RHANI

Chapter 1

Moira Flannery watched the rocket shuttle soar away south over the distant mountains. It led her eyes away from Harkniss Keep to the jagged peaks of Planet Kratak surrounding the Allies research team. The rocket shuttle guided her eyes all the way around in a circle. That’s when she noticed the dragon.

The team’s commanding officer, Rose Cooper, mutter under her breath, “I didn’t know there were dragons on this planet.”

Her sister Reyna Cooper, the team’s genealogist, didn’t notice the dragon at all. “Here they come.”

Both sisters turned their attention to four men walking down the hill from the Keep entrance. All the men of Clan Harkniss towered over their Allies counterparts with their massive shoulders and muscled bulk, and they kept their hands on swords slung at their sides.

Moira noticed only the dragon. It swooped over the pointed peaks and alighted on a mountaintop. It rustled its leathery wings and craned its long neck around to train its silvery eyes on the team of strangers. Its eyelids snapped when it blinked. It looked straight at Moira.

Tanner Montserrat, the team’s anthropologist, nudged her. “Come on, Moira. We’re going inside.”

Moira took a good look at the Krataks for the first time. The men wore simple homespun clothes of natural linen. Their shirts stopped at the shoulder and revealed their muscled arms, and their pants ended just below the knee. They wore no shoes and took no notice of the chilling wind.

Each man wore a diagonal buckler holding his sword with an intricate medallion positioned in the center of his chest. Even the white-haired patriarch wore his hair shoulder-length, but their skin caught Moira’s attention most of all.

Iridescent whirling patterns emerged under their skin, touched the surface, and receded out of sight before the eye could register them. They gave the Krataks’ skin a colored hue, but each man’s moods and thoughts gave him a different color pattern. The patterns fascinated Moira. She would like to study them and follow them with her fingertip, but as soon as she recognized a familiar frond unfurling, or a wave uncurling, it vanished into nothing.

She took a closer look at the tallest man. The patriarch introduced him as Damen, his youngest of three sons. This man’s skin patterns gave him a purple tinge, but something in those rippling swirls reminded Moira of the dragon. Moira saw the dragon’s flashing eyes and smoldering nostrils buried under Damen’s face before the pattern disappeared.

She saw the same thing in the other son, Rohn, only with a greenish cast. The fourth man, the patriarch’s son-in-law Callan Assan, looked different, but his face showed the same tell-tale mark of something reptilian. Moira couldn’t put her finger on it.

Moira followed her teammates into Harkniss Keep, but before she dropped into the mountain’s dark heart, she looked back toward the mountain beyond. The dragon lay curled on the summit with his wings folded against his back.

Two women met the team at the Keep entrance. They wore ornate gowns sweeping to the floor, but their skin showed the same hypnotizing pattern. They hung back and withdrew from any attempt to engage the team in conversation.

Rowan Harkniss, the patriarch, led the team down a deep passage into the mountain. Tapestries and pictures with the same organic unfolding patterns covered the black stone walls and every available surface. Those patterns sprang from the planet itself to grow up into planets, animals, and even people.

Rose talked to Rowan, but the designs surrounding her on all sides entranced Moira. She slowed to a stop more than once to stare at them and puzzle over their meaning.

One particular tapestry caught her attention. The mixture of twining tendrils and interlocking geometric patterns erupted from a fissure in a solid base to form the distinctive shape of a man, but a man unlike any man Moira ever saw.

His shoulders widened around his head, and spikes extended from the flared outline stabbing around his body. His mouth opened in sharp spiky fangs, and a twisting jet of fire shot out of his mouth to curl in licking flame.

Where had Moira seen a shape like that before? She couldn’t remember anything like it except from fairy tales out of her childhood. The man’s hands and feet curled into pointed claws, but the same convoluted patterns covered his face and body with intertwining designs.

What did it all mean? Something in that man’s face reminded her of Rohn, or maybe Rowan the patriarch. Then again, when she really thought about it, it reminded her of all the Krataks. The tapestry must hold some meaning about their identity as a culture.

Rowan led the team into a huge underground chamber with high stone walls. Tables and chairs sat around the room in different sitting areas, and a pleasant warmth radiated up through the floor to make it comfortable.

Rowan sent his son Rohn to show the male team members to one wing of the Keep, while his daughter Haya showed the women another way. Moira observed the Krataks out of the corner of her eye.

As the Allies representative on this mission, she took responsibility for winning this race over to joining the Alliance. Sensitive questions about the Allies’ command structure and the inhabitants’ future after they joined would come straight to Moira, and this mission’s success depended on her answers.

Everyone on the team knew how sensitive this mission would be. The male-dominated Krataks didn’t want to welcome a research team from a female-dominated society at all. They only did it to forestall a full-blown Allies invasion.

Before she left home, General Duncan summoned Moira to her office for a confidential briefing. The General’s decorated blue uniform made her look taller than Moira, though the two women stood the same height. Her long blonde hair hung straight down her back. “I don’t have to tell you, Moira, the Allies have special designs on Kratak.”

“I gathered that from the surveys you sent over yesterday.”

“The Allies will take this planet one way or the other. Your primary mission is to ensure that happens peacefully. Whatever you do, don’t provoke these recalcitrant men. Let them cling to their precious autonomy. When they decide to join, we’ll move in and impose our own system of government on them. Then we’ll teach them what it means to be a civilized society.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ll tell you something else, Moira, and this is not to go beyond these walls.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“No one else on the team knows this, not even Rose. She’s a scientist, not a diplomat. If any of these scientific types found out the Allies’ true agenda, our whole strategy would be blown. Our approach to Kratak, just like all the other planets we’ve brought into our Alliance, has to appear totally benign. The rest of the team has to believe, beyond all doubt, that this mission remains purely scientific. They cannot understand this is a forward operation to gain a foothold on the planet.”

“I understand that, General. I’ve represented the Allies enough times on these research surveys to know the stakes.”

“I know you have. I just wanted to clear the air before you join your teammates in the Quarantine Wing. This will be the last time I get a chance to talk to you.”

“Is there anything else, General?”

“I know you can handle a sensitive mission and your teammates. I just want you to understand this planet’s importance. We can’t lose it, and the Allies will do anything to get it, even if that means taking drastic measures.”

“From what I read yesterday, the inhabitants are primitive and disorganized. I doubt they have the numbers or the capability to repel the Allies, should the Command decide on a full-scale take-over.”

“They don’t. They live in isolated family Keeps, and they have no weapons beyond metal swords. We have all the firepower, space-capable vehicles and rocket shuttles, armored fighter jets, and countless trained military personnel. They wouldn’t stand a chance. Even so, we want to avoid any show of coercion. If we coerced the Krataks or, heaven forbid, invaded them with guns blazing, we would never be able to convince any other planet of our peaceful intentions. We would have to fight tooth and nail every time we wanted something. In fact, every tin-pot tribe on all our planets would start jumping up and down demanding their independence, too, and we would have to fight a long, bloody war with each of them, just to keep what we worked so hard to build.”

“I understand, General. We can’t let that happen.”

“We built this Alliance on our reputation as a benevolent government. The Krataks will fall to that, too, and then we can move our mining equipment down to the surface and make use of the resources inside the planet’s mountains.”

**

Haya showed Rose, Reyna, and Moira down another long passage to their quarters. She opened a door and waved Rose inside before showing Moira to the room across the hall.

Moira turned to Reyna. “I guess I’ll see you later.”

Reyna didn’t answer. She gazed at a tapestry on the wall in front of her. So, Moira wasn’t the only person who noticed them.

Moira went into her room, and Haya led Reyna out of sight. Moira looked the room over. Iridescent threads wove the twining patterns into the quilt covering the bed, and several tapestries decorated the walls.

Moira studied them for a long time. They wormed their way into her brain so she could think of nothing else. They infected her soul with a subconscious understanding of this planet and its people. These artistic representations displayed the Krataks’ image of themselves and their world. They offered a vivid visual picture of the Krataks inner psychological landscape.

A shaft cut into the mountainside let light through the wall. Moira gravitated toward the light. The landscape rolled away from her window to the far horizon. Even as she gazed through that window at the forbidding mountains with their dark forested valleys between, she saw with second sight the surreal patterns sprouting out of the ground to make up everything on this planet.

Vines pushed their way out of the moist soil and braided themselves into tree trunks. They knotted into bone and muscle to create animals, and the invisible spark exploded from a central nexus to make people. The patterns filled the sky to accumulate into lavender clouds and tiny crystals fell as rain.

In the distance, the dragon heaved on his mountain. He turned in a complete circle and cast a restive glance toward the Keep before settling himself down on his nest. He caught sight of Moira, and his silver eyes flashed. Even he contained those patterns. They created dragons, too, in their inscrutable way.

When he looked at her, she recognized again the curious phenomenon she noticed when she looked at Damen and Rohn. Their facial patterns reminded her of the dragon. What would she find if she looked at the dragon up close? Would she discover some secret to explain the resemblance?

She cast her mind back over the passages Haya took to bring her to this room. She could follow them with no trouble, back to the Keep entrance. She would see the dragon better from there. Maybe by that time, it would get up and fly around some more.

Chapter 2

Moira found no one in the passage outside her room. She followed it all the way back to the main hall without seeing a soul, human or Kratak. She found her way back up the passage to the entrance with no problem.

Sure enough, the sun shone full on the mountainside and lit up the countryside. It struck the dragon’s red hide and reflected a thousand prisms across the valley to her eye. Did the sunlight reflecting off its skin make those patterns, too?

She didn’t really mean to start walking down the hill. She only wanted to see the dragon better, to see what made its skin glitter in the sun like that. In a few moments, she found herself standing at the bottom of the hill next to the team’s gear. She glanced around. She was completely alone in this fascinating world.

The dragon let out a screech from the mountain. When she looked up at him, he writhed his head on his long neck to peer down at her. He rose on his four feet and extended his wings.

In a split second, Moira understood. That creature in the tapestry wasn’t a man at all. It was a dragon with fire spurting out of its mouth. The spiky patterns shooting out from its shoulders were wings beating the air to take flight.

Why did she think it was a man? When she thought back, she couldn’t make out exactly what it was. It shifted in her imagination like some kind of optical illusion. One minute, she saw the man clearly. The next minute, he changed into a dragon and back again.

The dragon on the mountain flexed his wings and took to the air. He swooped out over the forest and dwindled to a speck. Moira sighed. She could go back to the Keep, but the forest stood just there. She noticed the same lacy designs scoring the bark of the first trees.

