Random chance had served Agena well. It had brought her a Knight of three colors, a Lacertan peacekeeper of the highest standing. The red, black, and silver uniform that so sexily accented the muscles of his amazing body showed him to be just below a Mentor in rank. She browsed through her memories of all the other Knights of Lacerta who had pleased her in bed.
She had always loved the way their uniforms looked on them, the way the top fastened itself at the back of the strong, corded neck and formed a seam along the waistline at the front and the sides, leaving the back completely open and the arms bare except for the shiny foil-membrane armbands. His badge with its regal-looking dragon’s head emblem adhered to his suit, appropriately, right over his heart.
The hilt of Thrax’s powerblade hung from his belt as if to suggest a second phallus, and Agena could only imagine that his actual member was equally as big. She had never heard of a Lacertan Knight, or any Lacertan male, being less than formidably hung, and the ones who had bedded her in the past were certainly not for the fainthearted. There were times between partners when she had lived on the memory of being plundered and impaled by them.
Looking Thrax up and down, Agena had every belief that he would measure up to any of her previous Knights. She smiled at him and was pleased at the courtly smile he gave her in return.
However, the thunderous roar and bellow of the crowd made a verbal greeting next to impossible. Dispensing with manners, Agena tried to shout at Thrax that it was all right with her if he wanted to morph to dragon form and fly them away from the Stadium. Thrax squinted and leaned in at her, unable to make out her words in the din. She leaned in closer and repeated her shout into his ear. Thrax leaned away, understanding, and for the first time, Agena saw her prospective partner morph.
The Lacertan mutation did not enable them to become full dragons. They always took on a form half-human, half-dragon—and wondrous to behold. Thrax in his other body was a thing of resplendent scales in what Agena guessed must be a half dozen shades of green and some hues mixed in with blue, with tiger-like stripes of azure and emerald up and down his arms.
His horns were majestically curved, his snout festooned with sharp spines, and his neck and back adorned with a trail of softer, more cushiony spines that stood up proudly in the sunshine. His tail descended to the floor of the platform and curled like a massive, flattened python, a thing of purest muscle. His reptile skin glistened like polished leather, and she could only imagine how it must feel to the touch.
In a moment, she did not need to imagine. He extended his hand to her again, and she noticed that the fingers of his gauntlets had extended to accommodate the powerful claws at the ends of his digits -- claws that could rake and gouge solid steel. It helped her understand why the Lacertans had created the Corps and the Knighthood to protect themselves from each other as well as any foes from outside. She took his hand, and he pulled her to him with a gentleness that belied his reptilian power and scooped her up in his arms.
Thrax lifted his head, unfolded his huge wings, and beat them mightily. He gave a leap that made Agena feel that her stomach was falling away, as well as the platform beneath them, and in a second, they were climbing toward the upper rim of the stadium, Thrax’s wings whooshing powerfully in the air with every power-filled beat. In a minute, they were high overhead, and the din of the Stadium crowd was dwindling beneath them, to be replaced with the sonorous sound of the wind of the Lacertan sky.
_______________
Thrax flew them just far enough that they could speak comfortably without shouting. He landed in a small park not far from the Stadium, touching down on a lawn of green grass studded with trees shaped like giant cauliflowers with green and violet leaves. Here, he set Agena down as gently as he had picked her up and morphed back to human. He offered her his hand again, and this time he bowed when she put her hand in his.
“I am Sir Thrax Helmer of Lacerta, Milady,” he said.
Both touched and amused by his knightly gentility, Agena replied, “How do you do, Sir Thrax? I suppose I should just call you Thrax, under the circumstances. I’m Agena Morrow. I’m a professional Sphereball champion.”
Thrax’s eyebrows arched, casting a look of surprise on his amazingly handsome face. Agena thought he looked impressed and hoped her assessment was true. “Sphereball,” he said. “That’s a very challenging sport. You play it professionally, and you’re a champion?”
