Chapter Seven
Aria woke to a world with a dragon, snoring next to her in the large bed that she had occupied with him. It had been five days since she had been taken by Vyktor and he no longer kept her caged. He had left the collar upon her, somehow lightly welded around her throat. Metal responded oddly to Vyktor. He could pinch it and it would weld itself together. She theorized that he must have some kind of thermal… kinetic… she didn’t know the terms for it, but there was something in his fingertips, some way of passing energy through them that made metal bend to his will.
“I always know when you’re awake,” he said before even opening his eyes. “You start jingling around.”
“That’s because you practically have me belled like a cat.”
Vyktor opened one eye to look at her. “Why do humans bell cats?”
“To stop them from sneaking up on birds and eating them.”
“Ah,” he said. “Well, I have no fear of you sneaking up on any little birds. You’re not precisely a predator, are you, pet?”
Aria felt her nostrils flare. She hated the way he seemed to think that she was weak and delicate and incapable of doing harm. Maybe she couldn’t do much to harm him, specifically, but she was plenty dangerous of her own accord.
“You don’t know what I am,” she sulked.
“Perhaps not. We don’t know much about one another, do we, pet?”
“No,” she agreed. “I don’t even know how old you are… how old are you?”
“In your years? Hmm… it’s difficult to make the adjustment. But around four hundred years old, I suppose.”
“Wow, I got the relic part right,” she grinned, earning herself a slap to her bottom that she squirmed away from, using the covers of his bed to wrap her body into a safe little un-spankable cocoon.
“Time passes differently in our realm,” Vyktor said, shaking his head at her antics. “I would estimate my equivalent age to be around forty, perhaps?”
“Still a relic,” Aria laughed. “I’m in my early twenties.”
“In our realm, you would be closer to two hundred.”
“Remind me not to give anyone my age in dragon years,” she smiled. She was enjoying his company. She knew she wasn’t supposed to—especially given the way he had stripped her before his men and put her on display, but he hadn’t repeated the treatment since.
“I think it is time we returned to your training,” he said, as if catching her thought. “You are becoming far too informal, pet. I wanted you to settle a little, which I think you have done.”
Aria eyed him suspiciously from the safety of the covers.
“I’m already your prisoner. You’ve already chained me up and fucked me in front of everyone. What else is there?”
“So much, pet,” he smiled, reaching out to tenderly caress her face. “I need you properly trained.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you submit well enough when I take you, pet, but I want more than that. I want you to submit of your own will.”
“I don’t think so,” Aria said, turning her head to nip lightly at his fingers.
“It is of little use to our enterprise if humans are only compliant when one is deep inside them. That is pleasant for the master, but hardly practical.” He responded to the bite by pushing his fingers toward her mouth, sinking them between her lips. Aria pulled back rather than end up suckling on his digits.
“So this training you have in mind isn’t sexual?”
“Oh, it is sexual,” he smiled. “But the focus is on obedience, with the reward being your pleasure.”
“So you’ve been rewarding me all this time,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
“You knew, pet,” he said with a dark smirk. “Even when you were chained and taken before my men, you knew that it was your pleasure which was paramount, whether you obeyed or not.”
“It doesn’t feel good to be spanked,” Aria pouted.
“Is it common for humans to lie about what they like and dislike? It is a most confounding trait,” Vyktor observed.
“It’s not uncommon,” Aria admitted. “But that still doesn’t mean that I liked it… what you did to me.”
“Very well,” Vyktor nodded. “What you do next, you will only do of your own accord. There will be no question of it in your mind or mine.”
“I’m not going to be trained, Vyktor,” she said. “That’s not going to happen without your whips and chains.”
“I know you adore them, pet,” he said. “But you will enjoy this as much. Lie on your back and spread your legs for me.”
“No,” Aria said, figuring staunch resistance was the best way to drive this mad idea of his about her becoming a compliant little pet out of his head.
Vyktor let out a little snort. He did not seem surprised by her reaction, nor was he worried about it.
“Remember, pet,” he said. “I still control the limits of your world. The bed you sleep in, the baths you take…”
“If you have to threaten me into behaving, it’s not behaving.”
“Ah, so in your world, when you follow the laws set by your leaders, you’re doing it because you genuinely believe in every one of their edicts?”