She took a few steps into the woods and touched the bark. The tendrils she imagined growing into the trunk cut deep fissures in the bark. She moved to the next tree. Each tree bore the marks of the pattern integrated into its flesh, but a unique pattern covered the surface of each tree, just as each man carried his own individual pattern etched into his skin.

She walked from one tree to the next when the dragon swooped low overhead. It let out another deafening screech and angled its wings to fly back toward the mountain. As it passed, it bent its head to stare down at her.

She stopped with her hand on a tree. She couldn’t see any sign of the Keep when she looked back over her shoulder. Trees blocked her view in every direction. They covered her head and cast her world in shadow. She should go back before she got hopelessly lost out here. She always went off exploring by herself and always found her way back again, but there was a first time for everything.

Just when she made up her mind to turn around, the dragon soared overhead again—lower this time. He cried out again, but the sound didn’t set her nerves on edge the way it did before. For some reason, she got the idea he wanted to call her. He looked down at her again and flew up to land on his mountain.

She set off again in that direction. She could always find her way back to the Keep. The Krataks must know this terrain well enough to find her if she got lost, and they didn’t seem all that concerned about the dragon.

She hiked through the forest, but the trees got thicker and the woods darker. She lost sight of the mountain, so she didn’t know exactly where she ought to go, but she kept walking. Those world-building patterns occupied her thoughts. She never saw anything like them before. Would she ever be able to look at anything again without seeing them woven into the fabric of the universe? Would they disappear when she left this planet?

Her own world withered into a hollow husk in the past behind her. No life-giving pattern kept it thriving and vibrant and interesting. No spark of life excited her nerves when she laid her hand on the cold metal hull of a rocket shuttle.

Her whole life lay behind her as one featureless waste. No wonder the Allies took over one planet after another with no thought for who got hurt. They couldn’t understand life when they were dead themselves.

They couldn’t understand a living planet like Kratak, with living people rooted in a living fabric of other living things. The Allies could understand nothing but destroying people and places like this.

The sound of running water touched her ear and sparked an insatiable thirst in her parched throat. She headed toward the sound and found a crystal-clear waterfall splashing into a pristine pool.

She stepped forward to take a drink when a roar split the tranquility of the forest scene. The noise startled her ten times more than the dragon’s high-pitched screech. She jumped a foot in the air and spun around to see the biggest creature she ever laid eyes on thundering toward her.

It looked like a pig, but it towered over her as tall as an elephant, with spotted hairy skin and cloven hooves. She caught sight of stubby tusks. It opened its mouth to reveal crooked brown teeth, and it blew jets of steam from its flattened snout.

Then it came too close for her to see clearly. It bashed its great head into her chest, and a stabbing pain ripped through her guts. She hit the dirt on her back, and the creature straddled her to bellow into her face. With a sideways wrench of its head, it ripped the tusk from her abdomen and tore her open.

It dove in to attack with its horrible teeth bared. With the last of her strength, she heaved her arms over her head and knocked it in the snout. Its teeth clicked shut right next to her ear, but in a flash, it came back for another slash.

The warmth of Moira’s life trickled out of her into the sod. Whatever trace of that pattern that infused her body and spirit with life returned to the planet from whence it sprang. It would feed another life with its roots and leaves and molecules. Some particle of Moira Flannery would live on in this primal environment.

The giant pig reared back and came down with all its power with its two sharp front hooves to pulverize her when something even larger knocked it sideways. The pig’s hooves hit her face on their way flying sideways. She blinked, and the pig was no longer there, but a monstrous din of squealing and roaring and bellowing crashed into her awareness from somewhere nearby.

She couldn’t summon the strength to get up, and when she turned her head, her mind wouldn’t comprehend what she saw. The pig tumbled over and over on the ground a few meters away. It slashed with its tusks at the red dragon, who bowled it back and forth across the grass.

One minute, the pig got the upper hand and overpowered the dragon onto his back. It savaged the creature with its tusks and teeth and pawed him with its hooves. The next minute, the dragon fought his way on top and scorched the pig’s hide with his fiery breath.

Moira watched the battle from a distance. Her eyes slid in and out of focus, and her head reeled from loss of blood. Some part of her clung to life, even as that life slipped through her fingers. What a mess she made of the years she had! At least she would die on this planet, surrounded by these patterns, where life seethed and fought all around her to pulsate with breathing, primordial power.

All at once, the dragon gave a great burst of effort and sent the pig bowling sideways. With a surprised squeal, the animal careened over the bank and down the waterfall into the pool.

The dragon gazed over the side at it splashing to right itself in the water. The pig got its feet under it and shook the icy water from its hair. It growled up at the dragon on the bank above, but made no move to clamber up and confront its adversary.

The dragon chuckled down at it, and the pig grumbled away down the stream and out of sight. The dragon threw back his spiky head on his whip neck and screeched, but Moira was too far gone to celebrate the victory.

A snapping branch made the dragon’s head whip around in a flash. The last thing Moira saw before she lost consciousness was a tall figure emerge from the shadowy forest and approach the waterfall. It was Rohn.

Chapter 3

Moira tried to roll over, but shooting pain in her chest and legs woke her out of a fitful sleep. She curled into a fetal ball, but even that hurt. She groaned and clamped her eyes shut.

“Just lie still, and it won’t hurt so much.”

Her eyes snapped open, but she dared not move to look around. She didn’t recognize the deep male voice.

“Don’t try to move. You’ll only injure yourself more. Lie still and rest. Are you hungry?”

She swallowed hard. “No. Just thirsty.”

“Here. Drink this.”

Human hands held a wooden bowl to her lips. A strong hand gripped the back of her neck and helped her lift her head enough to take a few swallows of icy water. When her lips touched the bowl, she noticed the hands couldn’t be human at all. Swirling red color patterns darkened the skin and faded. Whoever this was helping her, he must be Kratak.

Moira let her head fall and closed her eyes again. Everything hurt, but her mind whirled through a million possibilities. Rohn must have found her and stopped the bleeding where the pig gored her in the stomach. He must have.... but this man wasn’t Rohn.

She took a peek through her aching eyelids, but she wasn’t on the grass. Evergreen boughs made a rough bed underneath her, and she couldn’t hear the waterfall anymore. The dull moan of wind against rocks droned in the background. Other than that, she could hear nothing.

“Don’t be afraid,” the voice told her. “You’re safe now.”

Her teeth chattered, and she clenched her fingers into fists. “I’m not afraid.”

The voice moved from one side to the other behind her back. “Your friend the doctor was here before. She tried to help you.”

“Rose was here? Is she here now?” Moira tried again to sit up, but collapsed in pain.

“I’m sorry, no. She went back to the Keep, but I’m taking care of you now. You have nothing to worry about. You sustained some dangerous injuries when the pig attacked you, but I stopped the bleeding. You’ll feel better in a few days. You just need rest now.”

No matter which way she turned, she couldn’t see the stranger speaking to her. “What did you do to stop the bleeding?”

“We have our own ways of healing wounds. You learn a few things hunting these animals in the woods.”

“Do you hunt them often?”

“All the time. They provide us with most of our food.”

“Who are you?”

“Don’t you know? No, of course you wouldn’t know.”

She craned her neck to see, but winced and lay still. “Where are you? I can’t see you.”

“Don’t try. You’ll only hurt yourself.”

“Where am I?”

“You’re somewhere safe. I heard you screaming and found you injured near the waterfall. I brought you here to help you, and I brought your friend the doctor here, too, although that didn’t work out as well as I hoped it would. She didn’t know how to help you, and she wanted to take you back to the Keep, which would have harmed you more than leaving you here.”

“But I thought Rohn found me at the waterfall. How did you...?”

“No more questions. Rest now. We can talk when you feel better.”

Moira collapsed on the boughs. She closed her eyes and drifted into a semiconscious doze. She couldn’t exist in a world with so much pain. Her mind retreated to a place where it didn’t exist.

A rustling noise startled her, but she couldn’t look around to see what it was. “What’s that?”

The strange man didn’t answer. The rustling noise drew nearer, but Moira couldn’t get away. The next thing she knew, the red dragon slithered across her field of view. The long neck arched to fix flashing eyes on her before she faded away altogether.

She woke up in pitch darkness with a strange warmth surrounding her on all sides. She could move normally without pain. She put out her hand to grope for any sign of where she was. Her hand touched something hard and solid, something like metal but warm and vibrant. She ran her hand over the surface. It glided smooth and slippery one way, but sharp and hard the other. A few more tentative strokes, and she made out the curved corners of scales.

She yanked her hand back in a hurry. It must be the red dragon, but how did he get so close to her? In an instant, everything he said to her the first time she woke up came flooding back.

He found her by the waterfall. The red dragon fought the pig and scared it away, and he brought her here—wherever here was. He stopped the bleeding where the pig gored her in the stomach. Whatever he did, it made her feel better. If the dragon brought her here and healed her, whose hands gave her the water?

A deep groan answered her touch and she braced herself for the worst, but the massive presence surrounding her didn’t move. “You’re awake.”

She nodded in the darkness, but she couldn’t bring herself to answer. How did you speak to a dragon? How could he talk to her like this, with a normal human voice when he wasn’t human at all? That was the same voice she heard before. The dragon must have been here when the man gave her the water.

“Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”

She swallowed hard. She couldn’t just lie here in silence. “You keep saying that.”

“I keep saying it because I want to put you at ease. I can see you’re not comfortable with me around you, but I had to keep you warm. It gets cold up here at night.”

“Up here? Where?”

“You’re in my nest. I brought you here close to death. You’re on my mountain.”

Images from—when was it? Yesterday? Weeks ago? When did she disappear? Did any of her friends know where she was? He said Rose was here, so at least Rose knew where she was.

She tried to get up, but the pain rushed back. It stabbed her in the guts, and her knees buckled under her. She fell on the boughs, and her hand flew out to break her fall. She grazed the scaly hide before she pulled her hand away.

“You still need to rest. You haven’t fully recovered.”

“Whatever you did to save me, thank you.”

“You still have some wounds that haven’t completely healed. There is still more I can do to help you, but I hesitate to frighten you any more than I already have.”

She let out a shaky breath. “I’m not frightened. I’m just confused. I’ve never been this close to a dragon before.”

“Never?”

“We don’t have them where I come from.”

“Hmm. I find that odd, but then again, I am one so I consider myself normal. I will try to.... Well, I don’t know what I’ll try to do. I can’t exactly make myself into anything other than a dragon.”

“You don’t have to make yourself into anything else. It just takes some getting used to, I guess, and I never expected a dragon to talk like a man.”

“Not all dragons do. I suppose I perfected the art since I was young.”

“How did you do it?”

“I really don’t remember, to tell you the truth. It’s just something I’ve always done. It makes communicating with people much easier, so I did it.”

