THE FINAL
When Vendass and another Scodax officer came with two androids to his cell, Thrax allowed them to remove him from behind the force field and made no move to attack them. “Remember,” said Vendass, “your mate’s life depends upon your full cooperation. You will be brought unbound to the duel, as befits an honored warrior. The consequences of any resistance will be upon her.”
Thrax remained stoic in the face of this repeated threat against Agena. He gave no reaction, not even a frown, as Vendass and his comrade and the two armed androids led him off. But in his mind, he looked over his captors carefully, guessing where all the nerves and arteries must be on the Scodax and where all the vital components and functions must be on the automatons; assessing where he would strike, if he could, to do the maximum damage and ensure death or terminal shutdown. Depending on what unfolded, he might have his chance.
The aliens led him to a large, open chamber at whose far end was a portal that occupied an entire wall. Thrax guessed that this must have been originally intended as a cargo bay or perhaps a docking bay for the Scodax attack craft. Armed androids were stationed in two corners of the space and at either end of a row of tiered seats.
In the viewport of that portal, Thrax saw a view of the most populous continent of Lacerta, where Silverwing was. Seeing his home outside the port reminded him of the other cause for which he would do battle today. If these creatures truly believed they could humble Lacerta and its Knights, the wrath of dragons would teach them better.
Thrax turned his attention to the row of tiered seats that took up one side of the chamber, where members of the Scodax crew sat watching. Thrax noted that it was not the kind of bustling throng that had attended the Lottery back in Silverwing where he was paired with Agena. If their Captain were truly going to do battle with a dragon, the ship’s crew should have turned out by the hundreds, not the dozens.
Conceivably, the majority of the crew could not leave their stations and would be watching remotely from other parts of the ship. That was logical. And yet, Thrax could not help but suspect that the sparse attendance of this duel must mean something else. The thought gnawed at his mind that there was some critical thing about the Scodax that he did not know, which would make all the difference in the battle against them.
From the fact that he could not see it, he guessed it was something as obvious as it was important. The obvious things were always the easiest to overlook.
Vendass ordered Thrax to stand at a spot near the center of the chamber. He and the other officer moved off to take places at the head of the seating. The two androids marched to one side of the space and took positions on either side of a door. The door slid open and out stepped Amlax, dressed in only the bottom of his uniform. Thrax could barely hide his disgust at this creature, not only for the harm he had done to Lacerta and his threat against Agena’s life, but for the mere sight of him. His cracked gray skin, the feature he shared in common with all the other Scodax that Thrax had seen, made him look as if he were turning to a fossil while still alive.
And at this, the Knight began to wonder. He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes with a glimmer of realization. Perhaps he actually had been looking into the face of the truth from the moment he first set eyes on Amlax. There must be a reason for their condition—and that could well be why so few of them were present now.
Amlax strode toward the center of the chamber and took a position a few paces in front of Thrax. “Sir Thrax Helmer of Lacerta,” he said in a ceremonial tone, “you now face me, Amlax, Captain of the Scodax Armada, in a duel to establish Scodax supremacy. You will battle well and be treated as an honored foe upon your defeat. Thus, we return to you your weapon.”
At the sound of metal footfalls behind him, Thrax turned and saw two more androids entering the chamber, one carrying Thrax’s powerblade and the other carrying a long, thick metallic staff. In spite of his discipline, Thrax’s heart raced at the sight of his weapon. He’d be dealing justice with it today. The android marched up to Thrax and extended the weapon for him to take. Thrax took it from the automaton’s hand and let it march off to the door through which it came.
The other new arrival walked to Amlax and handed him the metal staff. When the alien Captain took this object from it, the automaton marched away to join its companion. Amlax announced, “We shall energize weapons and begin at the sound of the clarion. Weapons shall be set at moderate charge, strong enough to immobilize, not to slay. When you fall, Sir Knight, you will live to serve the Scodax.”
Thrax spoke up: “Amlax, before we begin, have I the right to speak as an honored foe?”
At this, a bustling murmur welled up from the seated spectators, the first sound that Thrax had heard from them since he arrived. It was the noise of hoots and whoops from a crowd excited by sport, eager to see two combatants land blows and strike pain into each other, anxious to see one fall and one stand triumphant. It sickened Thrax a bit, but he’d be damned if he would let them see the way he felt. He was a Knight, not a gladiator.
