Chapter 1
KELLY PERKINS
It was cold and I was lost deep in the woods of upstate New York. The sun had already set and the darkness was going from a light purple twilight to complete blackness, I started to panic. I never should've ventured off the way that I did, but the inviting trails were too much to pass up. I was lost for hours and it was cold and dark and I was terrified. Then it happened. He called out to me. I guided him to me.
I felt the rush of wind around me. I looked up and into the darkness; I could see the silhouette of a weredragon flying down toward me. I couldn't see his face, and I was frightened.
"Kelly! Don't worry; I have come to save you. I read your note,” he said as he landed before me. I was hypnotized by his presence and the frightening prospect of being stuck in the woods overnight.
"Are you all right? Are you hurt?” he asked.
"No I am not hurt. I am just cold and thirsty,” I said to him.
"You are safe now. Come into my arms. I will take you back to the cabin,” he said.
"Who are you?” I asked as I stepped toward him. His voice was unfamiliar, but there was something very familiar about his presence.
"I am Kasian. I am to be your husband,” he said to me. I gasped. I did not think he would be the one to search for me. Yet here he was, a man that I had never met, but I was betrothed to.
"Put your arms around my neck, Kelly,” he instructed me.
I put my arms around his neck as I tiptoed to reach him. He put his hands around my waist tightly and in a flash, flew straight up into the air, taking me to safety.
It was an unusual situation, but it made sense for my unusual circumstances. How I came to be lost in the forest in the first place was because of a decision that I had made a month before. It was a decision that I had battled over for years and had finally given in.
After the appearance of the Drackon warrior alien race on Earth several decades before, they were now living on Earth. The registration period for human female brides had extended not only to marry Drackon warriors living on Mooreah, but to those living on Earth. Like many females on Earth, I had pondered the thought of registering to be a bride to one of these attractive warriors that shape shifted into dragons, but I never went further than just fantasizing about it. Every time I found myself walking toward the registration building in Los Angeles, I would walk away just before entering the front doors. I wanted to, but then I didn't. I was scared to hand myself over to love in that way. What if I hated the Drackon? What if I did not like living on Mooreah? There were too many things at stake so I would always talk myself out of it.
But six months ago, registration opened for those Drackon warriors living on Earth. That suddenly sounded more appealing to me. I was not going to be shipped away to another planet. If I decided that I did not love the Drackon warrior, my chances of escaping a marriage would probably be better on my own planet where I could get the legal help needed. It started to make sense to me.
“Are you sure you want to go through with that?” my friend Maria asked me as we had coffee in Los Angeles.
“No, I am not sure. It is just something that I have been thinking about for a long time now. I cannot get it out of my system. I feel like it’s calling me,” I said to her.
“That is very unusual,” she said. “I feel like the only thing that is calling to me is a bottle of wine. Why are we getting coffee instead of drinks?” she asked.
“Because it’s two in the afternoon,” I said arching an eyebrow at her.
“So? It’s Sunday; everyone is drunk at brunch anyway,” she laughed.
“That is very true.”
“So are you going to do it then? Are you going to register to be a bride of a Drackon warrior alien? They are dragons!”
I laughed. “Yeah, I know. I think it’s romantic. Can you imagine what it must be like to fly with one of them? Can you imagine what it must be like to go to bed with one?”
“Sometimes, but not as often as you; I think that is obvious,” she laughed.
“I think I’m going to go to registration and check it out.”
Then one day I found myself sitting at a desk in the registration building across from a woman who was asking me very personal questions.
"Are you a virgin?” she asked without looking at me. Her fingers stayed on the keyboard of her computer.
"No I am not,” I said, embarrassed.
"Have you ever been pregnant?” she said bluntly.
My eyes grew wide and I said, “No.”
"Do you have any sexually transmitted diseases?”
"No,” I said to her.
"That question is just a precaution as you will be tested on the day of your arrival,” she said to me. "Is brown your natural hair color?” she said looking at my long brown locks.
"Yes. Brown hair, brown eyes,” I said to her.
"And what is your profession?” she asked.
"I am a chef,” I said to her.
"And your preferred location of a Drackon husband?”
"Earth. I want to be matched with one that lives on Earth. I have no interest in one that lives on another planet,” I said sternly.
"That is fine, just as long as you are aware that the chances of finding a match are higher if you include the Drackon that live on other planets. There are fewer than 200 Drackon that live on Earth at the moment. Those are small numbers.”
"I understand.”
She gave me a form with an ID tag and said, “Take this to the next two stations where you will have your photos taken and you will be sat at a station where you will be able to scroll through Drackon warriors to pick five candidates for marriage. If they pick you, then you will have a match.”
"So what happens if—”
"Next!” she said as she disregarded my question and was already motioning to the next woman in line. I stood up from my chair and went to the next station.
After getting my photos taken, I finally sat down at a station and scrolled through the photos of potential husbands. There was a photo of them in weredragon form, as well as normal form. It was all very shocking to me. I stared at them with my mouth open. All of them were very appealing, but there was one that stood out amongst the others.
His name was Commander Kasian Jade. He was a fighting warrior, but had come to Earth to oversee an engineering project in upstate New York. It was his way of life that I found very appealing. He lived out in the country on a plot of sprawling forest with a large cabin and vegetable gardens. Since I was a chef, I knew that I would find great pleasure in cooking from my own garden and living out in the country.
I was done with city life and the dirty air. I also liked that he was head of an engineering project. It would keep him busy and it meant that he was very intelligent. Of course he was also very easy on the eyes, with beautiful, dirty-blonde locks down to his shoulders and blue eyes that seemed kind. He was the one. I quickly put him at the top of my list.
As I scrolled through the rest of them I knew that I should not bother. It was recommended that we put five in total on our list. But I had already made up my mind: it would be Commander Kasian Jade or no one at all, at least not this round of registration. If he picked me as well, then it would be a sign, a very good sign. I wrote a big black line through my other four slots meaning that I chose to only list one. Then after completing registration, I went back to my apartment on the west side of Los Angeles and waited for a solid month until I finally got the news. Commander Kasian Jade had chosen me and offered marriage.
I was shocked, but also extremely thrilled. My life would be dull no longer. I needed a drastic change, and this was it. I did not spend much time thinking about it; I needed something different and if I thought about all the bad things that could happen, I would talk myself out of doing it. I was going to be the wife of a weredragon in New York.
I packed up all my belongings and sent them ahead of me to his address. Then once I had wrapped up my life in Los Angeles, I flew to New York City where I would stay the night and then take a boat up the Hudson River to Hudson Valley. It was all planned out and perfect. It was wild, and I suddenly started to think of myself as a wild child. I was really going to go through with this. I smiled to myself every time I thought about it. It gave me goosebumps.
But I wasn't expecting my last night as a bachelorette to be so thrilling and wild, it was unpredictable. It was so unlike me, but then again, I was looking for change, and that change had to come from deep within me. But I didn't know that my actions that night would have bigger consequences than I could ever imagine.