“Are there many others of your kind?”

“Thousands.”

“Where are they?”

“All over the planet.”

“I haven’t see any, although I’ve only been on this planet a short time.”

“I’m sure you’ll see plenty before you’re through.”

Something massive loomed in front of her face, and she smelled sulfur smoke. The starlight glinted off his two eyes hovering inches from her face.

“What is your name?”

“Moira.”

“Moira. That’s an interesting name. I’ve never heard it before.”

“It’s Irish.”

“I don’t understand that word.”

“It comes from my world. It’s the culture that name comes from.”

“I see.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Before I tell you that, I want to heal your wounds some more. If I give you one more treatment, you should be able to walk around in the morning.”

“Go ahead. I’ll do anything to get out of this nest.”

“Don’t agree until I tell you what I’m going to do.”

She froze. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to lick you. I did it before, but you were unconscious. If you don’t want me to, I won’t do it. I don’t want to do anything too revolting for you.”

“You want to....to lick me?”

“You still have a puncture wound on your abdomen and several fractured ribs. My saliva has the power to heal wounds. That’s how I saved your life. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it would help you.”

She rolled away and closed her eyes. “I’ll do anything to get rid of this pain.”

He didn’t reply, and she braced herself for whatever would come next. He wanted to....to lick her. The very thought made her skin crawl. He was a lizard. His tongue would be sticky and slimy. How much of it could she stand before she screamed in horror?

He curled around her with his body. No matter which way she turned, she touched that scaly hard skin. It radiated warmth into her shattered limbs and dissolved the fear and revulsion. She relaxed into whatever he was about to do.

Beyond the curve of his sides, a brisk mountain wind gusted over the peak. It would blast straight through her if he wasn’t there. He protected her at every corner. He wouldn’t suggest licking her wounds if he didn’t think it would help.

His massive presence moved all around her. His skin rustled against the boughs, and the thick coils slid sideways. His long tail glided out of the way, and his head wove before her eyes. “Turn over.”

She eased onto her back, but even that sent bolts of pain shooting through her every sinew. She straightened her legs and looked up into a clear black sky studded with stars. They anchored her. She understood those stars. She could float among them until this was all over.

His voice rattled her bones. “Lift up your shirt.... please.”

She inched up her shirt, but stopped it just below her ribs. If she hadn’t been lying in a nest of tree branches on top of a mountain on an alien planet, talking to a dragon about licking her wounds, she could have been at the doctor’s office.

A tough scabbed-over puncture wound was in the middle of her belly. It cut up through her diaphragm into her torso when she touched it with her fingers. No wonder she almost died.

Before she could think anything else, something soft and warm touched her skin right next to her own hand. She froze in place, and a shiver passed along her nerves from her belly down her legs to her feet.

She felt nothing but this velvet warmth running all over her skin. Nothing slimy or disgusting made her cringe in disgust. It covered her skin with delicate softness and burrowed into her being on kitten paws.

Intoxicating delirium flooded her mind and washed away every ache and discomfort. She succumbed to its intricate spell. It erased her memories of the Keep, her team, her homeland, and replaced them with such rapturous delight as Moira had ever known. Pain dissolved and disappeared. Nothing remained but the bliss of this moment.

She closed her eyes against the stars and turned her head to one side. She sucked her breath through her teeth and arched her back into that overpowering sensation. It filled her with desperate longing for.... for what? She couldn’t pin down what she craved with all her heart. She only wanted something.... the source of that overwhelming pleasure.

Queer energy built to a climax in her central core. It rushed out to animate her limbs. She had to move. She had to do. She had to be something she’d never been and seize something she never knew before. She couldn’t rest until she grabbed it for herself.

That unexplained sensation crept into her bones and spread over her. It sank its twining roots into her flesh and transformed it into a living part of itself. Those tendrils ate their way into her brain and rewrote the architecture of her synaptic pathways until she could think of nothing else but them.

Sprouting out of the fermented brew she beheld the dragon, that curious combination of man and beast she first saw in the tapestry. He rose up before her and dominated her every thought. She could see and think and comprehend nothing but him.

What was he doing to her? In her vision, he loomed over her and blacked out the sky with his curving leather wings. The wind rushed off his scales and blew her hair back from her face. His body crushed her against the ground, and his flesh pulsed against her until she couldn’t breathe.

All the time this vision flashed before her eyes, that heavenly warmth infused outward from her belly to her extremities. It throbbed in her veins and wormed its way into those sensitive tissues between her legs. Her genitals twitched from the blood pumping through them, swelling them and urging them to stand up and take notice.

In her vision, the dragon filled her cunt with his body. His shaft stretched her open and filled her beyond endurance, but he couldn’t be doing that in reality. Could he? This was all some hallucination brought on by his healing saliva.

Her mind couldn’t separate the vision from the reality. He really did conquer her and fill her with himself. Her mind made the vision real, and she gave herself over to it with all her heart. She couldn’t stop herself. Whatever he did to her made her quiescent, body and mind.

She threw her head back and arched her body against it. She shrieked in orgasmic delight. Her thighs rubbed against imaginary coils slithering between her legs and nudging her clitoris to completion. Warm ooze gushed from her channel to wet her pants and glisten down her ass.

When he stopped and moved away, she quivered all over with satisfaction. She moaned and whimpered and writhed in aching delight. She never experienced anything like it in her life, and he wasn’t even human. For all she knew, he never entered her at all. He said he wanted to lick her wound, to cure it, so that’s what he must have done.

He curled his long body around her once again, and his heat filled her with sleepy contentment. As soon as he stopped licking her belly, the curious sensation faded. Cold clarity returned to her mind. He hadn’t done anything to her. He licked her wound—nothing else.

She didn’t care. In her heart and soul, he really had done it. He’d stood over her in all his grandeur, and he possessed her as no man could. Her whole body glowed. She would never be the same.

She fell into a deep slumber and dreamed she was flying over Kratak on outstretched wings. She looked down on Keeps and forests and ice fields, and when she wanted to rest, she landed on mountain peaks and took her warmth from lava flowing underneath them.

Chapter 4

Moira woke in cold, grey light, but the solid red coils still surrounded her on all sides. She put out her hand and touched the scaly surface. It meant something different now than it did last night before he licked her wounds. That hard surface was his skin.

Whatever he was, she wanted to experience it. She wanted him. That was her secret desire last night, to return to him the glory and pleasure he gave her. Could he feel the way she did? Maybe not.

She ran her hand down the scales. They didn’t give an iota under her hand. Her heart sank. He couldn’t feel her touch. He was a giant reptile. Nothing could ever exist between the two of them. That was just her imagination playing tricks on her in the dark.

All of a sudden, he growled deep and rumbling in his chest. She flipped over and found a solid wall of red, scaly dragon lying behind her. The part in front of her was just a small portion of his tail looped around her to keep her warm.

She touched his side, and he rumbled low in his chest again. She stroked his skin, and he purred. “Can you feel that?”

“Of course, I can feel it. I’m not made of stone, you know.”

“I wasn’t sure. You didn’t move the other times.”

“I can feel your touch very well.”

She stroked those fiery scales backward and forward. She could stroke them down but not up. Their sharp edges caught her hand. She got up on her knees to cover more of his skin.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m touching you.”

“Why are you doing that?”

“You touched me last night, so I’m touching you now.”

“I didn’t touch you. I licked your wound the way I told you I would, but I didn’t touch you in any other way. I wouldn’t presume.”

She didn’t stop. She stretched her arm to reach up his neck, but when she ran her hand down his neck to his side, he whipped his body away and got to his feet. He moved away, and his eyes burned in his pointed face when he turned around to glare at her. “Don’t do that.”

“Why? Don’t you like me touching you?”

“I like it very much—too much. Don’t do it anymore.”

Her hand fell to her side. “Oh. Okay. I won’t if you don’t want me to. I just wanted to make you feel as good as you made me feel last night.”

“I told you....”

“I know what you told me, but that can’t be right. I saw you and felt you. It doesn’t matter what you actually did. I felt it. To me, it happened.”

“I would never touch you like that, Moira. You’re a guest on our planet. I wouldn’t intrude on you without....”

“Without what? Without my permission? I’m giving you permission. I liked it, and I wanted it. I want you to do it again.”

“I don’t have to do it again. You’re healed now. You don’t feel any pain, do you?”

She thought it over. “No, I don’t feel any pain now.”

“I healed you. You can go back to your friends now. They’ll be worried about you, especially your doctor friend. She’ll wonder if you’re dead up here, and she’ll blame me.”

“I’m sorry. I thought you wanted it. I thought you wanted it as much as I did. I thought that’s why you licked me like that, to give me that vision so I would desire you.”

“I had no idea licking you would make you desire me. Anyway, I’m a dragon and you are a woman.”

“I know that.”

“Do you desire a dragon as your mate?”

Moira blinked. “I never thought of it like that. I only know what I experienced.”

“What did you experience? Tell me.”

“I had a vision of you doing it with me—mating with me, as you call it. Your licking, or your saliva, or whatever it was, filled my body with pleasure, stronger pleasure than I ever experienced any other time, with any man.”

“What did you see in your vision?”

“When we first landed here and the Krataks took me into their Keep, I saw a tapestry with what I thought was a man. The intricate patterns on the Krataks’ skin came out of the ground and grew up through his body and burst out all over him. Later I realized it wasn’t a man in the tapestry at all, but a dragon. The patterns spread out around his shoulders like wings and shot out through his mouth in flames of fire. That’s what I saw last night. You were the dragon, and the patterns came through you from the planet.”

He listened in silence. Then he shifted his weight away from her. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I never touched you.”

“That doesn’t matter. You gave me pleasure. I only thought you might like it if I returned the favor.”

“How would you do that? You cannot mate with me like this. You’re too small.”

“I know it doesn’t make any sense.”

He let out a long breath. “You belong back in the Keep.”

She hung her head. “Thank you, anyway. Thank you for saving my life, and for everything else you’ve done for me. I’m ready to go back now.”

“I can’t take you back now. It’s getting dark. I’ll have to take you back in the morning.”

Moira looked around. “Isn’t it dawn?”

“No, it’s dusk. You slept all day. Your body needed to rest in order to heal. My saliva put you to sleep. Perhaps you had that vision in a dream.”

“No, I was definitely awake, because I remember the moment when you stopped. I remember it very distinctly, because as soon as you stopped licking me, I could tell you hadn’t actually touched me. I could tell it was only your saliva that made me think you had.”

“Then you understand I never transgressed against you.”

“I never thought you did transgress against me. I’m telling you, I wanted you to.”

He turned away. “Let’s not talk about this anymore. Are you hungry? I can bring you something to eat.”