Amlax nodded. “Speak, Sir Knight, and know that we are now being seen and heard across the face of Lacerta.”
Of that I have no doubt, Thrax quietly acknowledged. Aloud, he said, “Amlax, I ask you to put an end to this pointless charade. As a Knight, I know that there is no honor in a battle needlessly fought, in pain needlessly inflicted, blood needlessly spilled. For all the horror that you have brought to my world, the people of Lacerta may still be willing to sit and talk, to learn more about you. We may still be willing to learn of your origins, your needs, and your reasons for doing as you do. There may still be time and opportunity to reach an understanding. Tell me that we may all lay down our weapons on both sides, put aside the violence, and talk to one another. Is this not a better course than needless, costly conflict?”
Thrax was speaking now not only to Amlax himself, but to his suspicions about the aliens. He was all but certain that what he suspected was true. All that he, and all of Lacerta, needed was the chance to talk to these beings and find the truth. It was the truth, Thrax was sure, that would end this nightmare. All that was needed was for Amlax to see reason.
A hush fell over the chamber as quickly as the noise from the spectators had welled up. The seated Scodax intently watched their leader, waiting for his reply. Amlax listened to Thrax’s plea. He took a deep breath, his chest and shoulders rising, the cracks in his skin spreading and contracting. At last, he answered.
“Sir Thrax Helmer, you comport yourself as a true Knight and a noble opponent. When you fall in submission, we shall take pride in your service to the Scodax. Change your form and charge your weapon. The duel begins.”
A deep, loud, blaring tone reverberated through the chamber. Thrax’s heart felt both heavy and set aflame. There would be no stopping this now, no avoiding what he must now do. He had no intention of either falling or submitting. And if he must end the life of this creature who had rebuffed his one appeal to reason, so be it. He turned his body from man to dragon, extending neck and horns, turning man-flesh to scales, and unfurling wings and tail. He activated his weapon, and it unfettered its gleaming blade.
With a heavy hiss, Sir Thrax Helmer stood ready for combat. As he watched, Amlax touched a place off the center of his staff, and either end of the staff produced a glowing dagger of energy. If Thrax still had human features, he would have smiled at the challenge of a double-bladed energy weapon. It should make Amlax twice the threat and give him twice the satisfaction of taking the alien down.
Dragon Knight and alien Captain raised weapons and lunged forward, and the battle was joined with streaks of light from blade and staff.
Of all the battles he had faced in his years in the Knighthood, this was one that Thrax did not relish. He was convinced now that something was not right about Captain Amlax. In all likelihood, this being was sick and infirm in some way; he may not even be in his right mind and had no business in combat.
There would be no honor in striking down such a foe. He only wished that Amlax had listened to reason. All that was left now was to find some way to defeat the alien Captain as quickly and bloodlessly as possible. Go for his weapon, Thrax thought. Render him defenseless and urge him to stand down. That’s the most merciful way.
Thrax lifted his powerblade high with both hands, goading Amlax into doing exactly what the dragon wanted him to do. The alien thrust his staff out length-wise to block Thrax’s downward swing. Yes! Cut the staff in two or strike it from his hands! Thrax brought down his glowing sword hard onto the metallic length of Amlax’s weapon. The energy blade striking the metal made a horrible hiss and a cascade of sparks. Thrax held the blade against the weapon, bearing down, trying to bite into the metal. The sparks flew furiously. Amlax thrust his weapon upward against the force that Thrax brought to bear against it.
The two opponents were almost frozen in place, pushing their weapons against one another, until with a roar, Amlax pushed up harder, forcing Thrax backward and away. The dragon man flew and somersaulted back with wings tucked, coming out of his spin and landing on both feet just as Amlax had at him with a swing of one of the glowing hot ends of his weapon. Thrax lunged backward again and met Amlax’s next thrust with a parry, knocking it to one side.
Amlax swung again, and Thrax met him with yet another parry. One thrust and one block followed another, with neither foe gaining the upper hand. They were both intent on bringing the other low, and almost oblivious of the rising shouts and calls from the seats, where the spectators leaned forward, shaking fists and urging their Captain onward.
