, surprised by how ingenious his plan was. It was… almost brilliant. And it was almost humane as well. Aria was shocked that one of these lizards could scrape together enough empathy to want to save the people his kind were attacking. It was too good to be true.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Believe me or not, the results will be the same,” he said patiently, caressing her body as if he owned it. “My plans for you will work whether you comply or not. The only difference is how painful it will be.”

  The mention of pain made her tense. “You can’t break me.”

  “Pet, I could destroy you in the blink of an eye,” he reminded her. “You are a tender, delicate thing and I am the monster your people have told stories about for generations.” He chuckled at her frown. “Oh, yes, we are aware of your fairytales. Quite interesting, some of them. Your modern world seems to have lost much of the wisdom of the older peoples. The ones who knew that it was better to leave the dragons sleeping in their lairs than to go tearing holes in the sky…” He lowered his lips to her skin, his mouth finding her breast. Heat bloomed where his lips touched, as if there were some reaction between his mouth and her tender skin. Her nipples rose erect in response to his touch, hot buds straining toward him.

  “What a beautiful pet you will make,” he murmured as he kissed from her breasts to her neck, leaving a trail of heat in his wake. Aria moaned, her head falling back as his kiss made tingles race down her spine. “You will serve me well.”

  “I will never serve you!” Aria’s outrage flared. “You are not my master and I will not be your pet. I am equal to you in every way that matters,” she hissed in his face, yanking at her chains. She wanted nothing more than to get at him and wipe that smirk off his face. If only she still had her boots. A good kick to the face, that’s what he needed.

  He looked at her, an expression of amused pity on his face. “You really believe that, don’t you,” he said in patronizing tones. “Little earthbound human, you can’t even fly,” he pointed out. “Not without a machine.”

  “Yeah, but put me in one and I can out fly you any day…”

  “I captured you in your little metal toy,” he reminded her.

  “Only because it broke down,” she argued back. “If I was in anything decent, or anything that hadn’t been worn out fighting you assholes…” She trailed off, her boasts falling on deaf ears.

  “Arrogant little pet,” he smirked. “That seems to be the quality all humans share, a total inability to understand how fragile they are. You have but one form, and it is soft and it is squishy, and it is prone to hunger and disease and a very early aging process… you are so weak… and yet you speak and act as though you were born into a suit of armor.”

  “I don’t think you’ll ever understand what it is to be human, lizard.”

  His palm met her bare bottom in a hard slap that made her grit her teeth and grunt.

  “Language, pet,” he cautioned. “I will not tolerate your disrespect.”

  “I will never respect you,” she seethed. “Not if I lived for a million years. You and all your kind are scum… ow!”

  His hand landed harder than before, the leathery texture of his palm and his superior strength making her cheeks ache and sting at the same time.

  “You’re a slow learner, pet,” he observed. “And a reluctant one. That’s another quality I have observed in almost all humans… the desire to do everything the hard way. You could have capitulated when we arrived. You could have turned your cities and resources over to us and been spared. Instead you decided to fight an unwinnable battle.” He shook his head. “Our commanders are still puzzling over that.”

  “Maybe that’s because you’re cowards,” Aria shot back, not caring if it earned her another slap—which it did. Her butt was starting to ache in between his slaps, as her flesh tried to contend with the power of the dragon.

  Worse than that though, she could feel a slow trickle of moisture at the very core of her being. Why her pussy had chosen that moment to become excited, she didn’t know. All she could do was press her thighs as tightly together as possible and hope that the reptilian brute interrogating her didn’t know enough to notice.

  “Cowards, hmm?”

  “There’s no honor or bravery in fighting a battle you know you will win,” Aria said. “Courage can only exist where there is risk.”

  “I don’t know that doing battle with a lesser species makes us cowards,” he mused almost to himself.

  “We are not a lesser species,” Aria snarled. “You’re a fucking fairytale character.”

  Her captor smirked at her. “Don’t you wish that was true, pet. Don’t you wish you could blink your eyes and wake up from this, find yourself tucked up in a nice warm bed, and realize that the big, mean dragon holding you prisoner was just a dream from a storybook.” He ran his hand up the inside of her thighs and pushed her legs apart, bearing the molten core of her sex to his gaze. “Sorry, pet,” he rumbled in her ear. “You’re wide awake.”

  Aria stiffened against her chains as his fingers began to tease along the welling line of her lower lips. He’d discovered her secret, and he seemed to know exactly what her state of arousal meant.

  “We are not so different in some regards,” he murmured. “In our flesh forms, we have rods which can sink deep inside these tight little chalices you hold.”