“What will you bring?”

He bent his head behind a rock and brought out a linen sack. He carried it in his teeth and set it down at her feet. “Take it.”

She hefted the bag in her hand, but when she untied the string holding it closed, she found inside a haunch of roasted meat and what looked like some kind of bread. “Where did you get this?”

“From the Keep.”

“Did you steal it?”

“Steal it? How could I steal it?”

“I don’t see how you could sneak into the Keep without anybody seeing you, but I can’t think of any other way you could have gotten this.”

“I didn’t steal it. Does that satisfy you? Eat it. You’ll feel better.”

His assurance would have to satisfy her as she couldn’t see any other explanation for how he could get his.... his claws on a woven linen sack, tied closed with a double knot, and filled with food made by human hands.

She sat down on the boughs and tore off a chunk of the meat. Its juice filled her mouth with its savory flavor, and the bread satiated a hunger she didn’t realize she had.

She tied the bag closed the way she found it. “Do you want to put this away for later?”

“You can keep it. I brought it for you.”

“When did you do that?”

“While you were unconscious. I thought you might be hungry when you woke up.”

“Thank you for thinking of me.”

“I only want what’s best for you, Moira. I would take you back to the Keep now, but it’s too dark to fly. I’m afraid you’ll have to spend another night on the mountain.”

“I don’t mind spending another night on the mountain. Actually, I’m in no hurry to get back.”

“Aren’t you worried about your friends? You have a job to do back at the Keep.”

“We’re on this planet for a whole year. We have plenty of time to study the Krataks and their ways. Besides, the others will do the work. I won’t do much.”

“Why is that?”

“They’re scientists. They’re the real researchers. I’m the Allies representative. My job is to ensure the mission runs smoothly. I conduct political negotiations between the local inhabitants and the Allies if any come up, but I don’t think they will.”

“Why not?”

“Because the Allies set their sights on this planet, and they’ll get it, no matter what the Krataks think or do. This research mission is just a front to get our presence on the planet. The Allied Command will use any intelligence the team gathers to plan the next phase of our conquest of this planet. If the Krataks kick up a fuss, they’ll only make the situation worse for themselves in the long run.”

His eyes glittered, and his voice dropped to a low growl. “That’s what the Krataks fear about this research mission, and the Allies assured them that was not the case.”

“I’ve been on these research teams ten times before, and it’s always the same. The Allies will tell these people whatever they have to tell them to get their toe in the door. Once the locals agree to a research mission, they can’t say no to a permanent research station. After that, they can’t say no to an armed guard to protect the research equipment. After that, they can’t say no to a complex to house the scientists and a garrison to house the guard. And on and on it goes, until the Allies take over the planet. In between all that, the Allies offer incentives and subtle threats to make the locals join the Alliance. Once they agree to join, their native autonomous government goes out the window and the Allies put their own laws and governors in place. That’s the way it always works.”

“Then this whole research team is really an advance military force, exactly as the Krataks suspected.”

“The rest of the team doesn’t know that, though. They think it’s a genuine research operation, that they’re here to study an unusual culture and document it. If you ask Rose or Reyna, they’ll tell you the Allies’ intentions are perfectly benign.”

“How perfectly devious of you.”

“It’s not my idea. Somebody has to do it, and that’s my job.”

“And what happens after the locals join the Alliance?”

“They become a subject race, like the other members. They no longer have the right to make autonomous decisions, and if they buck the Allies’ control, the military comes in to straighten them out.”

“What happens if someone refuses to join the Alliance?”

“That doesn’t happen. The more they resist, the more pressure the Allies bring to bear until the locals buckle. Sooner or later, everybody joins. Everyone always has, and the Allies won’t let one planet slip through their fingers. If they did, they wouldn’t be able to control all the others. Their dominance would crumble.”

“Hmm. I see.”

She settled herself down among his warm coils for the night. “I’m glad I can talk to you about this. No one else knows. It’s hard carrying a secret like this from your own friends.”

“I suppose you know what would happen if the Krataks found out about this.”

“Nothing would happen. Even if the Krataks got wind of it and decided to expel the team early, the Allies would simply step up their operation. They would take over right away, with no more polite overtures. Like I said, the Krataks are much better off doing it this way.”

He wrapped his tail around her in the nest and moved his head closer so she smelled the sulfur on his breath. “And what happens to you after you facilitate the conquest?”

“I go home, I collect my pay, and I go back to my life.”

“And that’s what you’ll do when you leave Kratak, I suspect.”

“Exactly.”

He turned his head aside. She couldn’t see his eyes. “And the Krataks will be left to twist in the wind.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you ever think perhaps you might be doing the wrong thing?”

“Wrong? Who knows what’s right and wrong? The Allies are dominant. Somebody has to be, and it just happens to be them right now. If it wasn’t them, it would be someone else. Most of these backward cultures really are better off with the Allies. They have no technology and no medical care. They’re primitive. Joining the Allies is the best thing for them.”

“I’m sure they would rather be primitive and retain their autonomy than become chattels to a tyrannical military power.”

“The Allies aren’t tyrannical.”

“I think, Moira, you would find the situation very different if you looked at it from the Krataks’ point of view.”

“I’m sure it would, but I’m not on the Krataks’ side. I’m on the Allies’ side.”

“Right.”

The silence grew and grew until it took up the whole night. Moira closed her eyes and drifted over the mountains on the rising drafts of warm air. The interlocking patterns filled the whole planet and everything in it. They penetrated the ground and the plants, and the animals ate them so the patterns formed their bodies, too.

Those same patterns found their way into Moira. She breathed them in, she ate them with the food the dragon gave her, and they touched her skin through the boughs underneath her. No matter which way she turned, they conquered her and made her a part of this planet, just like themselves.

She turned on her side, and her face bumped against the dragon’s body. She didn’t recoil, but buried her face in that slick, scaly surface. She trailed her lips over the smooth texture. When she laid her hand on it, electric power surged through her and reignited the delirious rapture she experienced yesterday at his touch.

“What are you doing, Moira?”

“I’m touching you. Don’t you want me to?”

“You don’t know what you’re doing. If you knew, you wouldn’t do that.”

“I know what I’m doing. I want to do it, and you want me to, too. Admit it. You like me touching you, so why do you keep telling me not to?”

“I’m a dragon, Moira. You’re a woman.”

“Do you desire me?”

He spoke directly to her soul. “You know I do.”

She scooted her body closer to his. She brushed her breasts against his rough hide and raised one knee to graze her pubis against his flank. “I know you’re a dragon, but everything about you makes me desire you. I’ve never desired anything as much as this. I can’t live without this. I’m going out of my mind.”

He turned his head away. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“You’ll ruin us both. You’ll ruin everything.”

“I don’t care.”

His head swung up. “You don’t really mean that. You just got finished telling me you would return to your own world when your mission ended, that you would take your pay and go back to your old life. If you don’t stop touching me right now, that will never happen. You aren’t really ready to turn your back on everything you know to mate with a dragon.”

She thought that over. Of course, he was right. She didn’t understand his warning, but she recognized the inherent sense in it. She could want him all she liked. He could turn her on like nothing else, but underneath it all, they were just too far apart. She wasn’t ready to throw over everything to be his. “You still haven’t told me your name.”

He twisted away from her. He contorted his long body around and lifted himself onto his four feet. He left her cold and alone in the nest, and when she got to her feet to face him, and his eyes glowed in the night. An eerie iridescence shimmered on his skin so she saw him clearly, even in the dark. “If you go back to the Allies when this mission ends, you will never know my name.”

“Why? Why can’t I know your name?”

“There are many things you will never know about this planet and its people. You are an enemy of our planet. You just said so yourself.”

“Of the Krataks, maybe, but you’re not one of them. We’re something apart from them. Why do we have to be enemies?”

“You told me before you saw patterns in everything here.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you see them in me, too?”

“Yes. I told you that.”

“Then you understand why being an enemy of Kratak and its people makes you an enemy to me. Those patterns make me a part of this planet just like the people. If you destroy them and the planet, you destroy me. If you conquer and subjugate the people, you conquer and subjugate me. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not. I don’t want to destroy anybody.”

“And yet that’s exactly what you’re doing. That’s what you’re here for, and when you’re finished, you’ll go home and forget all about me. How can you think of mating with me?”

Her voice cracked. Every word stabbed her heart to pieces. “What am I supposed to do, then? I can’t change what I am.”

“I can see the patterns, too, Moira. We all do. That’s all we do see when we use our eyes to see the world around us. That’s why the Krataks create those pictures they keep in their Keeps. That’s the way they see their world, and I can see the patterns in you, too. When you first came to this planet, you had no pattern at all. They were weak when I first brought you here, but they keep getting stronger the longer you stay here. You can feel them, can’t you?”

She couldn’t speak above a whisper. “Yes.”

“Give yourself over to the pattern, Moira. Make yourself their friend and ally instead of their enemy. Choose them.”

“That would mean making the Allies my enemy. How can I do that? I belong to the Allies. They’re my whole life.”

“Then you can’t have me. You must choose. If you choose the Allies, I will keep you warm tonight and take you back to the Keep in the morning. You will rejoin your friends and continue with your domination agenda.”

“And what about you? Will you tell the Krataks what I told you about the Allies’ true intentions?”

“I don’t have to. They already know. Rowan Harkniss suspected the Allies’ intentions from the beginning, and no assurance from your deluded friends will change his mind. I know the other patriarchs agree with him.”

“How do you know that?”

“Come and lie down, Moira. It’s getting late, and you’re getting cold out there in the wind. I will keep you safe tonight, but do not touch me like that again.”

She sank down on the boughs, but a lump stuck in her throat. Competing loyalties and emotions tugged her in every direction. How could she turn her back on him, yet how could she turn her back on the Allies to choose him?

She closed her eyes in the pleasant bubble of his warmth, and the patterns swirled before her eyes. What if he was right? What if she was turning into a creature of this overarching pattern, just like the Krataks?

That would make her one of them. That would make her a target of the Allies’ agenda. That would make the Allies her enemy. She wasn’t just destroying him with her loyalty to the Allies. She was destroying herself.

This pattern pushed its way out of the planet to penetrate her every corpuscle, but in the end, it sprang from her very being. It was her, and she was it. Her true self manifested itself in its interwoven designs.

She lived her whole life in a lifeless, sterile world. She never understood the pattern of life. She never experienced herself as a living thing—until now. How could she turn her back on that?

She wanted it. She wanted the pattern to take over every inch of her skin and mind and soul. She wanted it to consume her and make her whole. She wanted it to burst from her skin to touch the rest of the planet with the same life-giving spark.