There had to be an end to this, Thrax realized. Sooner or later, Amlax, in his condition, must tire of this, but he did not know how long it would take to wear him down. He had to find another way. Amid a series of further thrusts and blocks, Thrax seized upon another idea. At Amlax’s next thrust, the dragon spun away to one side, letting the glowing end of Amlax’s staff pass through empty space. He then battered down hard against Amlax’s staff, knocking it toward the floor while at the same time lashing out with his tail to catch Amlax under the knee of one leg. He coiled his tail around Amlax’s leg and gave a sudden, hard yank, spilling Amlax onto his back on the floor of the chamber.
Having his adversary prone on the floor, Thrax moved fast. He leaped up with wings stretched upright and raised his powerblade like a spear. He needed only drive the energy blade through one part of the alien’s body where there were no vital organs. He would not strike to kill. He would strike to injure, just enough to end the battle without taking Amlax’s life. He came down with blade pointed—but shockingly, Amlax was ready for him.
As Thrax descended upon him, the Scodax Captain slashed out sideways with his staff, catching Thrax on one hip and sending him spilling and sprawling off to one side. He rolled onto the floor and lay there, stunned, long enough for Amlax to clamber to his feet.
Thrax had a dull pain in his side where Amlax had hit him. His armor skin had protected him from the worst of the blow from the energy dagger, but it still hurt, and he had to collect his wits and his senses before Amlax made good on his resolve to defeat and humble him. He heard the alien’s footsteps coming closer and rolled onto his back to find Amlax towering over him with his weapon raised like a club. With a sharp intake of air, Thrax rolled away. The staff whooshed through the air and connected with one of Thrax’s wings.
The dragon man hissed and screeched loudly. His wings had no armor, and the hot shock of the energy blade seared at the leathery flesh of his wing. Thrax could not afford to take another blow like that. He scrambled to his feet, painfully tucking his wings, and met Amlax in a standoff
Amlax moved in again, and their battle became another dance of lunges and parries, thrusts and blocks. Thrax hissed at his foe and bared his fangs, defying the ache in his hip and the burning sore on his wing. Amlax kept lunging, and Thrax kept blocking, until Thrax took another tactic. He lashed out with his tail again, this time sending the scaly appendage unfurling upward to connect with Amlax’s staff and wrap around it in a constricting grip.
Amlax bellowed in protest, pulling and wrestling to pry the weapon from the dragon’s grasp. Good, Thrax thought. Keep grappling with my tail and leave me enough of an opening… And while Amlax struggled furiously with Thrax’s tail, the Knight again lifted his blade like a spear—and drove it hard and deep into Amlax’s shoulder.
The sword of energy sank into Amlax’s shoulder with a hiss almost as awful as that of a dragon. Amlax shrieked an inhuman cry and pulled back hard against the grip of Thrax’s tail. Thrax pulled the blade from the alien’s shoulder and unwrapped his tail. He leapt back, ready to make another stab at his pained, maddened foe. Amlax staggered away, making a furious rumbling sound, and toppled onto the floor, dropping his weapon and clutching at his wounded shoulder, bellowing with rage.
The spectators jumped to their feet. Thrax divided his attention between the fallen Amlax and the members of his crew, certain that the lot of them would now come charging from their seats at him, bracing himself to slash and hack his way through an oncoming wave of livid Scodax bent on avenging their Captain.
That was when the ship’s clarion sounded again, and everyone in the chamber froze, confused. The shouts and roars of the Scodax suddenly cut off as they eyed one another and their fallen Captain, who even now was starting to pull himself up from the floor, clutching at his shoulder. A disembodied voice from unseen speakers echoed in the chamber: “Armada self-destruct is engaged. Destruct in ten alyews and counting…”
Now the voices raised again, this time filled with shock and dismay. Thrax eyed Amlax as the alien Captain found his footing again and saw him as shocked as his crew. The Knight was not sure what was happening. Did that voice actually say, “Self-destruct”?
Amlax bellowed out more loudly than ever, “What madness is this? Who gave the order for self-destruct? Report at once!”
Vendass stepped down from the seats and joined his Captain. The third-in-command was touching and watching a device on the sleeve of his uniform that fed holographic symbols and pictures into the air. “Captain,” he said in a dire voice, “the self-destruct command was fed into one of the optical ports. It is the irreversible self-destruct code in case of capture of a Scodax vessel. And, Captain, there is more. Look…”
At a touch from Vendass, a series of holo-images large enough for everyone in the chamber blossomed into the air. Before the disbelieving eyes of the Scodax, it showed the corridors of the ship filled with androids battling fully-armed Knights and Corps of Lacerta. Energy bolts flew, and powerblades swung in every direction. Bodies went flying and falling. It was a total, all-consuming melee.
