Chapter 7:
Athena
It had been a grand total of almost two months traveling together, hunting together, and exploring Dobromia together. He showed me the dragon hot-spots that were supposed to make me feel sorry for the shifters: make me crack and tell him where Earth was. We would usually do this in the dead of night, as to avoid detection and also to be out of the unforgiving heat.
Vaikrand was impossible to deal with some days: hot-headed, a raging temper, stubborn, condescending—an alpha to be sure. Or, at least that’s what he thought of himself.
I was sure he felt the same way about me.
But then there were nights by the fire where we would spend hours talking and he didn’t quite seem so bad. I would take comfort in the fact that here, on this strange planet, we were both outcasts.
I battled with guilt on a daily basis, constantly punishing myself for teaming up with a shifter—the very creature who had destroyed the life I had worked so hard to build.
We sat near the edge of the Westfall province. This was where we had the most luck finding food and shifters who had migrated underground and worked for their king rarely came. We would often fly back here. So much so that we had set up a permanent tent in one of the dragon skeletons by the bone yard: a cooking station set up for roasting the meat.
It had perfect shelter from the heat and the cool, and an empty pond, six-feet-by-six-feet. It was the perfect spot for bathing.
The sky was already beginning to darken, and so I wandered up the red sandy hill to fetch Vaikrand only to discover him washing up in the water, completely naked.
I blinked in surprise and crouched back down the hill, frowning deeply and blushing to myself. I had to let out a laugh of delight and wasn’t sure if I should keep looking. After all, those were the kinds of pervo actions I would have looked down on if any of my guy friends were to repeat this story to me.
But still… when curious…
I walked back up to the top of the hill and watched him. He was, I hated to admit, gorgeous. His body was taut and perfectly muscular. His yellow scales overlapped across his body and shone: glimmered under the faint light still left in the sky. I stared at his ass and the way he carefully dipped his wings into the water so that droplets cascaded down and dripped back into the pond.
He let out a small groan and turned to look in my direction, when I decided I should make myself known.
“Hey,” I said as casually as I could and acted like I was already on my way toward him.
“Hey,” he said slowly, unsure of what else to say to me.
I swallowed and smiled at him, my eyes casting over his chest and then up to his cut jaw and blonde hair that had darkened with the weight of the water.
“Sorry,” I offered casually, “just had to wash up before bed. You mind?”
I knew it was a slippery slope, what I was doing. But I couldn’t help the flirtation.
He raised a curious brow to me, unsure of my mood, and then shrugged. “All yours,” he said and began to step out of the pond.
“You might as well stay,” I said smugly. “This way I don’t have to obsessively watch for enemies.”
“Lucky me,” he joked and stepped back down into the water so that nothing inappropriate was showing.
I undressed as casually as I could, hanging my clothes on a nearby outcropping of rocks before stepping down into the pool. I felt my heart rate quicken with the motion, and I felt a cool tower rise up through my center.
I splashed water down my round breasts and turned away from him so that only my back faced him, trying to act as though I didn’t want him to look. As I dipped my hair back into the liquid, I could see him stealing a glance at my breasts and felt rewarded in some strange way. I scraped my tongue along the front of the inside of my teeth and set my jaw. For the life of me, I wasn’t sure why I wanted him to see my body. But, we had shared so much up to this point, it hardly felt strange at all.
“It’s cold,” he warned as I submerged my head. I came up out of the water laughing, and he chuckled as well. “I told you,” he said.
I turned to face him and watched his eyes steal a glance at my breasts, and he walked up to me, turning my heart into an explosion of nerves. Even through the water, I could feel my hands sweating.
Vaikrand ran his hand down the back of my wet hair and raised a brow to me, condescending and lecturing.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“Bathing,” I said.
The yellow shifter ran his hand down my back and below the water to my bottom before removing his hand from my skin. “And nothing more?”
I shrugged. “Nothing more.”
He stared at me as if to say, ‘Ah,’ and then moved away from my body. “Then hurry up,” he snapped and stepped out from the pond, dressing immediately.
We arrived back at camp in just a matter of minutes. Vaikrand opened the flap of the tent to me, and I walked in nervously, taking my position on my side as I normally did. He came up behind me, the two of us wet and sticking to the furs beneath us. Half of me expected him to try something but was pleasantly surprised when I heard him drift off to sleep.