The dragon laid his big head next to her and purred through his smoky nostrils. Moira closed her eyes, and an unstoppable force pulled her head to one side until her lips touched his skin.

A quiver shivered down his long length, but she didn’t pull back. She turned her whole body to him and laid her hand on his skin next to her lips.

“Moira....”

“Don’t say anything. Just take me. Please.”

His head rose to peer at her in the dark. “Are you sure?”

She extended her arm to embrace his huge side. “I’m sure. I don’t care what it costs. I’m here now, and I’ll stay here. I’m part of Kratak, just like you.”

He studied her in silence for a long time. Even when she lay on her side with her eyes closed, the patterns throbbed through her. They surrounded her every nerve and fiber. They blew out of her eye sockets and washed in and out of her lungs when she breathed. She breathed them against his skin, and they reflected back to seep into her flesh again.

She whispered into his skin, “Take me. Take me. I’m yours now.”

Faster than she could think, he whipped away. His tail whistled through the air, and his great wings battered around her. In an instant, he was on his feet with his long neck weaving his head back and forth in front of her.

By the glowing light of his skin and the starlight above, she watched in astonishment as the powerful neck withdrew down between his shoulders. His tail slithered over the ground and disappeared into his back. He folded his wings between his shoulders, and they became part of his body.

His whole body shrank before her eyes. His limbs straightened, his face flattened, and the spikes running along his spine dropped out of sight. Nothing remained of the red dragon until a tall, sturdy man stood in its place.

His brown hair hung down to his shoulders, and his feet stuck out bare under knee-length pants. His shirt had no sleeves and showed his shoulders rounded with muscle. A linen sash cut diagonally across his chest, and a patterned medallion hung in the center.

He gazed down at Moira with flashing silver eyes. A reddish pattern seethed under his skin. It rose to the surface just long enough to give a hint of its shifting shapes before it vanished.

Moira stared at him. “Who are you?”

He took a step closer to her. He towered a full head taller than she. “I couldn’t tell you before, Moira. You said yourself you were an enemy of our people. I couldn’t tell you until you gave yourself over of your own free will.”

She put out her hand to touch his skin. The colored pattern rose to meet her touch before it swirled away somewhere else. “What does all this mean?”

“You asked my name, and I couldn’t tell you before. I’m Rahni Harkniss. I’m Rowan Harkniss’s oldest son, but I’ve lived on this mountain nearly all my life. I always preferred to live as a dragon. I spent so much time in my dragon form, sometimes I forgot what being a man was like.”

She blinked. A thousand images flooded her mind. “You’re... you’re the dragon?”

“We all are. We can all shift from dragon to people and back again at will.”

“But you kept it secret. No one knows.”

“When the Allies first started making overtures to us, the patriarchs suspected they had a hidden agenda. They also suspected the Allies would turn hostile if we refused this research mission, so they accepted it. They decided to keep our true nature a secret. If relations between Kratak and the Allies turn violent, at least we’ll have that advantage over them. So, you see why I didn’t want you to know I was really a man underneath my dragon skin.”

“You’re....You’re....”

He drew closer. “You gave yourself to a dragon, Moira. Can you give yourself to a man?”

Her mind whirled. So, this was the real him. Rahni. That name whispered secrets to her soul. It imprinted the cosmic pattern on her for all time, and her transformation was complete. “I didn’t give myself to a dragon. I gave myself to you.”

Rahni put his arms around Moira and drew her against his chest. At close proximity, she smelled dragon, and the warmth poured off him to soften her flesh into his embrace. He pressed his lips to her hair, and his mesmerizing presence prickled down her scalp. The hair on her neck stood on end, and her skin tingled all over.

He cupped her chin to lift her mouth to his, and his saliva sent its passionate rapture gushing down her throat. Taking it through her skin transformed her world, but taking it through her mouth finished the job.

His presence filled her with explosions of complicated designs and combinations. Colors fought back and forth for her being. Competing patterns overlapped in search of any spare inch of her not already occupied by tendrils, fronds, sprouting plants, seething creatures, grimacing faces, tumbling waves, and every conceivable organic design.

She couldn’t keep up with them fast enough. She had no choice but to let them crash over her and take her far away from everything she understood and cherished. Life took her for its own. She was nothing but pure life.

He laid her down on the boughs, and his lips tugged and prodded her mouth open to receive his tongue. He stretched himself out at her side, and his hand ruffled the patterns warring across her skin. When he touched her, the pattern rose and surrounded his fingertips. When he moved to another place on her body, the pattern subsided and re-emerged somewhere else.

Patterns clouded her eyes so she couldn’t see, but in her mind’s eye, she saw her own pattern merge with his. The tendrils danced from his skin to hers and back again. He planted the seeds in her, and the sprouts wound around him to pull his skin into hers.

Where did he end and she begin? What was she? She could no longer tell. She knew nothing but the exploding pleasure of his touch, his warmth spreading through her and filling her from the inside with starbursts.

He rolled up on top of her, and their merger came to its completion. Every inch of her skin married with his to form one continuous pattern. Rahni. Rahni. Rahni.

The sound crashed in her ears. It made the most beautiful music she could imagine. It fulfilled her buried desire for him and made it real.

Somehow, somewhere, their clothes disappeared so they lay as man and woman under the stars. Nothing separated his pattern from hers but a thin cushion of air, and that disappeared in a film of hot juice.

It flowed from her pulsating lips to surround him in a loving embrace. It hugged him to draw him into her and make their union complete.

As soon as he got inside, sparkling fire raged along his massive shaft to fill her and answer her rising cries with his own blessed rapture. The pattern took over their movements and stroked her from the inside out. It pumped her full of his tree trunk shaft to explode out of her pores. She spread her arms to the universe, and the sparks flew from her fingertips.

She was that being in the tapestry. She was complete.

Chapter 5

Moira woke up ravenous the next morning. She sat up to find Rahni coiled around her in his dragon form. She paused only a moment before she laid her hand on his shoulder and kissed his scaly skin. Then she got out her bag of food and finished everything left inside it.

He watched her eat with his silver eyes. “I hope you don’t mind me like this. It’s easier for me.”

She swallowed the bread she was chewing. “I don’t mind. I fell in love with you like this.”

“You’re the first person who doesn’t mind. Everybody else wants me to come live in the Keep with the rest of the family.”

“I can understand that. It must be lonely out here all by yourself.”

“Lonely? Not at all. I was much more lonely in the Keep before I came up here.”

“When was that?”

“I was just a boy when I started staying away from home for days at a time. My mother didn’t like it at all. She asked my father to have a talk with me, but that only made it worse. I didn’t want to do anything but fly around and hunt. I wanted to live the rest of my life as a dragon.”

“And what about now?”

“Now that you’re here? I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Isn’t this why you brought me up here? Didn’t you want a mate?”

“I didn’t bring you here for that. I brought you here because you would have been dead if I hadn’t. And as for finding a mate, I never considered it until you started touching me that way. I like living alone.”

“Where does that leave me?”

He curled closer around her. “That leaves you with me. We’re here together, and no one can interfere with that.”

“What will happen to us? Will we stay up here forever?”

“I don’t think you would be happy with that.”

“No, I wouldn’t, and you wouldn’t be happy in the Keep.”

“I could be happy in the Keep if I had you to look forward to. I could fly around as much as I wanted to and come home to you instead of this mountain when I got tired.”

“Your mother will be beside herself that you found a mate.”

“I’m sure she will be.” He chuckled. “They all will be. The news will be all over the planet in a few days.”

“Why did they let you stay up here when our team landed out there? Why didn’t they try to hide you or something?”

“They never mentioned it.”

“Would you have hidden if they asked you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, but no one asked. What did they say about me when you asked?”

“They didn’t say anything. Rose asked, but no one answered her. That could have been a mistake, because she’s a bulldog for finding out what she wants to know. Not answering her questions just makes her more determined to find out why no one will tell her what she wants to know.”

“What will you tell them about me when you get back?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t go back. Maybe we should stay here.”

“Forever?”

“I can think of worse places to be.”

At that moment, a high-pitched whine echoed over the mountains. A shiny ball of sunlight streaked through the sky and circled Harkniss Keep. Moira sat up straight and peered out of the nest. The bright object drifted toward the ground and landed in the same place the team alighted just a few days before.

Rahni lifted his head to take a look. “What is that?”

Moira hooked her arm over his neck and pulled him down. She hissed in his ear. “Stay out of sight. Don’t let them see you up here. It’s a rocket shuttle.”

“A what?”

“A space vehicle. One of those dropped us off here the other day. Don’t you remember?”

“So why is it here now? You’re supposed to stay on the planet for a year.”

The shuttle’s door swung upwards, and a tall woman with long blonde hair and a crisp blue uniform stepped out. She looked all around her, but she didn’t leave the shuttle’s side.

Moira groaned. “Oh, no!”

“What’s the matter? Who is it?”

“It’s General Duncan. She’s our commanding officer. She’s in charge of this mission.”

“What’s she doing here?”

“I don’t know, but it can’t be good. Something must have happened.”

“Like what?”

“Look. There’s Rose and Reyna coming out of the Keep to talk to her.”

Moira crouched low in the nest and watched two tiny figures emerge from the Keep entrance. They approached the shuttle, and all three women stood in conversation for a long time.

“What are they talking about?”

“General Duncan can only have come here for one reason, and that’s to abort the mission. She wouldn’t interfere for any other reason.”

“Why would she abort it when the Allies have put all this time and expense and planning into it?”

“Don’t you see? They reevaluated their strategy. They decided to forget the soft approach and escalate their conquest. They want this planet and they want it now, and forget the research.”

“Have you seen this happen before?”

“Only once, and it wasn’t pretty.”

“So, what happens now?”

“They’ll withdraw the teams. See? General Duncan is leaving, and Rose and Reyna are going back to the Keep. They’ll inform the rest of the team, and they’ll pack up and leave.”

“Why is General Duncan leaving without them?”

“She’s going to inform Team 2 at Assan Keep. Then she’ll come back here and pick everybody up.”

The rocket shuttle lifted off the ground and shrieked across the sky to the south. Rahni stood up and shook himself. “Well, that’s that, then. We have to arm for invasion. Oh, look. Here comes Damen.”

Moira followed his gaze down the other side of the mountain. Sure enough, she spotted a man running up the mountain side. He looked like a tiny insect at that distance.

Moira’s heart sank. This was the end of their pleasant isolation on the mountain. When the rest of the team left the planet, she would be left alone here in the new life she chose with Rahni. Then what?

In a few minutes, Damen would reach them and call them down to the Keep. The Krataks would arm for the Allies invasion, and she would advise them how best to combat the threat. She would make good on her promise to join the Krataks as an enemy of the Allies.