Through clenched teeth, Amlax rumbled, “What is the meaning of this? Where is my second? Where is Venar?”
Gravely, Vendass replied, “Commander Venar has been found unconscious in a conference room with two decapitated androids.”
Now seething and murderous, Amlax faced Thrax. “You filthy son of a traua! What have your miserable people done?”
“I can’t guess,” said Thrax. “But your time grows short.”
“And yours grows shorter!” the alien Captain roared, lunging forward at the dragon.
Thrax reacted instantly. In his mindless fit of wrath, Amlax had failed to pick up his weapon again. It was now only a maddened and unarmed Captain against an armed dragon Knight. As he’d done before, Thrax spun away from Amlax’s charge, but this time, as Amlax lunged into the space where Thrax had been, the Knight brought down the hard, blunt hilt of his blade directly onto the base of the back of Amlax’s neck. With a deep, heavy sound like a gulp of air in reverse, the Captain of the Scodax careened onto the floor and crumpled there, motionless.
Seeing his Captain laid low, Vendass bared his teeth and raised his hands to Thrax with fingers clenched. He clearly intended to seize the dragon Knight by the throat and choke him to death where he stood. Snarling, “You vicious, presumptuous, bestial pounit…” He advanced on Thrax—and the dragon man nimbly swiveled his powerblade around and presented its glowing point to Vendass, stopping him in his tracks.
Holding Vendass at blade point, Thrax suggested, “I should think that at the moment, you’d have more pressing concerns than my trouncing your Captain.”
Vendass snarled incoherently and backed away from Thrax. Casting his gaze at the seats, Thrax wondered again whether he would have to offer his blade to Vendass’ crew mates. The other Scodax stood in a mix of confusion, wrath, and fear. Then, the sound of the door sliding open made them all turn to face it.
Into the chamber poured a charging group of nine armored Lacertans with powerblades at the ready. At their lead was Meline, and with her, a woman carrying a bolt rifle. Thrax swiveled his dragon neck to see the new arrivals and blinked his dragon eyes at the armed figure at Meline’s side. For a moment, he could not reconcile the woman he had come to know so well with the woman running into the chamber with the dragons, not until she called his name.
Agena cried, “Thrax!”
She broke into a run for him and flung her free arm around him, little caring that she was embracing his dragon shape. Thrax likewise threw his free arm around her, utterly perplexed but relieved in spite of it all that she was unharmed.
Agena parted the embrace and looked into his dragon features. He was the handsomest dragon and the most welcome sight ever to greet her eyes. Thrax asked, “Agena, what have you been doing?”
“Looking for you,” she replied. “We have to get off this ship now. We started the countdown for self-destruct.”
“So I heard,” Thrax said.
Stepping over to them, Meline added, “And we’d all best shake a tail. That countdown is still running, and nothing will stop it.”
Nearby, the other dragons who had come pouring into the chamber were holding the Scodax at bay with their powerblades. Thrax took note of them for a second, then asked Meline, “What about the civilians?”
“We’ve been getting them to the escape pods,” Meline replied, “and we need to be heading there ourselves.”
“Lead the way,” said Thrax, and he and Agena, with Meline, made for the door. He still cast a curious and bemused look at Agena carrying a Scodax weapon, and blinked and flicked his dragon tongue at the imagery that the sight conjured up. This was going to bear some discussion as soon as their lives were out of danger. The other Knights and Corps, brandishing their blades against the Scodax, began to back out of the chamber with them. In a moment, they were off.
They all ran through the ship, passing and stepping over the fallen bodies of Scodax androids, some of which were intact but run through with smoking holes, others scattered in pieces on the ship’s deck floors. Thrax’s people had done their usual deadly-efficient job of dispatching their enemies, and he wondered how many casualties they had taken themselves. There would be time to find out as soon as those with him and any other Lacertans on board were safe. The voice of the ship’s AI called out, “Self-destruct in six alyews…”
Quickly, they reached a room filled with circular hatches in a chamber strewn with the bodies and body parts of more androids, and littered as well with the bodies of Scodax themselves. Uniformed Lacertans were ushering and helping people into the hatches and climbing through the hatches themselves. Many of the hatchways were empty, the sign of already launched escape pods. Meline pointed to a closed hatch and said, “The three of us should fit in here—very snugly.”