“No, but they’re not the ones telling me I am a good trained little citizen pet.”
“Of course not. They wouldn’t be that honest. More traits of the human tendency to obfuscate the obvious, using words to mask the realities in which you live. Very, very strange. You must waste a great deal of time simply arguing without anything changing.”
“We do,” she said. “We have international panels dedicated to it.”
Vyktor reached out, grasped her by the leg, and tossed her over onto her back. The covers that had protected her from his ire flew off, leaving her naked body exposed as he kneeled up, his large frame looming over her.
Aria looked up at him with a half-smile, sensing that he was running out of patience with her arguments. Good. That would show him that he was not truly in charge of her.
“Let me see how you argue now, pet…” he said, sliding down her body until she saw his large shoulders and powerful head between her knees. She’d drawn them up out of some kind of protective impulse, but they spread easily around his body as he lowered his head, and his tongue snaked out of his mouth to find the soft seam of her lower lips.
“Oh!” Aria let out a gasp. His tongue was hot against her pussy, much hotter than any ordinary man’s would have been. It was longer too, and more muscular. He had more control over it, a lesson she learned when she felt it move across her pussy in a slow, sensual ripple that made her moan.
Vyktor ran his tongue up and down her slit this way several times, teasing her lips into flowering for him, the sensitive inner folds engorging to meet the hot, wet tip of his dragon tongue. Aria’s fingers clenched in the bedsheets as her legs spread wide, inviting more of this heavenly sensation.
Aria had never really liked receiving oral sex. Her general impression was of getting stubble rubbed all over her nethers while an enthusiastic partner lapped like some kind of mad dog. What Vyktor was doing was entirely different. He seemed to have mapped every little erogenous zone of her pussy as well as her body and now he was using his knowledge to full advantage, circling the bud of her clit, then sliding down the center of her slit to finally push inside her welling pussy, the thick muscle of his tongue spearing inside her with a wet heat that made her head fall back and a cry of pure ecstasy float to the rocky ceiling.
“Oh, god!”
She felt his tongue begin to move inside her, back and forth about three inches deep, the hot, thick flesh of him rippling inside her pussy. It was almost too much to stand. Aria’s hips bucked and arched, her need for him so great she forgot that she was not supposed to be lost in desire.
“Fuck… please… god… Vyktor…”
He pulled his tongue from her and sat back.
Aria’s eyes flew open. “What are you doing!?” She asked the question in a desperate whimper.
“Did you forget so soon, pet?” Vyktor looked down at her with those knowing catlike eyes.
“What?”
“This is a training session.”
“Oh, for…” Aria whined… “But…”
His hand slid between her thighs and found her greedy little pussy.
“I think you’ll enjoy it, pet,” he said, beginning to strum her sex. His eyes gleamed with certainty, which made her squirm as her breath came in shorter, faster pants.
“Just let me come!”
“Not yet,” he said, pulling his hand away, leaving her bereft once more. “When I give the order, pet,” he said, “you will present yourself to be mated. You will kneel, place your hands in front of you, and lift your bottom as high as you can. If I ask you to present yourself fully, I mean for you to hold your bottom cheeks open so that your anus and vagina are both exposed.”
Aria flushed with hot humiliation. Even the thought of doing as he was saying made her quiver… but it also made her inner walls clench with anticipation, and her clit tingle.
“Present yourself, pet.”
He gave the order and she froze. He was asking her to debase herself before him. She should refuse. Of course she should. But it was so hot, and part of her wanted to do as he said.
“On your knees, pet,” he ordered, taking hold of the collar at her neck to enforce his will. He drew her up from her prone position until she was kneeling on the bed. She resisted a little, not that there was any point to it. He would have his way with her and they both knew it.
“Good,” he said when she was in position. “It is not so bad, is it, pet. Now, turn around and put your hands out in front of you. Lift your bottom. Let me see everything my pet has to offer me.”
Slowly, Aria did as she was told. Her pussy was aching with desire for him; his oral explorations had left her dripping wet, and even though her orgasm had retreated for the moment, she could feel it lingering about the tight little bud of her clit, waiting to surge forward at his touch.