Rahni let out a sigh. “Well, that’s it then.” He was thinking the same thing. Just when they found each other, their whole world came crashing down.

Moira whirled around. She couldn’t let this happen. “Quick, Rahni! Fly away from here.”

His head shot up. “Fly away? I couldn’t leave you.”

“Take me with you. Let’s get out of here. Let’s not go back just yet. I’m not ready to face your family and everything else about to happen. Let’s fly away somewhere, away from all this.”

“We can’t escape by flying away. My people need me right now.”

“We don’t have to escape. Let’s just get out of here before your family finds out. I don’t want to run away. I just want a few more days, just the two of us. Please.”

He lowered his head and closed his eyes. Now they heard Damen’s feet rattling the stones down the hillside. He called out, “Rahni! Rahni!”

She ran to him and laid her cheek against his tough shoulder. “Please, Rahni. Let’s get off by ourselves, just for a little while longer.”

He let out a low rumble. “All right. Get on my back. We don’t have much time before the General comes back.”

Moira’s spirits soared. Rahni bent his head near her knee, and she put her foot between his ears. He boosted her up, and she swung her leg over his neck. He flexed his wings, and she found a comfortable seat between them.

With a few powerful beats of his wings, he took to the air. He swooped low over the mountain, down into a valley to the west where Damen wouldn’t see him.

Moira laid her chest along his back. Damen would find the nest empty. No one on her team would ever find out what happened to her. They would abandon her here. The planet’s all-consuming patterns would swallow her, and nothing of her former life would remain.

Rahni shot down a long canyon, far away from Harkniss Keep, before he soared up into the clear sky and headed north. Endless forests and trackless mountain ranges spread out below them. He covered hundreds of miles with every wing-stroke.

Moira crouched low across his neck to keep out of the wind. The air bit icy cold. It cut through her thin clothes. Nothing but Rahni’s skin kept her warm.

Chapter 6

The mountains fell away, and the landscape changed.

The rugged mountains turned to low hills worn away by harsh weather. No more jagged peaks stabbed the sky, and even these dwindled to rolling grasslands with few bushes and no tall trees.

In the distance, Moira saw a wide stretch of flat ocean. It grew and grew, but when Rahni swooped over it, it changed from an ocean to one continuous ice sheet. It covered the whole landscape with its bleak white mass.

Moira buried her face in Rahni’s shoulder, but he never stopped flying. He flew for the rest of the day and through the night. His wings kept Moira in place when she fell asleep so she didn’t fall off.

When she opened her eyes in the morning, blinding ice still covered the ground below them, but now, icy spires jutted against the sky. Mountains of ice cut upwards from the fields, and the air prickled with ice.

Rahni banked into the ice mountains. He careened between them faster than the eye could follow. He whizzed back and forth up a long ice river to the highest spire of all and dove straight into the mountainside.

Moira clamped her eyes shut, but at the last second, Rahni tilted his wings forward and braked to a stop. He stalled in mid-air, extended his claws, and landed on a flat ledge cut directly into the ice. He folded his wings and arched his neck to place his head near her foot. “We’re here. You can get down.”

She slid to the ground, and her foot slipped on the ice. “Where are we?”

Before she could answer, a flash of movement caught her eye. A dozen people, all dressed in the same ornate clothes she saw in Harkniss Keep, stepped through an opening in the ice and crossed the ledge toward her.

One powerful older man led the procession, with a younger one right behind him. After them came the women. The older man walked right past Moira and stopped in front of Rahni, but the dragon wasn’t there anymore. He shook hands with Rahni in his human form. “Welcome as always. I trust your mother is well.”

“She’s very well, thank you, Uncle. This is Moira.”

The man bent over Moira and pressed her hand. “Welcome to Prowiss Keep.”

“This is my uncle Connal. He’s my mother Fay’s brother. This is her home Keep, and these are all my relatives on my mother’s side.” Rahni turned to his uncle. “I’m afraid we aren’t here on a social visit. We bring news of a threat to our planet. I must speak to my uncle Royce right away.”

Connal frowned. “That may prove more difficult than it seems. Royce is very busy these days.”

“We must see him. The whole planet could be under threat.”

Connal waved toward the entrance. “You better come inside, in any case.”

Connal and Rahni headed the procession back inside the mountain. The opening in the ice wall turned into a black stone passage just like the ones Moira saw in Harkniss Keep. The whole structure resembled Harkniss Keep in every detail, except that many hundreds of people occupied it. Everywhere she turned, people clustered in conversation, engaged in work, and children of all ages played in the passages. Teenagers hurried back and forth together in groups.

Two women in the procession flanked Moira. “Let us show you to your quarters. I’m Pariri and this is Carila. Our husbands are Rahni’s cousins.”

“Are they Connal’s sons?”

“No, they’re Royce’s sons. He’s Connal’s oldest brother, Fay’s oldest brother, and he’s patriarch of Clan Prowiss.” Pariri laughed. “Don’t try to remember all the names and family relationships now. You’ll only give yourself a headache.”

Moira looked back and forth between these two beauties of Kratak. They both wore elaborate gowns sweeping the floor, and their dark hair fell below their shoulders. Delicate designs patterned their skin. They shamed Moira with her plain functional clothes and her canvas pants. “I guess I have a lot to learn here. I’ve only been on this planet a few days.”

The two women rounded on her and clapped their hands. “You’re from another planet? How exciting! You must tell us all about it. None of us thought Rahni would ever take a mate, and now here you are. It’s the most exciting news we’ve heard in years.”

“Don’t spread it around too much. His own parents don’t know about us yet.”

Pariri laid her hand on Moira’s arm. “Your secret is safe with us. The men are far too busy to bother about a piece of news like that. One of us would have to fly to the next Keep to deliver the news ourselves.”

Moira’s elation deflated. “I’m sorry to say they’ll be even busier when they hear what Rahni and I have to tell them. They’ll have to drop everything else and prepare for a full-scale invasion.”

Pariri waved her hand. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as that. Anyway, Royce and Rarik don’t drop everything for anything they don’t want to. You would have to make a pretty stunning case to catch their attention.”

Rahni appeared at Moira’s side. “Excuse me, ladies, but I have to take Moira away from you.”

Pariri took a step closer and murmured in Moira’s ear. “Get your business finished and meet us in front of your quarters in an hour. We want to hear all about the world you come from.”

The two women flounced away. Their reaction didn’t give her much hope that this Clan would take the Allies threat seriously. She could only hope the patriarch would listen when the news came straight from the Allies representative.

Rahni faced Connal. “Are you sure it’s that bad?”

Connal shook his head. “It’s worse. They never pay attention to anything that doesn’t fit their plans. If anything arises to interfere with what they want, they ignore it. You’ll have a hard time convincing them.”

Rahni turned to Moira. “Behind that door is the Clan Council chamber. We’ll meet my uncles Royce and Rarik. They’re the ones who will give the word to arm the Clan to combat the Allies.”

“I’ll do my best to back you up,” Connal told them, “but I had to warn you before you go in there to hear it for yourself.”

“Thank you. We appreciate your support.”

With a nod, Connal pushed open the heavy wooden door in the passage wall. It opened into a high chamber almost as big as the central hall at Harkniss Keep, and heat plumed up through the floor. Sunlight refracted down through ice lenses in the ceiling to illuminate the hall.

Connal paced across the chamber to a round table in the center. His footsteps rang on the stone floor. Two Kratak men even older than himself stood at the table with stacks of paper spread out before them. The older of the two straightened up and extended his arms to Rahni. “Rahni Harkniss. I heard you landed. You’re welcome, as always. How is your family?”

“My family is just fine, Uncle Royce, but I’m afraid I have bad news. The Allies who sent their representatives to our Clan, under the guise of a research team, have escalated their strategy toward this planet. They have withdrawn their advanced team in favor of a more direct approach.”

Royce glanced at Moira and then at Connal. “And how do you know all this?”

Moira spoke up. “I am the Allies representative.”

Royce frowned. “Then what are you doing here?”

“I’m Rahni’s mate. I came to warn you, so you could prepare for the impending threat. We saw the Allies General with our own eyes. She came to abort the research mission. That can only mean one thing.”

Connal spoke up. “Rowan Harkniss was right about these Allies. They sent their researchers to our planet to open the door to conquest.”

Royce’s voice boomed out through the stillness. “Rowan Harkniss sees threats everywhere. We have no time or resources to chase shadows. If these Allies really meant to invade us, we would know about it. Then we would arm and fight them.”

“We would fight them much better if we prepared now,” Rahni replied. “Warning the other Clans and arming in advance could give us the advantage we need to repel them.”

“When I see some more convincing evidence of a threatened invasion, I will arm.”

“What more convincing evidence do you need than the word of the Allies representative? Moira knows the Allies better than any of us. If she says the Allies plan to escalate, I believe her.”

Royce turned on Moira. “Did you hear your General say she intended to invade?”

“I was across the valley when she landed her shuttle in front of Harkniss Keep. I saw my Commanding Officer and her sister talk to the General before she flew away to Assan Keep to notify our second team.”

“Then you don’t know for certain why she landed. She could have been checking your progress.”

“This mission was supposed to last a year, with the strictest scientific hygiene. Under normal circumstances, the Allied Command would never interfere with this mission, not even to inform one of the team members that their spouse or child had died. General Duncan would not have landed here, a few days after our team began our stay, unless she had reason to abort the mission.”

“Perhaps she aborted the mission for some other reason—budget constraints, or something similar.”

Moira shook her head, but Connal cut her off. “You two wouldn’t act if the Allies bombed this Keep and annihilated half our population. You don’t care about anything but your grand plans to expand this Keep.”

“I’m responsible for everyone in this Keep,” Royce returned. “Maybe in thirty years, when Rarik and I are dead and you become patriarch, you’ll understand what that means. This Keep is too small for the people we already have, and another generation is already filling it up with babies. We have to expand now, or we’ll be sleeping in the passages.”

“We won’t be sleeping anywhere, if the Allies have their way.”

“By your own admission, the Allies sent this research team as a diplomatic overture. They have no desire to engage in a full-scale war to win this planet or they would have blown us to smithereens already. So, they withdrew their advanced team. The next wave will be a more concentrated diplomatic mission to convince us to join them.” He turned to Moira. “Isn’t that right?”

“That’s the way it usually goes.”

“Then we have time to dedicate to the more pressing problem of expanding this Keep before that happens.”

Moira started to say something else, but Rahni laid his hand on her arm. “Come on. This is going nowhere.”