“So long as we fit,” said Thrax. Meline pounded a surface on one side of the hatch and it swung open with an ironically dragon-like hiss. Gesturing to Agena, Thrax said, “Armed or not, you’re still a civilian. You first.” Without a word, Agena climbed into the hatch. The two dragons quickly retracted their blades and morphed back to human, the better to fit inside the small enclosure, and climbed in after her. The hatch door swung shut with a metallic clack. The ship’s AI called, “Self-destruct in five alyews…”
Inside the pod, Meline took one seat facing Thrax and Agena, who shared the other. Agena threw down the bolt rifle onto the floor of the pod, wrapped her arms around Thrax, and buried her head against his chest. Thrax rested his weapon and held Agena tight. There was a muffled explosive sound and a sudden lurch, then a feeling of acceleration.
The escape pod shot out of the Scodax mastercraft amid a flurry of others, emerging into space like down from a dandelion. The pod had one viewport at the front, and as the tiny craft spun away from its mooring, Thrax and Meline gazed out of the port at what was happening just beyond the arc of the planet. Shapes were bursting out of the star-dappled darkness. They resolved into view and revealed their recognizable forms as spacecraft, each one as large as the ships of the Scodax armada.
The two weredragons picked out the configuration of each incoming vessel. Some were from Lacerta, returning home; others from Earth, and among them were craft of at least four planets allied with Earth. The sector had sent some of its proudest vessels to defend the planet of the dragons. Thrax and Meline knew that each one had weapons fully charged and ready for battle.
They would not be needing them.
In minutes, the space around Lacerta was lit up with the fiery and luminous flashes of ships tearing themselves apart from the inside. The explosions ripped jagged and burning pieces of hull from the bodies of the vessels and flung them sparking and sizzling into the black void. Tendrils and trails of energy arced out glowing into space. Each Scodax vessel became a huge, searing yellow-white blossom of discharged power, blazing over the face of the planet.
And on the planet, in the populated and settled places, and in the places where the resources of Lacerta were found, smaller flashes of light could be seen from space. These were where the attack craft stationed across the planet had responded to the command to erupt in the fire of self-destruction.
Thrax and Meline looked out the viewport of the escape pod and watched the pockmarks of light break out across their world. They knew that one of them marked the place where Scodax ships hovered over the Spires and the Aerie, the places where they had met and became friends and learned to be Knights.
A pang of sorrow clawed at the heart of each of them at the thought of the places in their past that were likely to have been destroyed, and the memories that were now likely to be blasted and burning. And Thrax held Agena all the more tightly, clinging to the new memories he had made with her and to the thoughts of the future they were still free to make.
*
When the Scodax Armada wiped itself from existence in one fearsome flurry of explosions, the reinforcement vessels that had come to the aid of Lacerta found themselves tasked not with battle but with emergency relief. Ships and crews were pressed into service to rescue the trapped, tend to the injured, and recover the dead. They brought and distributed food and undertook the building of shelters. And they began the process of healing one of the proudest colonies of any world in space.
Upon their return to Lacerta, Thrax and Agena had stories to tell and statements to make, both to the Mentors and to the members of the Ruling Aerie. The training annexes of the Knights, as planned when the Scodax attack first happened, were now the temporary headquarters of both bodies until their proper places in Silverwing could be rebuilt.
Agena testified the harrowing story of how she and Meline had left the courageous Commander Venar and sped back to the cell from which they had been taken, where they had released the rest of the prisoners with whom they had been kept. They had all quickly found the other cells and released everyone else who had been taken, and then had come the dread battle with the Scodax androids who had come out after them.
The leaders of the Lacertan government and armored forces listened in amazement to the tale of how the Knights and Corps protecting civilians aboard the Scodax mastercraft had battled advancing squadrons of androids; of how only Agena and Meline had been armed at first, until the Lacertans had begun to overpower the androids with the might of sinew and reflexes and tails, had seized their weapons, and had begun to blast their way through the automatons.
They were amazed in particular at the way Agena, not even a dragon warrior but only a human athlete, had stayed at Meline’s side and fought her own terror as much as she fought their foes. She had missed or grazed her android targets as much as she’d hit them, but she had never faltered, ignoring her instinct to run and hide.
She had stayed with Meline as they’d reached the weapons room and recovered the captured powerblades. And it was Agena herself, in the midst of a hail of enemy fire, who had lunged and ducked, rolled and leaped her way down a Scodax passageway to reach one of the androids’ optical ports, into which she had personally fed from her data collector the command for the armada to destroy itself.
