When life gives you lemons, sleep with a Weredragon. That had become my motto since arriving on Dobromia more than three years ago.

Not a catchy motto, but the sentiment had kept me alive.

“Don’t stop,” I commanded as the Weredragon ruler, Boradrith, whom the people called ‘D’Karr,’ thrust deep inside me in the privacy of his quarters.

“Don’t order me around,” Boradrith smiled devilishly, leaning down to kiss me sweetly. I ran a hand through his long brown hair and fixed it behind his ear.

I lay on his makeshift bed: a very human looking bedroom structure, covered in various animal furs to keep it soft and warm. I spread my legs to him, and his body hovered above mine with his golden wings spread. He quickened his pace inside me, making my breasts jiggle from top to bottom, eliciting a warm, throaty moan from the ruler.

I set my hand on his muscular chest to feel the rocky texture of his scales beneath my palm.

“Don’t come yet,” I whispered, to which he only grunted in reply.

He thrust faster, filling me to the hilt and pushing into me faster and faster. I could feel his whole body quiver and reached down quickly to try and finish myself off before he withdrew from his climax, but it was too late.

There were two things Boradrith didn’t like: to be embarrassed and to be told what to do. I learned from these things quickly. When I’d first begun my affair with him, I had never been sure whether to fake an orgasm to stroke his ego or try for the real thing. In favor of keeping him happy and proud, I simply closed my eyes in faux satisfaction and smiled when he pulled out of me.

“My little d’ierdaree,” he cooed in my ear as his heavy, tired breaths hit my skin with warmth and moisture. The phrase meant “girl” or “dear one” in the dragon’s native tongue.

I knew most girls would probably have been put off by the phrasing, but I liked it. I liked when he reminded me of my youth. It turned me on, in fact.

“I love to watch you writhe like that,” Boradrith said with the same dirty grin that drew me to him when we’d first met.

“I love to feel you inside me,” I responded in the same sultry tones. “My D’Karr.”

He laughed. “You give me a complex,” he said with a love-struck sigh, brushing my dark hair out of my eyes. “You make me feel invincible.”

“I give you a complex?” I laughed. “I think you have a bunch of yes-men to do that for you. Not to mention women,” I added with playful scorn.

“Not the way you do. You make my mind crazy with thoughts wrapped up in you,” he said and then cocked his brow, suddenly irritated as he realized I’d spoken back to him. “And you’d best watch your tone, Diana.”

“Yes, yes,” I brushed him off with a laugh.

The D’Karr put his hands on my breasts and continued to lay kisses on my skin. His mouth found its way from my nipples and back up to my mouth, where my lips lay dormant.

“What’s wrong?” he asked in a whisper, tracing my jaw with his kiss.

“Some days, I fear you won’t keep me,” I said in a meek tone, tracing my hands through his hair absent-mindedly and refusing to meet his eyes. I did this because I knew he hated it: that it would signal my displeasure.

Boradrith had a good sense of people, so to avoid his eye-contact made him feel lied to somehow.

“Why d’ierdaree?” he cooed, tilting my chin to encourage me to look at him. “What have I done to make you think my heart wavers?”

“The girls hate me.” I spoke of the girls I had crash-landed on Dobromia with.

“Then we hate the girls,” he teased back, a smile creeping up the side of his mouth. He spoke in low, sexy tones that made me smile.

“They don’t understand us,” I said. “They say you’ll throw me away, for her.”

The girl’s I’d crash-landed on Dobromia with mocked my love affair when we first arrived, stating that the ruler was old. My argument? All the dragons were. Hundreds of years old, in fact. So why should the D’Karr be any different?

Besides, he was sexy as any man in his thirties back on Earth. He looked young, with only a large dark beard giving him away. His skin was firm and supple, and his eyes had an undeniable sex appeal.

“Shhh,” he said, pressing his finger to my lips. “I claimed you the moment I saw you.”

“I claimed you,” I teased back.

“You are like no other to me.”

I let out a long sigh. “The girls say–”

“Then we kill the girls,” he breathed out.

When we first landed, it was on a planet not far from Dobromia. The Weredragons lured us back to their planet and massacred our men. So, while I knew he was kidding, I also knew he had the power to do exactly that.

“No,” I laughed and batted him away. “It just makes me think…”

Boradrith propped himself up on his elbows to give himself a better look at me. His yellow eyes followed mine, and his face was filled with a compassion that all but said, “You silly girl.”