Connal stormed across the hall again, and after he conducted Rahni and Moira back into the passage, he slammed the door. “They’re fools. They always have been. Most people in this Clan want them deposed for incompetence.”

“Then you would be patriarch, Uncle.”

“That will never happen. I don’t have the support, and with Tam and Yorik and their friends, no one can depose Royce.”

“Who are Tam and Yorik?” Moira asked.

“They’re Royce’s oldest sons. Tam is in line to take over from Royce as patriarch. If anyone tried to depose Royce, they would only be putting Tam in charge instead, and we’d be right back where we started.”

Rahni took Moira on his arm. “Thank you for backing us, Uncle. I’m glad someone here believes us.”

“I’ve known you since you were tiny, Rahni, and I was always close to your mother. I know you wouldn’t come all this way to warn us if the situation wasn’t serious.”

“Too bad Royce and Rarik don’t feel the same way. You warned us it was useless, but at least we tried.”

“I haven’t given up yet. If what you say is true, someone has to take responsibility for the whole Clan’s safety. We can’t leave the Clan open to attack.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know, but I have to do something.”

Rahni turned away. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. I’ll show Moira to our quarters.”

Connal went off one way, and Rahni led Moira through the passages and halls to the far end of the Keep. “Where are we going?”

“I have my own quarters here. I come up here regularly to visit my relatives.”

“Everybody knows you.”

“But not everybody likes me. Be careful around here. A Clan this size always harbors hidden animosity in one form or another. Not everyone who seems to be a friend is one.”

“Pariri and Carila seem nice enough. They were delighted you finally found a mate.”

Rahni didn’t smile the way Moira expected him to. “They’re the ones I mean. Pariri is Tam’s wife and Carila is Yorik’s wife.”

“They said they’re your cousins. Aren’t you on good terms with them?”

Just then, Rahni turned a corner and came face to face with two men his own age. They wore the same clothes as all other Kratak men, and their skin rippled with undulating color patterns. “Rahni Harkniss. We meet again.”

Rahni’s face hardened into a mask of black determination. “Tam. Yorik. It’s good to see you alive and healthy.”

“We hear you’ve been meeting with my father. We hear you’re warning the Clan about some alien invasion.”

“That’s right. This is my mate, Moira. She came from the Allies, and she says they plan to conquer this planet in the near future.”

Yorik let out a low, disgusting chuckle. “Rahni Harkniss has a mate! Haw haw haw! Just wait ‘til the girls find out!”

Tam guffawed in Rahni’s face. Moira clenched her fist on Rahni’s arm, but he never moved a muscle. “Is that what you boys came all the way over here to say to me, or is there something else you want to tell me?”

The smile vanished off Tam’s face. “You’re the oldest son of Rowan Harkniss.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Don’t play stupid. We all know you’re soft in the head, Rahni, or you wouldn’t be living as a dragon on top of a mountain by yourself for the last twenty years, but you’re next in line as patriarch of Clan Harkniss.”

“I doubt that. My brother Rohn will probably take over. I’m too soft in the head to be patriarch.”

“What do you take us for? You didn’t come all the way up here to warn us about any alien invasion.”

“What did I come up here for, then? I’m sorry I can’t remember. I’m soft in the head, so you’ll have to remind me.”

“You came here to take over as patriarch, now that you have a mate. Don’t deny it.”

“Your father Royce is patriarch, the last time I checked, not you, Tam. If I’m taking over, that’s his problem, isn’t it? At the moment, he’s more concerned with expanding the Keep than with any threat to his patriarchy.”

Tam took a step forward. His lips curled back from his teeth, and his skin turned black. “Go out to the roof and fly back the way you came before you wind up in trouble.”

“I’ll never be in trouble from the likes of you, Tam.”

“You don’t belong here with your alien mate. Pack up and get out of here, if you know what’s good for you.”

“Your father is still patriarch here, and he welcomed me here as his sister’s son. No one can tell me to pack up and get out except him.”

“I’ll be patriarch soon enough, and then you better watch out.”

“If you become patriarch of this Clan, Tam, all your relatives better watch out.”

Tam flew at him with his hands outstretched toward Rahni’s throat, but Yorik darted between them and held his brother back. “Don’t soil your hands with him. We’ll handle this another way.”

He dragged his brother away, and the two men disappeared around the corner. Rahni waited until they left before he urged Moira on. “See what I mean?”

“And they’re your own cousins? They’re dangerous.”

“It’s like this in every Keep. People living so close to each other with so many interrelationships going every direction are bound to have some conflicts.”

“What did he mean about you being soft in the head?”

Rahni shrugged. “I’ve become something of a joke around these Keeps. I’m not like the others, who all live in Keeps in their human forms all the time. I’m the only one who wants to live as a dragon.”

“I like you as a dragon. I don’t think you’re soft in the head at all.”

Chapter 7

Rahni led Moira down another endless passage and turned off into a bedroom like the one Haya showed her at Harkniss Keep. He closed the door and slumped down into a chair. “I haven’t spent this much time as a man since I can remember.”

She crossed the room and rested her hand on his shoulder. “I shouldn’t have asked you to bring me here. I wish now I hadn’t. We should have stayed where we were. If we have to live in a Keep, at least we would be around your family. I didn’t realize they would be so hostile to you.”

“I didn’t, either, actually. I thought we would be safe here, that we could hide from the future here. Now I can see that was a mistake.”

“Was it like this the last time you came?”

“It’s never been like this.”

“What changed?”

“First of all, I never asked to speak to my uncles about anything important before, much less an alien invasion. I never brought a mate here before, either. It’s like they said. They never had to take me seriously before. Everybody always knew Rohn would become patriarch after my father died, and I would keep living alone on the mountain like I always did. Now here I am, walking around in human form with a woman on my arm. It’s bound to give Tam the shivers.”

“I don’t think I like everybody talking about me in the same sentence with the term ‘alien invasion’.”

Rahni’s head snapped up, and his eyes flew to her face. Then he broke out in a grin. He grabbed her by the hips and steered her toward him. “You’re my alien.”

She swatted him. “Stop that. I just said I didn’t like it.”

He swept his arms around her hips and pulled her against his chest. He rubbed his chin against her stomach. “I’ll give you an alien invasion, baby. Come here.”

She pretended to struggle, but his rough touch sent a surge of passion to her crotch. She swooned in his arms, even as she pressed against them to escape. “Rahni...”

“That’s it, baby. Say my name. I love it when you say my name like that.”

She panted through her pouting lips, and the blood rushed to her cheeks.

“You can’t fight me, baby. You’re all mine now. Come on. I can see it in your eyes. You want it, don’t you? I know you do.”

He ran his hands down the back of her knees, and her flesh melted. Her cunt yawned open and sobbed for him, and her nipples tightened against her shirt. He breathed into her belly, and the warmth traveled down between her legs to ooze out along her swollen lips.

He scraped up her thighs to her ass and cradled the two globes in his hands. He kneaded them apart and worked his fingers into her crack. “Rahni...”

He purred into her belly, and his face inched lower until his cheek grazed her quivering mons. He hummed into her zipper and moved her hips back and forth across his face. He whispered to her sweet slit hidden under the canvas. “You want it, don’t you? You want me.”

Her head reeled on her neck so she could barely stay upright. He gripped her around the legs to hold her up, and her pelvis craned to reach him. He rubbed his head against her vulva and brought her sweet juices flowing to burn down her thighs.

He scooped up her chest to her breasts and manhandled them until she mewed in naked lust. He teased her nipples to two hard nubs. Her pulse pounded in her veins, and she followed his head with her hands, back and forth over her vulva until she couldn’t stand it any longer.

He raised her shirt over her head and let it fall. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders, and it brushed the tops of her breasts in sensual curtains. She gazed down at him between the flickering shadows.

He dragged her pants down around her hips to expose her generous ass to his exploring hands. She couldn’t see the alabaster of her own skin through the patterns flashing before her eyes. To her, the patterns covered her skin the same as his. They traveled back and forth between him and her with no interruption.

He unzipped her fly, and the round orb of her belly pooched out to touch his face. He nuzzled along her navel to the indentation where her belly angled down into the tangled hair around her tasty secret buried there. She ran her fingers through his hair in fevered desire. She savored the anticipation of waiting for him at the same she ached for him to finish her off.

His hands burned against her ass, and the flames licked through her pelvis to the tortured leaves unfurling between her legs. With excruciating slow care, he peeled her pants down over her hips, but he left them cinched around her knees and locked her between his gripping thighs.

He bent his head just another inch, just one more inch, and nosed into her nest of delight. He pushed her petals aside with his lips and brought the panting gasps choking from her throat.

He nestled one hand between the pillows of her bound-up thighs, and his palm dissolved her muscles with its heat. He glided up into her saturated tissues, and his fingers found their way into the boiling slit of her cunt. At the same moment, his tongue darted into the gap, and the erotic nectar of his saliva burned its way into her veins.

Her head fell back, and she moaned out loud. He guided her down on his tongue, on his fingers. He milked the molten lava from her G spot and pushed it back down deep to the place where her cervix opened into her forgotten crevices.

Oh, God, when had she ever experienced anything like this? She bucked against his face and rode his hand to her ultimate glory. Her lips curled away from her teeth, and she grimaced at the explosions behind her closed eyelids. She knew nothing but the interwoven union between her flesh and his.

His tongue taught her the meaning of passion. She screamed in desperate longing for more, more of him, more of everything he could do to her. Her fountain gushed sweet honey onto his knuckles, but he only banged his hefty digits into her depths harder, with wild abandon never to be tamed.

Her pants held her legs tight together around his hand, and every ecstatic beat of her hips forward against his face drove her rounded ass backward. She arched her back and craned her neck to catch his hand, but he already gave her as much as she could stand of that and so much more.

He licked the spurting juice spraying from her cleft, and his lapping tongue brought her higher, and higher still. He tossed her this way and that, between one unbearable pleasure and another. She couldn’t retreat from one without smashing herself to pieces on the next. She couldn’t ride his hand without coming up against his tongue. She couldn’t enjoy his tongue before he attacked her G spot with his fingers inside her.

How could she stand this? She couldn’t. She could only shatter into mindless shrieks and sobs of joy. He drove his hand into her welcoming vacuum, while the other arm strapped her against him. He looped his massive arm around her waist so she couldn’t escape. He would have her. He would own her, and she could do nothing but fall at his feet and worship him.

She collapsed in inarticulate screaming. Only his muscled strength stopped her falling to the floor, but when he let her go, he didn’t let her sink in a heap. He withdrew his dripping fingers from her ravaged pussy and sucked the syrup from them. Then, while he helped her up with his arm, he pulled her pants the rest of the way down to her feet so she could step out of them.