We woke up in our familiar spoon, our bodies tangled together in a mess of limbs and heat with the new suns spreading their warmth across the sky. I knew Vaikrand was awake. His five-o-clock shadow was scraping against my bare shoulder as he fit his chiseled chin into the crook of my neck.
“I want to do unspeakable things to you,” he whispered suddenly.
His words mixed with the whisper that hit my skin caused a full-body shudder to cross over me, and I turned my head only slightly to the arrogant shifter.
I wanted to tell him to shove it. To back off and not be so arrogant just because I admitted that, okay, maybe, the Weredragon’s didn’t have it as easy as I thought.
But, instead, I whispered, “Like what?”
“I want to run my hand down your body,” he said, and slowly ran his hand along my side, lifting up my shirt slightly so his hand could dip into my waist and then down my hip.
“And then what?” I asked again.
“I want to make your body tingle and throb, the way you do to mine.”
My eyes flicked up like a porcelain doll and grabbed my breasts in my hands, “And what about these?”
“I’ll lay here, like this,” he explained in smooth, cool tones as he gestured to our bodies and slowly moved his mouth toward my chest. He lifted my shirt up, and I hesitantly allowed his hands to caress my body. His thick fingers moved under my bra, so my breast spilled out from the black lace and he gently sucked my nipple. “Now I want to watch you touch yourself.”
My face flushed at the sentiment and I let out a ridiculous giggle. “No,” I said.
“Listen to your breathing,” he said in a husky, low tone. “You want me, don’t you?”
I rocked my hips against his hard dick and ran my right hand down his thigh. “No,” I whispered. “It’s all in your head, kid.”
“Sorry?” he mocked with raised brows, biting my nipple and releasing it. “How old am I?”
A flirtatious smile infested the corners of my mouth, and I said, “I dunno. Probably a million?”
He let out a smug ‘hm’ noise and continued with my breasts before moving up to my mouth. I craned my neck to give him a better field of play, and he grabbed my lips with his: sticky and sweet like butterscotch. The wetness of his mouth soon made contact with mine as his tongue flicked in and out of my mouth like a preview of what his body could do.
I grabbed his lip with my teeth, biting it and giving him a lover’s tug. Then I reached my hand behind me to feel the girth of him on my hand.
He locked eyes with me, never breaking our kiss, and then suddenly we were like animals.
Vaikrand ripped at my clothes and began tugging my pants down furiously. His left hand wrapped around my neck in our spooning position and his right was now inspecting the moisture that he had created between my legs. He dipped his fingers in and then looked at me with a hazy, satisfied lust.
I tugged at his leathers while he caressed my breasts in his hand. Once I had freed his member, I knew I wanted to give it a look. But, unsure if it would look as I expected, I kept my eyes closed and stroked its immensity in my hand several times, eliciting lustful groans from Vaikrand before guiding it inside me.
I could feel him push in and my body began building up to climax almost immediately. It’d been way too long.
He thrust deeply into me, and I started moaning loudly, moving my face away from his lips. This continued for several moments before he smacked my backside with an unbridled passion and then dismounted. He turned me so I was on my back and guided himself back inside me so that my body was pressed flat against his, his lips locking against mine even through furious thrusts.
“Don’t stop,” I instructed and he took it as an order.
My moans gained traction, and I had the presence of mind long enough to open my eyes and see our small tent moving against our bodies, looking as though it would collapse on top of us at any second.
I smiled at the thought and spread my legs wider as Vaikrand pounded into me: weeks of pent-up rage and sexual frustration finally coming to an explosive end.
My climax sent waves of heat and pleasure across my body as my abdomen clenched and released over and over. With a long sigh, I wrapped my legs around his back and waited for him to give just a handful of thrusts more until he gripped my body tightly and orgasmed.
I felt a gush of liquid fill me with heat, and it was only then I registered what had really just happened.
He buried his face into the crook of my neck and kept his hand locked on my left breast; squeezing it every few seconds like a pulse. I traced a finger over the bright yellow scales that covered his body and found their way to the base of his wings: the bone-like bulbs mounted on his back where they would soon emerge from.
My hands found their way off his back, and a cold sweat ghosted over my body. I just wanted him off.
“Well… that was…” I began unsurely, making a shocked scowl he couldn’t yet see. “Interesting.”
I removed the look from my face immediately as he rose up from my body. His chin rested on my navel and he began kissing up the mounds on my chest and then into my neck.