Encouraged at finding she was right about his reaction, Agena said proudly, “Two-time winner of the Pleiades Cup.”
“I see,” Thrax nodded. “The randomness of the Lottery, then, has brought me an extraordinary woman.”
“Not quite so random,” Agena replied. “You must know the Lottery for the Knights and the Corps is reserved for certain people -- that is, the people in the best shape—people in the Terran Fleet, people in sports. You sort of have to be someone like me to be entered as an aspirant for someone like you.”
“Yes, that is true,” Thrax mused. “There’s a necessary…elitism, I imagine you’d call it…about who is made eligible for Courtship with us.” For the first time, Thrax really looked at her, looked her up and down. Agena could tell that the dragon man was now giving her the once-over with his eyes as she had done with him at the platform in the Stadium. She was happy to find no frown on his face, no hint of disapproval.
His impression remained even and constant; he was still impressed. A hope kindled inside her that she could yet turn his apparent sense of intrigue to arousal. But an edge of formality crept back into his voice as he went on, “Agena Morrow, under the laws and customs of Lacerta, I am to court you and be your attentive suitor.” His tone sounded almost like the tone he would use for a perpetrator that he was apprehending. Agena was not sure she liked that, but she smiled back at him anyway.
“I’m very pleased to have you for my suitor, Thrax,” said Agena. “I hope we’ll get along well together.”
“Yes,” said Thrax, his manner becoming even more formal. Agena sensed his demeanor definitely growing more rigid and stiffer. She looked forward to finding that was not the only thing rigid and stiff about him. “From your high standing in your sport, you’re a woman of great accomplishment, great skill, and prowess. You must have had many exciting experiences in your life. I look forward to hearing of them. I’m sure we will enjoy each other’s company.”
His mention of her “skill and prowess” made sparks light up and flit around inside her. She had “skill and prowess” aplenty, and she was ready to demonstrate them for him—on and between the sheets. “I look forward to that, too,” said Agena. “And I look forward to hearing about some of your adventures as a Knight. Our suite at the Courting Chateau is ready. I was there before the Lottery.”
“Yes,” said Thrax, “the Ministry of Courtship is always very efficient. I’m sure everything is in order. They will have attended to every detail. There are still some details left, which are…my responsibility.”
Agena subtly, knowingly, arched her eyebrows. “Oh. Well, yes, there is your um… procedure…”
“Yes,” Thrax said. “I must be as prepared as the place where we’ll be staying together. The Spires has already declared the suspension of my oath, pending my formal renunciation. And there is one other matter.”
“What would that be?” Agena asked.
“The other reason I’ve come back to Lacerta is my rejuvenating swim. You know this about us, don’t you?”
She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Your ‘rejuvenating swim’…” Then she remembered. “Oh, of course! I knew about that. It’s that time for you, then?”
“It is. I must swim in Lake Shimmershine and re-expose myself to its concentrations of Draconite. Everything else,” he said meaningfully, “will depend on my health in the days ahead.”
Now, Agena thought, there was no mistaking his tone. It felt, curiously, almost as if he were distancing himself, or figuratively holding himself at arm’s length from her. She would have to do something about that if they were going to have any success at all. Somehow, she would have to get her stunning suitor to loosen up, to be more comfortable around her. His present demeanor did not lend itself to the purpose for which they’d been brought together. “I understand,” she said. “Of course, you want to be in your best health, your best condition, for…what we’re here for.”
“As you would want to be before competing in an important match,” said Thrax.
“Right,” she said. Funny he should put it that way, comparing their prospect of mating, the time they would spend in bed together discovering each other physically and starting to try to make her pregnant, to a competition. She had not thought of it in those terms. Did he think of everything that way?
“Are you sure that’s all it is?” Agena asked.
His demeanor softened just a bit, which she found encouraging. She wanted his attitude soft as much as she wanted other things about him hard. “Agena,” he said, “we have just been…presented to each other, very publicly, for the most private and personal of reasons. We have everything to learn about each other yet, and what we have to do is one of the most important things that anyone will ever do in life.