  Aria felt one thick, hot finger sinking slowly inside her sex. She bit her lip to stifle the moan that threatened to rise to her lips. He knew precisely how to handle her, this dragon. He knew her every weakness. She tried to resist, but she was no longer trying to resist him, but the reactions of her own body as moisture continued to flow over his finger and her hips started to circle slowly, grinding her pussy on his digit as he chuckled in that superior way he had.

  “Is that what you want, pet?” He growled the question in her ear. “Do you want my cock deep inside this wet hole?”

  Gritting her teeth, Aria shook her head. He was seducing and insulting her at the same time, taking her instinct to fight and turning it against her by making it the source of her pleasure. Every time she struggled, his finger sank deeper and soon a second joined the first, stretching her wider.

  “I think you’re lying to yourself,” Vyktor said. “I think you would erupt into orgasm if I sank myself inside you. You’re dripping wet.”

  He proved his point by thrusting his fingers deep and hard inside her so the sound of her wetness was clearly audible. Her pus
sy was clenching at his hard digits, but they weren’t quite enough, and the desire for something more made her arch her ass back in a silent plea for the one thing she had sworn she would never ask for.

  She hated dragons. Hated them to her very core. So why was she suddenly consumed with desire for one? How could she want him so badly that she ached for him?

  Vyktor pulled his fingers from inside her, leaving her wet and empty. “You are a delight,” he said with a dark grin. “You torment yourself more than I ever could.”

  He slapped her bottom hard enough to make her yelp, which made him chuckle. “You are adorable,” he said, repeating the treatment. “Even when you are being obnoxious and resistant. You will be utterly irresistible when you are tamed.”

  Aria snorted. She would never be tame for these creatures. She would resist them with every last breath in her body.

  He unshackled her hands, giving her aching arms a rest. She crossed them over her naked breasts and rubbed her sore muscles. This was some cruel and unusual punishment. But then, what else could she expect from a fire-breathing lizard invader.

  “I will see you soon, pet,” Vyktor said. “Think about what I have said. The wisest and best course for you is compliance.”

  “I’ll think about that when you think about going to hell,” she shot back as he left the cage, pulling the barred door shut behind him with a thud that made her heart sink. Her resistance would only get her so far while she remained a captive.

  Vyktor left her to her misery and time soon slowed to a near halt. Aria sat cross-legged and rested her head in her hands, trying to figure out some means of escape. There was no getting out of the shackles; they were too narrow to allow her foot to slip free. And even if she did get free, she was naked and the temperature outside the dragons’ lair was freezing. She’d die in a matter of minutes. So she needed clothes. Even if she had clothes, it was a hell of a climb down the mountain. The situation seemed truly hopeless. The only way she was going to get out of there was with one of the dragons’ help. They’d have to send her out of there the same way she had come in, and the odds of that seemed very low.

  Chapter Three

  “You brought a human here?”

  Vyktor had reported the arrival of his human pet to his co-general, a decision he was already regretting. The news had been taken incredibly badly. Vein standing out on head, vestigial scales hardening in preparation for physical battle, badly.

  “It makes sense, Eldor. We do not understand these creatures well enough. The alternative was slaughtering a healthy young female in cold blood. That I will not do. They look so much like us. I believe this war can be ended peacefully. I believe we can find a way to bend these humans to our will.”

  Eldor’s glower did not abate in the slightest. Eldor was greater in age than Vyktor by a significant factor. In their more human forms, Vyktor appeared to be around thirty years of age. Eldor was perhaps closer to forty. Eldor’s hair was jet black, his eyes were of almost the same hue, a marbled gray cut by the vertical black slash of his pupil. He was of the old school, a leader who instilled fear in his own men, and outright terror in those they faced. He did not believe in taking prisoners. He rarely entertained concepts like surrender. And he was furious that a human was now in their midst.

  “I do not answer to you, Eldor,” Vyktor reminded him. “We are equal in these matters. Two generals. Remember?”

  “You do answer to me,” Eldor scowled. “And you still answer to the king, do you not?”

  “The king is not here. We are. You fight these battles one way, I another. We cannot destroy this planet simply because they made the foolish mistake of entering our realm.”

  “We are not destroying the planet. We are at war with the upstart primate species who crossed the boundaries of our sovereign lands and caused the death of our people.”

  “It has been established that it was an accident from the outset.”

  “They sent a scout. The fact that he perished means nothing.” Eldor’s voice was rising with fury. “You should not have brought a human here.”

  “Do not lecture me like a boy who brought a stray home to dinner,” Vyktor replied. “Our king sent us both for a reason. Even in his grief, he wanted this matter settled as peaceably as possible. You have made that almost impossible with the burnings. Every action you take antagonizes them anew. Their anger is global, Eldor. We are doing battle on one continent now, but there are billions more of them. This cannot be settled the way our wars are fought. They will not recognize defeat and simply surrender.”