All this, from an Earth woman whose most formidable training was in the playing of a game. The Alpha Dragon of Lacerta himself issued a proclamation that from this time forward, the name of Agena Morrow would be entered into the planetary annals as an honorary Knight. Thrax, attending the hearings and giving his own testimony, watched this honor conferred upon the woman who had come to Lacerta as his aspirant and prospective mother of his child, and his heart swelled with a dragon’s pride.
For her own part in repelling the invasion of the Scodax, Meline was awarded another color of armor. Now wearing three colors, she would be a leader among Knights and Dames.
There was much discussion, in official hearings and elsewhere across the planet, of why the Scodax had programmed a command for all their ships to destroy themselves, dooming their cause, in the event of the capture of one single ship. Why would they do such a thing when it would be simpler and far less costly for the rest of the armada to turn on a single captured craft and destroy it?
Lacerta and the other worlds aligned with Earth could only speculate. Perhaps it was only that the inability of the Scodax to trust other tribes among their own people extended to a general suspicion of all other intelligent life. Perhaps they feared that from one captured vessel, data about Scodax strengths and weaknesses could be transmitted before there was ever a chance to destroy it.
Experts from across space weighed in on the issue and concluded that the Scodax were a uniquely paranoid species, given to thinking in rigid absolutes and black-and-whites with very few ambiguities. This was likely what made the very idea of their ships or technology in hands other than their own a repugnant thought. It was agreed in the end that the unyielding, all-consuming pride of the Scodax was what had truly doomed them.
All that aside, Agena’s part in resolving the Lacerta-Scodax crisis was immediately the talk of the entire quadrant of the galaxy. The already celebrated Sphereball champion was now doubly famous, praised on hundreds of planets as the woman who had saved Lacerta. Agena tried to dismiss the praise by arguing that the Knights and Corps of Lacerta would surely have found a way to save their world for themselves, regardless of what an untrained and frightened human woman did, but no one was having it. Agena would be hailed as a heroine, whether she wanted the distinction or not.
In truth, there was only one thing Agena wanted. He was tall and smoldering-dark, handsome and muscular, and decked in an armor skin of three colors, and the desire in his eyes whenever he looked at her was almost all the reward she could ever ask for. The most treasured reward was what happened when he peeled that shiny second skin from his wondrous body like a shedding snake and put the dragon at his loins to work on her.
Agena happily accepted one honor from the people of Lacerta. With the destruction of the Chateau where she and Thrax had first consummated their pairing, the Knights reassigned the two of them to a Mentor’s quarters at one of the training annexes. They settled into these rooms in a gleaming dome structure sitting atop a plateau surrounded by forests and mountains with a waterfall so huge and mighty that it almost made Earth’s Niagara Falls seem like a garden fountain by comparison. Their bed looked out on a spectacular view of the falls, which they saw only when cuddling in bed between times resuming the joyous and ecstatic sexual unions of their Courtship.
It was during one sensuous and sex-drenched afternoon, when they lay propped up against the headboard and looking out at the waterfall, that Thrax, having sexed a thoroughly gratified Agena until every cell in both their bodies seemed to hum, took on a serious and thoughtful mood.
She rested her head on his hard, hairy chest and drifted with her hand down his abs to the large, moistened, and for now flaccid thing that always brought her such joy. He put an arm around her and teased her nipple with his other hand. And he said, “Agena…there is something I must say to you. Or something I must ask.”
“What?”
“Does it seem to you, in the weeks we have been intimate together, that we have actually lived years and not just weeks?”
She looked up curiously into his eyes. “I don’t understand what you mean. What are you asking?”
“I mean only that when we were first selected to be together, you were an athlete looking to her future, and I was a Knight wanting only to be a Knight. We were very much at odds with each other. Had we met any other way, I would have taken you to bed and been inside you in as little time as it takes to say it. Since then, we have come through my reluctance to sex you to make a child, through misunderstanding and uncertainty, to sex and passion and danger and jeopardy, and now back to this: the two of us never wanting to leave this bed. It has been only weeks, but it seems a good part of a lifetime.”
The look in his eyes made Agena feel as if he were penetrating her even now. Her heart ran over with bliss. “When you put it that way, I guess you have a point. I think the things we’ve done together, and the things we’ve been through—they’ve changed us. I guess they couldn’t help but change us.”