The truth was, I knew Boradrith cared for me. He spoiled me like no other, and it seemed his life’s mission to make me the happiest I could possibly be. What would make me happy, I wanted to say, was to get rid of his wife.

“You worry too much,” he said in a low, smooth voice. “You just need to be…” He paused and seemed embarrassed to be searching for an English word after all these years.

“Patient,” I finished with a sullen roll of my eyes.

He tapped my nose as though my petulance was adorable and gave a strong nod, kissing me on the cheek. “Patient,” he repeated. “And soon you will rule alongside me.”

My teeth grazed my bottom lip and I nodded. “Yet she controls you,” I said as a dare. “I believe that you are righteous over all. You should be able to have what you want. But here we are, hundreds of cycles later, and we’re still being controlled by her.”

He looked down at me with a sudden fury, and his hand gripped my neck, squeezing only slightly. He raised a careful brow to me and then his expression softened.

“No one controls me,” he enunciated sharply. “Let it be known that I am the ruler of this realm and you will not speak ill of the D’Sharr.”

He spoke of her. His ‘wife.’ Sillevia.

“Now listen to me when I say my heart is dedicated to you alone.”

“But she’s still here,” I argued furiously.

Boradrith’s eyes went wide, and he blinked in surprise, ripping his hand from my neck. “What would you have me do?” he yelled, backing away from me on the bed while still on top of my body. “Send her to the tower?”

“Better her than me!” I screamed back.

“You will control yourself, or you may just see your fears come true,” the gold, broad-shouldered Weredragon warned me as he flicked his wings back in frustration.

“S-sir,” came a sudden announcement from the small entryway to the D’Karr’s room. “The D’Sharr is calling for all of her servants,” the yellow shifter warrior stammered as though he weren’t sure whether to continue the rest of the way into the bedroom or fly out the door as fast as his wings could carry him.

By servants, he of course meant me and the rest of her maids. I looked up at Boradrith unsurely, and he instructed me to stay quiet. This wasn’t the first time we’d been walked in on by one of the ruler’s warriors.

“Why does she want her maids?”

“Your son,” the shifter said unsurely once more. “Your son is set to arrive back on Dobromia shortly, and he’s said to have brought resources.”

It had been a year since a great fight broke out between one of the humans and the Weredragons. The D’Karr’s son had taken off with one of my crewmates, our lead scientist, years ago now. Her sister, Athena, remained here as prisoner before seducing one of the Weredragons into giving her freedom. It had been a big debacle that was only silenced when Athena promised to lure her sister and the ruler’s heir back to Dobromia.

Looked like they’d finally arrived.

“My son?” Boradrith pulled away from me, and a look of pure elation had overcome his face.

I couldn’t say I wasn’t jealous. It seemed these days the only thing that gave him any happiness was spending time with me, and I had enjoyed the thought of keeping it that way. Besides, didn’t he hate his son?

From my understanding, Boradrith believed that Tredorphen had fled to Earth and abandoned the Weredragons to the humans; betraying everybody.

“Yes, sir,” the guard responded with a smile. “The D’Sharr wants to plan a great celebration to welcome him, and she requires all of her servants. She’s…” the man shifted uncomfortably, “coming to your quarters as we speak.”

Boradrith looked at me, and my heart began to pound as I shamelessly stood naked in front of the guard and began racing for my clothes.

“Thank you,” Boradrith said with a dismissive raise of his hand. The guard followed the unspoken orders and left us.

If he had a good head on his shoulders, he would know to distract the queen if he ran into her outside. I knew she knew of our affair, but it remained unspoken. If she ignored it, so would everybody else. In fact, I think she invited me to be one of her servants simply to show everyone in the realm that she wasn’t jealous, nor did she suspect anything.

It was all for show; all for power.

“Did you hear that, Diana?” he turned to me and I wanted to roll my eyes and ask him if he thought I was deaf. But then, I couldn’t help but smile at his smile.

“I heard, my love.”

“Come on, come on, get dressed! Quick!” he said with hurried excitement as he gestured toward my clothes still sitting in a pile on the floor.

I laughed at his pace and bent over to pick up my the clothes, throwing them on in haste, suddenly nervous whether his wife would come in at any moment. I may have felt that he was mine, but she was still a dragon. And humans had a notoriously bad chance of living when fighting against a dragon.