  “They are defenseless little creatures if you take their weapons,” Eldor said. “They are not worthy to do battle against us. The burnings have been targeted to disrupt their weapons. Once we destroy their mechanical wings, they will surrender. That is how this war will end.” His clenched fist met the table on which a map of the continent was projected.

  “You’re wrong,” Vyktor persisted. “Yes, you can harm their offensive capabilities. But if you think they will lie down and die after that is done, you are wrong. The human I took from the wreckage of her burning flying machine continued to fight me on the ground. She had no hope of winning, but she did not lay down her weapons until they were taken from her, and even then she fought with tooth and nail.”

  “Blunt tooth and soft nail,” Eldor snorted derisively.

  “You underestimate these creatures. They are not stupid, and they are not weak and they have an appetite for battle which can span generations. There are wars on this planet which have been fought almost as long as the species has existed. They do not tire, Eldor. They die. And they send their sons and grandsons and great-great-grandsons to finish what was begun long before any of them drew breath.”

  Vyktor knew his argument was taking effect when Eldor changed the subject abruptly. “And you know this because instead of fighting them, you have been reading their libraries. Your chambers are filled with their paperized natterings.”

  “Knowledge is important, Eldor. These humans have writings sufficient to tell us everything we need to know about them. I have studied them intensely. And I believe that it is possible to take them, primitive as they are in so many ways, and tame them. The same instincts that make them fearsome foes can make them perfect allies. They are brave and tenacious. And each and every one of them is valuable. We are wasting life here, Eldor. That is against our code, and it is against the king’s wishes.”

  “If the human causes any trouble, I will throw her from the mountain myself,” Eldor growled, confirming Vyktor’s suspicion that he had no further points to argue.

  “You will do nothing to her. She is mine. I alone will lay hands on her,” Vyktor corrected him. “I tell you now, I will defend her with my own life, if need be.”

  Eldor’s jaw dropped as his pupils narrowed. The air grew warmer as he expelled a hot breath between his parted lips, hot enough to make a scrap of paper on the table crumple and burn in a flash. Vyktor hoped nothing of importance had been written on it.

  “Why? You have had this creature in your possession for less than an hour. What gives you such loyalty to her?”

  “She is helpless in our clutches,” Vyktor said. “She is soft and she is scared, and what I intend to do with her will push her to the very limits of what she can take. These humans do not understand what they are. They are used to being the most powerful creatures in their realm. Compared to us, they are mere pets. She will resist that with everything she has. And in return, as long as I am training her, she will have my protection. Even if she does not want it. Even if she would kill me if she could.”

  Eldor let out a sigh and shook his head. “Your words wear on me, Vyktor,” he said. “I will not change our battle plan. But I will tolerate one human here. Just one. She must be kept under control at all times. And if anything happens as a result of her presence, it will be on your head. You have been talking about training them from the beginning. Let us see if it is truly possible.”

  Vyktor kn
ew very well that Eldor’s acquiescence came out of a desire to see him fail. If the humans could not be trained or reasoned with, then extermination was the only option left. It was the option Eldor had preferred from the beginning. He had entered the human realm eagerly, with the desire to expand his territories.

  At first it had seemed as though there would be no opposition to their invasion. As far as they were concerned, they had discovered a new realm through a natural rift in their own. One of the creatures from Earth had made its way in, but had perished in very short order, leaving them with very little information. They had mistaken the plane he had been flying for some form of exoskeleton, never realizing that it was, in fact, something the human creatures had made.

  It took some time to realize that the creatures that looked so very simple were actually responsible for the strangest occurrence the dragon realm had ever seen. Understanding their language took several days. Oddly enough, they seemed to speak a variant of the common tongue. That fact excited many of the more studious types in the realm, but the warriors were only interested in its utility. Being able to read their simple scripts also helped. Once those two goals were attained, they had been greatly surprised to discover that the creatures that had torn a hole in their world were small hominid creatures with no grasp of any magic beyond the clumsy manipulation of physical matter. They were soft and particularly squishy, with nothing in the way of overly offensive qualities, no great teeth, no ability to breathe fire or ice. They had no access to the powers that they referred to as magic either. They were the simplest of creatures, incredibly delicate. That delicacy was what made Aria so very beautiful to him.

  Chapter Four

  Aria sat in the cell, confused on an almost biological level. What the dragon had done to her had left her body quivering, and not entirely out of fear. She could still feel where his hot, hard fingers had pushed inside her. She was frightened of what the dragons might do to her. More than that, she was afraid of what she might allow them to do. What she might even want them to do.