She obeyed his movements. Whatever she was, he made her. He reduced her to jelly. Wherever he took her, she would go, but he wasn’t finished with her yet. When she stood before him dressed in nothing but her own orgasmic splendor, he slipped his own pants off, and his angry tool stabbed up at her with its raging veins jutting out along its length.

Moira quavered to her core at the sight of it. Every time she saw it, it stabbed a fiery arrow of fear into her heart. How could she cope with that? That was the dragon that ravished her and left her screeching for release. That was the deadly lizard breathing its fire into her being.

It shot out toward her with its unerring determination. Its instincts directed it to her destination. It found its way into her no matter how she quaked and whined, yet mingled with that icy fear, the stirrings of excitement quickened her pulse to leap at it and grab it for her own.

Whatever else it would do, it filled her emptiness with its pounding rhythm. It spread its magical elixir through her and anointed her with such mind-blowing delight she couldn’t stand it. She worked her holes to welcome it. She welcomed the pain of receiving it as she welcomed the earth-shattering orgasms it gave her.

Rahni watched her reaction with his fierce, unerring eyes. When he looked into her face like that, she found herself back on the mountain with the dragon looming over her. He stood over her on four clawed feet with his wings spread around her. The furnace under his skin blasted its heat into her skin, and his long whip body pulsated with the power to split her in half with his wicked rod.

“You want that, don’t you?” He picked it up and pointed it at her. “You love it, don’t you? Is that big enough for you, baby? Is that hard enough for you?”

Even as he spoke, the blood pulsated through the veins, and the thing writhed in his hand. She moaned and tried to turn away, but he jerked her around with his hand behind her and made her look.

“Take a look at that, baby. Can you take it? Do you want that thing in your juicy little pussy?”

Moira couldn’t look at it. She looked everywhere but there, but he wouldn’t let her get away.

“Suck it, baby. Lick it and kiss it and tell it you love it.”

Her eyes snapped to it. She stared at it in horror. Tell it she loved it? How could she do that? How could she love that instrument of her own destruction?

He took the decision away from her and moved her himself. He could have guided her down to kneel at his feet. He could have stuck it in her face and not given her satisfaction until she worshiped at the altar of his raging, brutal cock. She would have done it, too. She would do anything for him.

He didn’t do that, though. He guided her down with steady pressure on her hips, and he let her weight drop down on his lap. She sat down with a sob of relief, and she threw her arms around his neck. She covered his face with kisses and pushed the hair out of his face, but he didn’t return her kisses.

He positioned her legs around his waist and took firm hold of her voluptuous ass. He laid his rigid lance along her belly and rocked her back and forth. His pubic bone rode up between her folds to the erect little nub hidden there under her hood. He bumped his bone against her sensitive tissues until she moaned and her head fell onto his shoulder.

He grumbled into her ear. “Yeah, baby. Oh, yeah.”

He rocked faster and pried her butt cheeks apart. He fossicked into her crevice with inquisitive fingers until she yelped in surprise. He spread the slippery jiz around her perineum and her ass, and he stuck his spunky fingers into her mouth when he kissed her. She tasted her own ooze on his fingers before he transferred those fingers to his own mouth.

When would he deliver her from this insanity? When would he complete her and leave her a breathless bundle of nerves to recover on his bed? He never gave her any sign. She could only dangle on the brink of collapse and wait for his pleasure.

He dropped his head onto her chest and caught at the loose skin around her collarbone with his lips. He nibbled farther down to the cavernous cleavage between her pendulous breasts. Moira arched her back and shoved her tits in his face, but he would never hurry. He took his time leaving a trail of gentle nibbles down her cleavage to the first hardened nipple he found.

He sucked it between his sharp teeth, and Moira caught her breath. At the same moment, he leaned back and lifted her with his hands around her ass to bury his cock between her legs. Its taut mushroom flipped back, and the terrible stick jabbed deep into her throbbing orifice.

Moira convulsed backward, but his powerful arms captured her and held her in position to receive his angry intrusion. He clamped down hard on her nipple with his ravenous teeth, and his massive erection plowed to the very limit of her inner depths.

Moira reeled. Could she? Did she have to take that alien thing into her body? How could she stand it? She wasn’t made for this. Her pussy couldn’t stretch that wide to accommodate such an unnatural penetration.

The instant those questions flashed across her mind, something unholy reared its ugly head from the black depths of her soul and whispered, Yes! The next minute, he withdrew his slithering cock from her twitching hole. He hovered at the opening for a long, agonizing moment before he plunged it in again to its limit.

Before she could question, he pumped his monstrous meat into her delicious pussy again and again. His rhythm knocked her off her moorings, and she drifted into the black sea of unquenchable desire. She could accommodate him. She took that alien thing into her body, and her muscles spasmed around every inch of its rude length. She lusted after it. She dreamed about it. She wanted to ride it to kingdom come.

She matched his rhythm with her own galloping hips. She slammed her ass down on his cock with lusty cries for more, more, more. He mangled her tits with his teeth and smacked her ass from behind to spur her on, but she needed no encouragement.

His cock filled her to the brim. It answered all the questions it raised. It created a law unto itself, a law she obeyed without question. What was it? She couldn’t answer that, and she no longer cared. She knew only her own thunderous crashing against the granite might of him. She knew only his gargantuan cock plunging into her being, stirring her to greater feats of orgasmic ecstasy, and spreading its rotten essence through her to sprout new tendrils and seedlings of its own.

She threw herself against his penetrating spike, and the thick, sticky concoction overflowed over his hips to spatter them both in the joyous spray of fulfillment.

Chapter 8

Moira woke up hours later in the big bed in Rahni’s room at Prowiss Keep. The linen sheets and heavy brocade quilt surrounded her naked body with comfort and contentment, but she sat bolt upright when she turned over and saw Rahni buckling his pants a few feet away. “What are you doing up?”

“I’m taking a walk.”

“Now?” Black night darkened the light shafts in the ceiling.

“I got a bad feeling about our meeting with Tam and Yorik. I have to get out and take a spin around the Keep.” He pushed her down on the pillow with a kiss. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea? Don’t go looking for trouble when it’s already looking for you.”

He chuckled and hung his buckler across his chest with his sword hanging from his hip. “If it’s trouble they want, then the sooner I find them, the better.”

“Be careful. They’re dangerous.”

“Not as dangerous as me.”

He slipped out of the room. Moira curled into the pocket of warmth under her blankets, but her mind would leave her no rest. She tossed and turned, but she couldn’t go back to sleep. What if Rahni got himself into a bind out there and couldn’t get out of it? He was alone here, while Tam and Yorik had each other as well as all their other relatives to back them up. Who would stand against the patriarch’s natural replacement?

She tossed the blankets aside and picked up her clothes. They fit her well enough. They always did, but for some reason, she didn’t find them comfortable anymore. They showed too much of her curvaceous body, unlike the elaborate gowns Kratak women wore. Maybe she should ask for one...or two.

She strolled out of the room intent on finding Rahni. He wouldn’t want her playing nursemaid to him, and she probably couldn’t help him even if he did get into trouble. She couldn’t rest, though, not knowing he might be in danger.

She didn’t get any further than her bedroom door before Pariri and Carila mobbed her. “There you are. We’ve been waiting for you for hours. Where have you been?”

“Asleep in bed. Where have you been—lurking around my bedroom door, waiting for me to show my face?”

Pariri laughed. “Don’t you know you’re the most fascinating thing in this Keep right now? You can’t blame us for wanting to know everything about you.”

“There’s nothing to know about me. I’m really a very ordinary person.”

“A very ordinary person could not have won Rahni Harkniss as a mate after all these years. There must be something extraordinary about you. Do you know he hasn’t spent this much time in his human form since he was a little boy?”

“So, he told me.”

Carila spun Moira around. “So, come on! Spill the beans. We want to know who you are and where you come from and everything that happened between you and Rahni since you first met.”

Pariri chimed in over Moira’s shoulder. “Well, maybe not everything, but you get the idea.”

“There’s really nothing to tell. Rahni wasn’t even interested in me. We just sort of got pushed together by circumstance.”

Carila frowned at her. “Don’t you dare let us down, when we’ve been waiting all this time for some spectacular story from you about a daring rescue and love against all odds.”

“The only thing against the odds about me and Rahni is that I didn’t know he was a man when I fell in love with him. I fell in love with the dragon. I only found out he was a man after the fact.”

Carila’s mouth fell open. “After the fact! You mean you...you mated with him as a dragon?”

“No, no.” Moira turned bright red. “I mean I gave my heart to him and turned my back on my own people before I ever knew he was a man. I didn’t even know he was Rowan Harkniss’s oldest son. I just thought he was a dragon.”

Pariri spun her around. “And what about the daring rescue? You can’t let us down on that.”

“There was a daring rescue, but it had nothing to do with us falling in love. I got lost in the forest and attacked by a wild pig, and....”

The two women gasped, and Carila’s hand flew to her mouth. “You what?”

“It gored me in the stomach. I would have been dead if Rahni hadn’t scared it away. He healed my wound, but he did that to preserve relations between Kratak and the Allies. It served to bring us together, but other than that, I’m afraid there really is nothing to tell. I’m sorry to disappoint you. If I’d know you were waiting for an exciting story, I would have gone about it differently at the time.”

Pariri narrowed her eyes at Moira. “See that you do better next time.”

Carila burst out laughing and clapped her hands. “Come on, Moira. Enough dawdling around here in the passage. We want to show you all around the Keep.”

The two women seized Moira by both elbows. They escorted her on a whirlwind tour through high halls, passages, observation platforms, and landing bays. Moira watched dragons taking flight and landing to transform once again into people.

Even in the halls, teenagers shifted in the blink of an eye between running across the floor on their two legs to dive-bombing each other in the air as dragons. Moira stared open-mouthed at the spectacle, but Pariri and Carila took it all as perfectly normal. “Come on, Moira. We want to show you the Great Hall.”

“Didn’t we already see that?”

“That? No, those were just minor halls for family events, meetings, and gatherings. The Great Hall is only for Clan business like inaugurating a new patriarch, state funerals, and treaty negotiations with other Clans. Those other halls were nothing. Just wait ‘til you see it.”

They hurried away to the other side of the Keep where they emerged from the passage in an observation box over an enormous chasm. The ceiling vanished into a bright shaft of icy light streaming down from above. No one could see where the room ended and the sky began.

A wide stone floor stretched far into the distance. The nearest walls Moira could see hung with tapestries, coats of arms, and depictions of stylized dragons transforming into people and back again. They boggled Moira’s mind and hypnotized her with their confusing patterns.