She heard his growl of pleasure as her butt lifted and her pussy came into view.
“Such tender pink little folds,” he murmured, reaching to trace them gently. “Keep your hands down and your bottom high,” he reminded her as she began to squirm.
Holding position was difficult. Vyktor was making slow use of her body, touching her in her most sensitive spots with gentle strokes that made her juices flow. He knew precisely how to arouse her—and she had wanted him from the moment he’d put his lips to her pussy and shown her a new kind of pleasure. She would have taken his lips or his cock at that moment. She just wanted some part of him inside her… needed it.
Aria didn’t understand this wanton streak. Maybe it was something in his seed that made her crave him so much, or maybe it was the simple fact that she was a naked woman, being kept by a powerful creature in a cave far from civilization and the mental shackles that had kept her from ever allowing a man to give her an order in the bedroom were falling away—just as Vyktor had intended.
She had only been his prisoner for a week. In that short time, so much of her early resistance had faded, and in its place was a desire that made her feel more alive than she ever had before. Already she was moaning as she held her hips high and waited for him to slide himself inside her hot, wet cunt.
“Very good,” Victor said, his fingertip slowly swirling around the entrance of her body. “Now let your face rest against the blanket, pet, and put your hands back to your cheeks. I want you to spread yourself for me.”
Aria let out a whimper of complaint. Why couldn’t he just take her? Why did he have to insist on all these embarrassing little extra things that made it harder for her?
“Please,” she whimpered.
He ran his palm over her bottom and leaned down. She thought he was going to lick her pussy, instead he let his breath flow over her rear and she felt her bottom begin to sting.
“Hey!”
“If you will not obey, there are consequences,” Vyktor reminded her. “This is training, pet. You get pleasure when you do as I say. It is very simple.”
She squirmed, her bottom stinging more as he slapped her, lightly caressing her lips along with her bottom with soft little taps that left that stinging tingle in their wake. Still she did not obey.
“Are you resisting because you don’t want this? Or are you resisting because you cannot allow yourself to admit that this is all you want? At this moment, your body craves my touch, doesn’t it, pet? You need to do as I have said. You need to reach back and take your cheeks in your hands and spread them for me, pet.”
He knew her so very well. He seemed able to read every line of her body, every hitch in her breath. There was nowhere to hide with this creature, whose alarmingly powerful instinct and intellect was focused entirely on her.
With a soft whimper, she reached back and slid her fingers over her bottom. Clutching her cheeks gently, she hoped that would be enough.
“Spread them, pet,” he said. “I want to see everything you have presented to me. I want to see my pet in all her glory.”
Aria slowly did as she was told, baring herself for him, making the tight little pucker between her cheeks squeeze against the spreading motion, her lower lips parting. She could feel the trickle of her arousal flowing slowly down over her vulnerable little clit.
“Very good, pet,” Vyktor praised, his words warm as he finally gave her what she had been craving. She felt the thick, hot head of his cock touch her melting slit, his hardness rubbing up and down her wet folds before finding the tight little hole.
Slowly but firmly, he pushed inside her, his thick dragon hood stretching her, demanding everything she had. He was so thick and hard, like being fucked by a living rock. He was gentle at first, until her hands slipped from her spread, reddened cheeks and then he thrust forward hard.
“Keep yourself open for me, pet,” he reminded her. “Keep your pretty pussy displayed.”
She moaned against the bedding, her pussy quivering as he sank so deep inside her she felt perfectly completed by him. He was doing it again, making the unthinkable not only possible, but desirable. Slowly he began to take her harder and faster, his cock slicked with her juices, sliding easily back and forth in and out of her hot, wet cunt. And she held herself open for him just as he’d ordered her to.
He fucked her like that for several minutes, not speeding up or slowing down, giving her just enough stimulation to keep her arousal high, but not enough to approach climax. There was something almost disciplinary about the way he was fucking her. It was so controlled, so very deliberate.
“You need more, don’t you, pet,” he murmured down at her. “Is it enough?”
“Mnnnngghh…” She should have said yes, but her curiosity as to what the more might entail was too strong.