“Sounds like it was pretty damn good to me,” he said, borrowing a curse from my language.
“Right,” I said with widened eyes. “So, I guess we should be off then, or something.”
He moved his thin lips and scraping stubble against my skin, and his face washed over with a dire expression. His eyes flicked back and forth from mine as his brows narrowed into a worried frown.
“What’s wrong?” he asked firmly.
“Nothing,” I said, toneless. “Just, ready to start the day, is all! We have food to find, don’t we?”
“Athena, I wouldn’t hurt you,” he insisted, his eyes still desperately searching mine.
I looked down to his cut chest and dense muscles and began to push him off playfully, pulling my shirt back down uncomfortably.
As soon as he was off me, I made my way out of the tent, doing up my pants and belt as we exited. I began tossing our usual items back into my satchel so we could pack up and leave: make camp somewhere else for the night until we figured out his grand plan to cultivate food on Dobromia and be welcomed back into the arms of the Weredragons.
My body shivered at the thought. I had just been in the arms of a Weredragon.
The thought made me sick. A deep ache of betrayal cut through my body, waves of disgust crashing into my toes and working their way up to my neck so that a stinging pain lingered there. I was just like Marina now. Screwing around with a Weredragon for who knows what reason.
Vaikrand exited the tent and stared at me, bewildered. He set his hands on his hips and stood near the tent, watching me as I cleaned up.
“What’s going on?” he asked with an exhausted tone as he rubbed his forehead.
“Nothing,” I waved him off. “Thanks, for–”
“For saving your life, for giving you sustenance, or for allowing you into my tent?” he interrupted. “It’s a long list,” he mused. “Which is it?”
My eyes drew into a frown, and I grabbed my satchel off the floor, pitching it over my arm. “The tent,” I said decidedly.
“Why are you acting like this? You wanted me; I know you did.” He walked far from me, obviously offended. I followed and watched as he began scanning the skies for signs of prey.
“I’m just not so sure of this whole thing anymore,” I said slowly.
“Because?” he scoffed. “Why did you run out of the tent so quickly?”
“To clean up,” I said and my eyes went comically wide. I gestured around the camp as if he were silly for asking and laughed, “Obviously.”
“Yes, that’s exactly why it’s strange,” he argued. “You hate cleaning up. In fact, I have to nearly drag you out of bed every morning just to help me take the skin off the tent.
“I was just looking around, alright?” I shrugged, twirling my gun around my finger before holstering it.
“I thought I explained to you that there were a host of enemies in these parts,” he said, indignantly, suddenly deciding to go cold on me. His eyes flicked upward, and he scanned the skies, seemingly no longer interested in me.
My teeth scraped against my bottom lip, and I walked up next to him. “I was getting the lay of the land. Am I all done answering questions now, dad?”
He didn’t look at me, still searching the sky for our next meal. There was some kind of bird flying above us, gliding in circles around us. The yellow shifter watched it with such intensity, I wondered if it might swoop down and attack us.
“It would be nice if you just trusted me,” he snapped. “This is getting a little tiring.”
“What’s your problem this morning?” I spat, shoving him on the spot so he would turn and look at me. “I’m used to guys turning into dicks after a relationship is over, but we’re not in a relationship. So what’s your excuse?”
He went to speak but grew distracted once more by the bird. “I feel I have gone through a distinct amount of trouble to try and help you and all you’ve done is test me,” came his absent-minded reply as his neck craned back.
I let out a rattled sigh and took the laser rifle from my side, aiming it up to the sky and shooting the bird dead so that it hurtled toward us and crashed into the ground with a loud thump.
“Why should I trust you?” I seethed.
Vaikrand blinked in surprise and looked at me with some mix of fear and pride. Then he laughed a big, heavy laugh and shook his head. He pinched the bridge of his nose and walked toward the bird.
“I thought the list I gave you before seemed like a pretty solid reason to accept my help,” he said with a smile in his voice. “But, clearly, you can take care of yourself. So go, if you’d like. I won’t bother you anymore.”
“What did I do?” I asked, now offended by his sudden disinterest in helping me.
“You clearly don’t care about creating a partnership with me,” he shrugged. “So why should I waste my time with you?”
My breath left my lungs and my face flushed. “Fine!” I shouted and marched up, grabbing one of the bird’s legs from Vaikrand’s large hands and tugging it toward me. “Then I’m taking my catch with me!”