“Yes,” he said. “I think they’ve changed me the most of all.”
“You?”
“I’ve changed, Agena. I changed when we first went to bed. I let go of my image of myself, of what I wanted my life to be, as only a Knight. To share a bed with you, to commit myself to my duty to make you pregnant, I had to see something more in myself. When we were both in danger from the Scodax, along with my world, I saw how much I’ve changed.”
“How?”
“Lying with you, I’ve become more than I was. Agena, you know that I have lived for two things: the pride of my duty and what happens in bed with a woman. When I saw you enter the chamber where I battled Amlax, I saw something that I’ve never seen before. I saw you in a way that I have never seen any other female I’ve pleasured, not even when I have bedded other members of the Knighthood.
I had seen you as the woman who sat on the terrace at the Chateau and dined with me, who was the most wonderfully feminine thing I’d ever laid eyes upon. And I had seen you as the athlete playing your sport and besting one opponent after another, being a champion, being as proud as any Knight or Dame. But on the Scodax ship, you were something new. To me, you were a dragon in everything but scales and wings and horns. And…I was proud. I was proud of the woman with whom I had shared a bed, and proud to be the man giving of myself to a woman. For the first time, I saw a woman that I could never leave. And for the first time, I saw something—and someone—for which I could put away my armor and lay down my blade.”
When Agena opened her mouth to reply, at first no words came out. She truly felt her whole life dancing on the edge of something. It was a revelation and a wonder. “Thrax, you’re not saying…what I think you’re saying, are you?”
He stroked her breast and passed his fingers over her nipple, making it ever harder. “I’m saying that I want more than the child we’re trying to make together. I want my child’s mother. I want the woman that I love. And if you will have me…I want to be your mate and your husband.”
A beaming smile of amazement as much as of desire blossomed on Agena’s face. “Thrax…really?”
“Do you love me, Agena?” he asked.
“More than anything,” she said.
“And I truly love you.”
The feeling that passed between them was like gravity. It pulled them together with an irresistible force. The kiss was like two celestial bodies colliding and igniting together. It lasted a long time before they tenderly pulled their lips apart, and even then, their hands traveled up and down and over each other’s bodies, claiming each other, and saying with touches and caresses that they would always keep one another. At heart, they were already married.
Finally, Agena asked, “But Thrax…can you really do this? I mean, giving up going across the galaxy, protecting and serving, the whole way you’ve always lived?”
“Where there is love, it’s not a sacrifice. It’s another adventure. Perhaps my greatest adventure. And yours.”
They kissed again, sealing once more the love they had declared.
At the parting of this kiss, Thrax added, “And perhaps there is another way for me to serve. Though I may not be a Knight on duty, I may yet be a Knight of the Spires. As we rebuild Lacerta, there will be a need to train new young Knights, our next generation. As I will raise a new young dragon, I feel something very right about training other young dragons. While our son or daughter grows, perhaps my place truly is here, not only as a Knight…but as a Mentor.”
Agena smiled proudly at him. “The next generation of Knights could never have a better Mentor than you.”
“Even so,” he said, “I repeat one other thing that I have said before.”
“What’s that?”
“I truly hope we are a long time conceiving.” He kissed her, a hot peck on her lips. “With you, for the first time in my life, I know what it is not just to have sex, but to make love. There is so very much love I want to make with you.”
Agena sighed and smiled, a smile of anticipated joy. “Show me,” she said.
He took her by the hand and moved it down between his legs to the hardened, lengthened, throbbing gift that he wanted to spend his life giving her. “Put me inside you again and I will.”
Agena shifted onto her back, tugging at his gift and beckoning him to top her. Thrax answered her call with his body on top of hers, and let her move his gift to her soft slickness where she most wanted it and into her deepest reaches.
The dragon moved atop and inside his mate, propelling them both into delight beyond expression, and their future began.
{{**}}
Dear dragon lover,
Thanks so much for reading this novel and I really hope you are enjoying this series.
The other books in the Dragons Of The Universe series are:
Book 1 – THRAX
AWN
ORAM
Go check them out and collect the whole series!
Otherwise, add your email to the to be the first to know when it is released!
Bonnie x x
P.S Turn the page to discover a free complete novel that I threw in extra for you as a way of saying thanks. (It is a previous bestseller!)