He slid from her pussy and slid his fingers inside her. This was more? She was a little confused, until he scooped up her juices and began to rub them a little higher—at the little bud of her bottom. She would never have let a man do anything… there, before, but Vyktor wasn’t a man, and his hot, wet, slick fingers were making her squirm as he toyed with her anus.
“This little hole,” he growled. “I wonder how it would be to slide my cock in here. Could you take that, pet?”
“I don’t know,” she squeaked. She should have said no, but she didn’t seem to want to anymore. Her fingers were still on her cheeks, still spreading herself for him. He hadn’t reminded her of that in minutes, but she was obeying him anyway, helping him as he began to plunder her bottom with his index finger.
She was tight as he began to push it inside her, spreading the tight ring of her muscle slowly.
“My reading indicates humans like to be taken here,” he murmured. “But can find it particularly taboo. I admit, that made me curious.”
Aria gasped as his finger began to sink deep, past the first knuckle and on to the second. It was just a finger, but her bottom clenched tight around it. Slowly he worked his finger in and out until she started to relax, and then finally he drew his finger out completely and put the head of his cock against the tender opening.
“Vyktor,” she moaned softly. “It’s too big.”
“I don’t think it is, pet,” he replied, pressing a little more firmly to make her bottom spread around the tip of his cock. “I think you can take me here.”
He was right. She could take him. With every breath she relaxed a little more, the spreading heat of his cock slowly sliding inside her bottom with an almost gentle probing. Not entirely gentle; how could it be when his big, thick member was stretching her open in her most intimate place?
She held herself in place, letting him take her there, helping him to break one of the final taboos against her body. Her pussy was streaming juices, her arousal as great as it had ever been as finally the dragon began to thrust inside her bottom, to fuck that tight little hole just as he had her mouth and her pussy. Every part of her belonged to him. He used her fluids of arousal to ease his passage as he started to take her harder still, sliding deep into her body, his abdomen meeting her bottom and lower back time and time again as he leaned over her, his great bulk covering her as they rutted in the most depraved way Aria could imagine.
Sweating and grunting, gasping her dirty pleasure into the sheets, Aria abandoned herself to the coupling. It didn’t matter how he fucked her, just as long as he did. She needed him more than she needed oxygen as she cried out over and over, her bottom and pussy held high for the dragon’s taking. The sounds of slapping filled the room, a wet sound, skin meeting skin over and over again as he snaked his hand around her belly and began to strum her clit.
“Fuck! Vyktor!” she screamed almost as if she was in agony, but there was no pain in it. She was lost to pleasure, her sex-sweated palms sliding from her cheeks as the dragon rolled to the side and held her there against him, fucking her bottom, rubbing and slapping her pussy as she bucked and screamed and cried with an orgasm that took her to the very verge of consciousness.
His rough growl of pleasure met hers as they came together, bodies locked, dragon semen spilling inside her bowels as Vyktor filled her bottom to the very brim.
“Good pet,” he rumbled as she lay there, sated, her skin shining with sweat, his seed dripping from her bottom as her pussy quivered with the remnants of orgasm. No man could have done what Vyktor did to her. No man could make her feel this sated, this thoroughly owned.
She felt him pick her up and then she was carried to the bed, not the bedding in her cage, but the bed in which Vyktor slept, and laid down upon it. The dragon curled up behind her, holding her close to his powerful body as she recovered from his lovemaking.
Slowly the powerful hormone flood abated and she began to feel more like herself. A softer version, perhaps, a lighter, more relaxed version.
“You have fought so long and so hard, pet,” he murmured, running his fingernails down the back of her neck. “You do not need to fight anymore.”
It would be nice, Aria thought, to not have to fight. But she had been fighting for so long, and trained so hard to be part of a force that fought to its very last breath that she really wasn’t sure if she could maintain a state of surrender. Vyktor could take her there, he could push her resistance until it shredded and became willing compliance, but it was not her nature.
“You’re insatiable,” she murmured as he slid his hand between her thighs and cupped her pussy. She was still aching from their previous bout, but the moment his strong hand found her sex, she felt herself beginning to respond.
“We are creatures of lust, pet, as are humans. It may be the one trait we share most strongly.” He rubbed her lower lips gently. “Is it too much for you? Are you becoming too tender?”
She turned to look at him, surprised. He had not made a concession to her feelings so far; to be asked if it was too much struck her as strange.
