Chapter Five
As the last tremors of his pet’s orgasm faded, Vyktor unchained her feet. He did not say a word to the others as she curled up in his arms and he carried her from the room, his point made more powerfully in that moment of silence than in any of the speeches he’d given at the outset.
He’d already prepared an enclosure for her, adjoining his own room. The craftsmen had been hard at work on the earth rock, and were finding it to be easy to fashion. Everything in the Earth realm was just that little bit easier to deal with than that in the dragon realm. Reality itself seemed more pliable here. No wonder humans had such a tendency to fantasy as a species.
Vyktor’s quarters were already rather lavish. The bed had been carved from the floor itself, topped with wool spun from the local sheep. It was immensely comfortable and he was tempted to lay his human pet atop it, but she had not earned a place in his bed yet. She needed to stay in the cage until her submission was eager. There could be no training if there was no hope of reward. Yes, he could beat her until she belly crawled whenever he came near, but he was not interested in the kind of submission that could only be achieved by cruel tyranny.
He opened the cage door and settled her down on the small round of bedding he’d requisitioned for her. This cage had been in his room long before he captured her, of course. It was all part of his long-term plan to settle the invasion. The bloodshed of the past month was of significant concern to him. Humans were far too beautiful and delicate to be wiped out—but they certainly made it difficult.
Aria curled up in the soft blanketed bed and allowed him to cover her naked form. He was not surprised that she was so tired. She had been through a great deal in a very short space of time.
“Sleep well, pet.”
If she heard him, she did not respond.
* * *
A scream in the night brought him from his bed. Vyktor rushed to the cage, where his pet was sitting bolt upright, her eyes wide, the covers clutched to her chest. He could see the pale effect of fear on her skin. She looked more frightened in that moment than she had at any time since her capture. Even when she’d been sitting in her downed aircraft, she had been braver and bolder than this.
“What’s wrong, pet?”
She stared at him with eyes that did not see. “They’re coming!”
“Who is coming?”
“They’re coming!”
He realized then that she was not entirely awake. She was having a nightmare. About him, perhaps.
“The invaders?”
“No.” She shook her head and looked dead at him with eyes that didn’t really see him at all. “They’re coming, Vyktor. They’re coming for you.”
“Who?”
“The old ones.”
A shiver passed down his spine. The words she had used referred to something she could not possibly know about. Something even he did not like to spend too much time thinking about. The old ones were what humans might have referred to as ‘true’ dragons. Beasts with no ability to take any form but their true one. Creatures filled with one desire: to consume. Others called them world eaters.
Vyktor’s people regarded them as little more than legends. In all likelihood, they did not exist. Yet the concept of them persisted throughout generations. Nightmares about them were not uncommon, especially in juveniles. From the reading he had done, Vyktor was aware that juvenile humans also shared primal fears of predators in darkness, monsters under the bed.
It was strange that the woman trembling in her blankets was having dragon dreams. But, Vyktor considered, he had filled her belly with his seed. Perhaps that had connected them in some way. Perhaps he had also created a link between Aria and the world from which he had come. Vyktor did not think such a thing was possible. But perhaps it was. Perhaps his eagerness to consider humans as a separate, lower species was getting in the way of his ability to see the connections.
“I don’t like them,” she whimpered, her eyes filling with tears. “They scare me.”
He did not know if she was still asleep or not. It was hard to tell; her eyes were wide open as if she were staring into some other world, reacting to the horrors she saw there.
“Shhh,” he reassured her. “You’re dreaming. Go back to sleep.”
She let out a sob.
Vision or dream, whatever was bothering her, it was not fading on its own. And he could do nothing about it while he still stood outside the bars.
“You are being too soft,” he lectured himself as he unlocked the cage and stepped inside. Crouching down on the blankets, he began to comfort his pet, running his hands through her hair and pressing gentle kisses to her lips and cheeks. He could taste the salt of her sadness. Odd how humans expelled minerals when they were upset. It was almost dragon-like in a way.
“Vyktor,” she whimpered his name again. “I’m afraid.”
Now he was sure she was asleep. She would never have admitted fear while she was awake. She had plummeted from the sky, crashed, and been taken captive by a powerful enemy all without showing the slightest bit of fear.
He did not like to see her in this state. Her pretty face was twisted by anguish, tears running down her cheeks. He doubted the dream meant anything of any real significance, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t terribly frightening. She was so young, so tender, and she had been sent to fight a dragon. That was enough to give anybody nightmares. Even in the fairytales, they’d had the sense to send princes, not young women.
“Shhh…” he soothed. “It was merely a dream… go back to sleep.”
She started to settle a little. Her tears dried, but she was still not entirely at peace. Vyktor decided to give up his bed and instead sit down in her bedding with her. Almost immediately, she curled up with her head in his lap, still in that strange twilight state between wakefulness and sleep. He looked down at her in wonder, marveling at the power of her dreams. In her sleep, she had exposed a part of herself she would never have shown if she were fully awake. She had shown him a pure vulnerability and remarkable instinct. Humans were such strange creatures; so base in some ways, and so complex in others.
Slowly, she settled. The whimpering stopped, her eyes closed, and then her breathing became deep and regular. Almost an hour had passed.
“Who is taming who, pet?” He murmured the question down at her softly. It did not escape him that in caging her, he had effectively caged himself. She looked far more comfortable than he was. She was snuggled up in her blankets and using his lap as a pillow while he sat with his back against the hard wall.
This was a problem he had not expected. He had expected to be able to dispassionately condition a human female to follow his rule. He had never imagined he would come to care for her within hours of meeting her.
“You are making my life difficult,” he said softly, stroking her hair away from her pretty face.
In her sleep, she smiled.