This is no small thing, and yet we’re essentially strangers. And this comes at one of the most important times in the life of a Lacertan. We both have a great deal on our minds now, don’t we?”
She nodded; he had an excellent point, after all. “You’re right. You have to take care of yourself before you can take care of…what we’re here for.”
“And first, there is the necessary medical procedure, for which the Spires has already made my appointment. I’m due there now.”
“Then you should be getting to that, of course. If you want, I’ll go on back to the Chateau and wait for you there.”
“You could. Or…you could come with me to the polyclinic and wait. It won’t take long, and we would have that much more time in each other’s company, to start getting accustomed to each other.”
Again, Thrax’s manner seemed to grow softer, which Agena found encouraging. And she liked the idea of going with him to his appointment. It felt as though she were being a supportive mate, even considering the way they were brought together. “I’d like to go with you,” she said.
Once more, Thrax offered her his hand. “Then let’s be away.”
Thrax shifted his body back to dragon form and offered her his hand once more. Agena once again let him pick her up and lift the two of them into the air. In moments, they were soaring over the towers of Silverwing. Agena, held tightly in his strong arms, feeling the texture of his scaly skin and the caress of the winds over the city, felt safe in the dragon man’s embrace and confident about what they would soon begin to share together.
Or…mostly confident. She had noted the softening of his manner, the relaxing of his formality in dealing with her, and was sure it was genuine. And yet, in some instinctive way, she could not help but think there was something more going on with him, something else that the dragon man was not expressing.
She reasoned that she would have plenty of time in the days ahead to find out what it was. And perhaps it would even bring them closer in mutual understanding, which would only help them both when they went to bed together.
_______________
And so, Agena found herself in the waiting area of one of the Silverwing polyclinics. The medical facility did everything to make this a comfortable place for the friends and loved ones of patients. The furniture seemed as comfortable as that in the suite that waited for her and Thrax at the Chateau, and there were plenty of media tables where people displayed a variety of arts, entertainment, and information to pass the time.
And the area had broad, tall windows all around to admit the sunlight and promote a warm atmosphere. It was a good place to think. And as Agena, with a glass of water in one hand, took a seat at one of the windows, that was exactly what she did.
In an outpatient procedure room right now, Thrax was probably lying comfortably on a table while a physician monitored the progress of medical nanosurgeons who busied themselves in his vas deferens, dissolving the artificial blocks that were placed there years ago to sterilize him. As a Knight, Thrax had sworn an oath that he would not marry and would not have children; for the ties of marriage and children would divide his responsibilities, and the Knighthood was considered a calling that demanded complete and undivided devotion and precluded a mate and a family.
And yet, like human civilization in this day and age, Lacertan society, including the Knighthood, considered celibacy unnatural and unhealthy. The Knights were permitted sex partners and lovers, so long as their duty took priority over the relationship. Anyone who involved himself or herself romantically with a Knight was given to expect this in no uncertain terms.
It was why Knights were not considered the ideal spouses, regardless of their oath. One could sleep with a Knight. One could love a Knight. But one could not wed a Knight—except under circumstances such as Agena and Thrax now faced. When a Knight was selected for Courtship, everything changed.
She had taken the glass of water with a complimentary dose of inhibitor that the polyclinic offered to all visitors. People visiting Lacerta or expatriates from other planets routinely used mutagen inhibitors, either in liquid form or through transdermal patches. In this manner, they could drink or bathe in the water and not be at risk of taking on weredragon traits. The largest concentrations of Draconite were in lakes like Shimmershine, and swimming in such a body of water would practically ensure a full mutation, which was why those waters were restricted to Lacertans only.
But all Lacertan water contained trace amounts of Draconite, and any pure human who drank or bathed in them could acquire some degree of dragon-shifting characteristics. This made the inhibitors a necessity. In Agena's mating with Thrax, assuming it was successful, the weredragon traits would pass from the father, making the baby a Lacertan.