“Do you care?”
“I don’t want to break you, pet,” he said, grazing his teeth lightly over her shoulder and neck. “I know you think of me as a cruel captor, and perhaps sometimes I fit that description. But what you perceive as cruelty has never been a desire to harm you. As you become more tame, I will solicit your opinions more.”
“I will never be tame…” Aria let out a little growl, which only served to make Vyktor’s hand slap her pussy lightly, the sting igniting her lower lips that were already swollen and aching from their vigorous coupling.
“Then you will be sore,” he promised, turning her onto her stomach. Aria laid there, pinned by his powerful hand, unsure what he was going to do to her. He reached down and spread her legs. She let out a little whimper, already regretting her words.
She expected pain, but instead she felt him exhale between her legs, very lightly blowing on her pussy. There was a blush of heat that surprised and confused her, especially when he lifted his head and blew upon her bottom. She thought she heard him mutter some quiet words, and the blushing warmth on her cheeks grew somehow and became much more intense. She felt the soft wafting of air against her skin, and then a blaze sprang up.
“Ow!” She reached back to rub away the heat, but it did not seem to be physical and there was nothing she could do. “Ow, that hurts!”
“I have told you over and over, pet,” he chuckled darkly, pinning her hips in place as she writhed upon the bed. “I can command your body in ways you can barely imagine. I can bend your flesh to my will as I please… it falls upon you to obey me, and to act respectfully.”
He blew upon her bottom again, stoking the embers of the unseen fire that was consuming her cheeks. Aria squealed, unable to escape the stinging heat. Of all the tricks he had pulled, this one was perhaps the most humbling. There she was, writhing naked upon the bed before him, her bottom blazing to heaven as a result of a puff of air from his lungs.
“Are you coming to understand, pet?”
“Yes!” She answered him quickly, for the heat was spreading, consuming her bottom from the very top to the very bottom and creeping down her thighs. She kicked and squirmed, unable to lie still as what felt like a hard paddling was transmitted to her bottom.
“Would you perhaps like to apologize?” he prompted her. She had not even considered an apology.
“I’m sorry!” She gasped the words. “Please, Vyktor…”
“Call me Master.”
“Oh, god, please, sorry, Master!”
The heat was still burning and prickling away, but as she said the words, it began to abate a little. Over the course of a minute or so, it receded into a comfortable warmth that felt almost nice.
She breathed a sigh of relief, tension fading from her muscles as the crescendo of sensation left her feeling quite drained. Whatever he had done to her with his breath, it had done more than sting and heat her skin. It had taken some of her resistance and transformed it into a dampness that was now lingering between her swollen lower lips.
“Spread your legs, pet.”
Aria thought about refusing, but the heat was too fresh in her mind. She let her legs part a little, and did not resist when he pushed them open more.
She felt his breath again, but this time it was not so hot. This time it was a tickling light heat that gently rose and fell along the length of her mound, teasing her pussy in the softest way possible.
“How do you do this?”
“It is one of our many talents, pet,” Vyktor said. “A dragon controls the elements within himself.”
“So you can do ice too?”
The breath continued, but the temperature changed. A cool gust swept over her lower lips in a tantalizing change from the previous heat.
“That’s… mmnnn… quite a party trick,” Aria moaned softly.
“What I most enjoy about you, pet, is your ability to bounce back from any chastisement. One moment you are begging for mercy, the next you are once more teasing me.” He lifted his hand and swatted her bottom the old-fashioned way. Aria yelped, noticing that the sting from a physical slap did not fade nearly as quickly as the one magically inflicted.
“Pull a rabbit out of a hat, next?”
She was pushing her luck. They both knew it. Some mad impulse still lived within her, wanted to see just how far she could push this man who had made himself her master. She would probably never understand just how different he really was, but every time she tested him, some new ability seemed to emerge.
“You, my pet, are a brat,” Vyktor said, swatting her bottom harder still. “A brat with a sore sex who is taunting her master… if I did not know better, I would say you were yearning to be filled even though you are still tender.”
Aria bit her lower lip to stifle the moan that rose in response to his words. She was aroused. She could not help but be aroused. It was a reaction as natural as night becoming day; whenever Vyktor touched her, her body responded fully and without regard for its own limits.
“Do you want me to fuck you, pet?” He slid up over her back, nipped at her earlobe, and drawled the question in her ear. She felt his long, heavy cock sliding along the crevice of her bottom cheeks and felt her pussy clench in anticipation of being filled again.
Her answer was a soft moan, not truly verbal, but it did not need to be. They both knew what was needed now—what was inevitable.
“You are an insatiable little thing,” he drawled, letting his cock slide back over her bottom. The head of his dragonhood pressed between her still swollen lips and spread them, the sticky moisture of her arousal and the dregs of his seed easing his passage back inside her.
He was surprisingly gentle as he mounted her, brushing her hair away from her face to murmur soft words in her ear. They were not English words. They were not human words, they sounded to her like some poetry from a very old, very distant place. They were words with power, and as he pushed inside her tight, well fucked pussy, they soothed the ache and they settled her into a place of soft submission that was not entirely her own.
Aria arched her hips, parted her thighs, and took him deeply. She felt so content, so thoroughly filled—in some way more complete than ever before. When they joined, they became something different and something more than either one of them were apart.
Soon Vyktor’s hips were riding against her bottom in a steady rolling rhythm that stretched her over and over, demanding her pussy take him all the way. He had her impaled upon him, her quivering sex in thrall to him, her mind fogged with the pleasure and the song he was softly singing in her ear.
It was one of the most beautiful songs she had ever heard, rich and melodic. As he made singing love to her, she felt the song sink into her and then images rose in her mind, evoked by his singing. It was as if she did not just hear the song—she saw it. Mist green waters leading to craggy cliffs dotted with carved dwellings. High above them, winged creatures wheeled through the sky. It was a world so much like her own, and yet so different. It was richer. Older. More powerful.
Her climax was coming again. It was a different kind of orgasm, not born of fierce rutting or absolute submission, but of a connection, a shared place that somehow she knew they were both linked to in some way.
They came together, wrapped in passionate embrace, bodies quivering with their exertion of the marathon session. It was only once her climax was over did she realize that tears had been running down her cheeks.
“Are you alright, pet?”
“That place…” She looked at him. “Where is it?”
“That is home,” he said, knowing precisely what she meant. “That is the world we came here to protect.”
“How did you show it to me? It was… so clear… like a vision… a hallucination.”
“Word-working,” he said. “It is an old skill. I’m sorry. Was it too much? I did not know if it would work at all with you.”
Aria looked at him, her eyes still welling with tears. He had told her from the beginning that he was a creature of power. He had hunted her down in his dragon form, he had torn her from her plane, and he had flown her hundreds of miles. He had chained her, shown her abilities beyond her comprehension. And only now that she saw his home did she begin to understand what he had been trying to tell her all along… he was her master.
Not because he had chained her. Not because he had punished her, whipped her, fucked her, but because he had shown her something of himself, something that allowed her to see him as something other than an invader with a power complex.
“It wasn’t too much,” she said. “But it was so beautiful…”
Vyktor was a man fighting for a world she could only dream of. Whatever was beyond the portal was also beyond human imagination. The glimpse he had given her made her feel a deep yearning and a sadness born of having seen something more majestic than anyone might imagine.
“There are two worlds at stake, pet,” Vyktor said. “Both beautiful beyond imagination. Both worth fighting for. When I came through the portal and saw this place, I knew then that humans would never cease their battle for this place. There is too much to lose.”
“I wish I could see that place.”
“Unfortunately, you cannot. The pilot who made land in our realm became very ill and perished within days. We have very high levels of radiation in our realm. It is what feeds us, to a great extent. We can take in nutrients in our more human forms, but in our dragon skins, we can absorb pure radiation. Unfortunately, you humans are not built in the same way.”
“So you didn’t kill him? We were told he was killed by your forces.”
“We absolutely did not,” Vyktor said. “Your leaders have been lying from the outset. They planned an invasion, and when they realized that one was not possible, they painted themselves as the victims of our armies. In truth, they simply started a battle they could not win. Instead of laying down the fight, they sacrifice their people for the sake of their egos.”
That sounded about right.
“You should have captured someone that mattered,” she said. “Nobody will care if I die here.”
“You are someone that matters,” Vyktor said. “You don’t see it yet, because you have been treated as little more than a bullet in a gun. One of many dangerous little things to be fired in the direction of the enemy. But you are much more than that, pet. I will present you to my men again tonight. It has been several days, and already you are making a great deal of progress.”
Aria shrank down against him.
“Are you shy, pet?” He murmured the question fondly, caressing her. “You should not be. You are beautiful. The men envy me having you.”
“They envy you being able to humiliate and use me.”
“We are dragons. We hoard things of beauty, power, and worth,” Vyktor said. “Humiliation and use, these are concepts you are sensitive to, as a human. When I put you on display before my men, it is not to shame you. It is to show what a jewel you are, and to motivate them to preserve others like you.”
Aria found herself believing him, though she knew his way with words could mean that she was being misled. When he touched her, when his eyes fell upon her skin and his lips curled in a smile of pure pleasure, she felt valued. From the beginning, he had taken care of her and with her, ensured that no harm would come to her.
“Vyktor!”
A voice in the hall summoned her master. He rose directly, with a kiss to her lips and another to her forehead. “Get some rest, pet,” he said. “I will return soon.”
“Okay,” Aria said softly. Her eyelids were heavy and she could feel herself drifting into a dream.
* * *
Aria would sleep for hours, Vyktor was sure of it. Their sex often seemed to exhaust her. He suspected that human males did not have anything like dragon stamina. He was impressed at her sensitivity to his word-working. She had a great deal of potential that was yet to be tapped, and he was looking forward to discovering her hidden depths.
“Spending more time with that human?” Eldor asked the question with a sneer.
“Yes, I think she will be ready for another presentation soon enough.”
“We have greater matters to attend to than your display of your human,” Eldor snapped as they walked into the command office he had carved out for himself. It was a relatively small space with sheltered openings that looked out onto the wider terrain. Cold at the best of times, but Eldor had a greater tolerance for cold than most of them did.
“What matters are these?” Vyktor nodded to the other dragon present—Eridos. He was a young but promising technician and he and Eldor were already making excellent headway toward understanding the human manipulations of matter, the machines they created, their weapons of war and of peace.
“We have observed a rumor in some of the human media. Apparently, the humans may start using their most terrible weapons on us.”
“One would have thought that they would have used them already,” Vyktor noted. “What are they?”
“They claim to have a weapon capable of obliterating entire cities. A weapon which would destroy all life—including our own. We have found footage of one such detonation upon that which they call a ‘tablet’ device. Eridos found it near an evacuated settlement and spent some time searching what they call their ‘internet.’ These humans are connected globally, Vyktor. They can speak to one another at very great distances, and conduct conversations with thousands, or even millions of participants all at once.”
“Impressive,” Vyktor said, watching as pictures began to dance across the surface of the slim device. They showed images of a great explosion, followed by a mushroom cloud that towered high above a desert very much like the one where the portal was located.
“They call this the destroyer of worlds,” Eldor intoned.
“I do not believe it.” Vyktor shook his head. “They are capable of manipulating anything visual. We have seen that many times. Their movies depict all manner of impossible acts.”
“According to their histories, this was real,” Eldor said gravely. “They have threatened to fly this weapon through the portal and deploy it on our world.”
“Nasty little things, aren’t they.”
In the corner of the room, Eridos began to laugh.
“What is so funny?” Eldor snapped the question.
“You looked at the effects of the weapon, but you did not look at the specifications,” Eridos laughed. “These weapons are capable of serious detonations, yes, but their main byproduct is…” he let out a very un-dragonly giggle, “…ionizing radiation.”
The dragons looked at one another, then burst out laughing.
“So their plan is to drown a fish with water,” Eridos chuckled. “Oh, they are almost adorable in their evil. So determined, and so very misguided.”
“If we could spank them all one by one, we might get through to them,” Vyktor grinned. “Though as it is, I have my hands rather full with my pet.”
“She is not entirely terrible,” Eldor admitted. “And I must credit you with helping us to see these humans for what they are. I think, once we have brought them to heel, they will flourish under our guidance. Perhaps, in a few centuries, they might even attain some form of true civilization.”