Sometimes, people who visited or relocated to Lacerta deliberately chose to become dragon shifters, but that was a long process involving applications and careful physical and psychological screening, which, if successful, was then followed by a period of training and acclimation.
Lacerta did not permit just anyone visiting or moving to their planet to change species and become one of them. They were very vigilant about making sure that applicants understood what it meant to have two bodies, one reptilian, and were prepared to spend the rest of their lives that way in both physical and mental health.
Agena had never met anyone who had voluntarily become a weredragon. She was curious about such people, as she was perfectly happy being only a human. Perhaps in her time on Lacerta, she would have the chance to meet someone who had "gone native" and find out about them. For now, her principal concern was her relationship with Thrax.
At the sound of her voice being called -- “Agena?” --she blinked and spun her seat around, and there he was, tall and dark and exuding pure sex. She almost could not stand up at the sight of him, though she hoped something of his would soon be standing up for her.
In that same courtly manner, Thrax helped her from her seat. “How did it go?” she asked.
“As perfectly as expected,” replied Thrax. “I’m now ready.” He paused for a second to let both meanings of that statement sink in. “Shall we go?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll just dispose of this,” she held up the mostly finished glass of water, “and we’ll go.”
Together, they made for the recycling port of the waiting area, and from there, back to the Chateau—and their purpose.
_______________
Agena sat at the table on her side of their suite and let him pour them a couple of glasses of Proxima champagne from the vintners of the very first colony that Earth had settled outside of the home Solar System. She took one and he the other, and they toasted the beginning of…what? Their adventure? Her future or his? Privately, Agena and Thrax each admitted that they were not exactly sure. They clinked their glasses in silence.
After the first taste of the wine, they began.
“Tell me, then,” he said, sitting across the table from her, “what is it that brings you here to Lacerta to find a mate to father your children? And what made you want to be the mother of children of our kind?”
The smile that possessed Agena’s face was a polite but somewhat flustered one. She felt as if she were being questioned by the media after losing a game, or worse, interviewed for a job. “Well,” she answered, “my child will be a part of me as well as the father. That is, it will belong to both of us, won’t it?”
“True, it will,” said Thrax. “But you are a woman of quality, achievement, and beauty, aren’t you? With all of the excellent, eligible human men in so many planets, why a Lacertan male?”
“If you don’t mind me pointing it out, you’re not just any Lacertan male, Thrax.”
“But the question remains. You have so many choices available to you…”
She cut him off as politely as she could. “But I know what I want.”
“And you see the things that you want in me?”
With another sip of wine to dull, at least slightly, the anxiousness she was now feeling, Agena said, “Frankly, yes. Yes, I do.”
“And what things are those?”
Now, Agena felt as if there were an electric current of tension running back and forth across the table. She had no intention of being anything less than honest, but she would have to make it a very careful and measured honesty. “Thrax,” she said, “I think men like you are…well, to be honest, the best the galaxy has to offer. I don’t say that just to flatter you or fawn over you; that’s not my style. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. I think men like you are…special. Exceptional. Excellent.”
He leaned forward a bit now, taking a swallow of his own wine and fixing her with a charged look. “I see,” Thrax said. “And what is it about us that makes us so exceptional, so excellent?”
“You know that yourself,” Agena said. “You’re trained to be the best you can be, in mind and body. And you’re chosen to serve because you’re considered to be the best in character. Nothing average, nothing mediocre. You Knights are special men and women.”
Thrax nodded, weighing her words, the way she said them, and the way she carried herself. He sensed no deception or insincerity about her. She actually meant what she was saying. “Special,” he said. “My position and my rank make me special to you.”
“Is that so strange?” Agena asked. “To a lot of people, my being a Sphereball champion makes me special.”
“So you consider us both champions, in a way.”
“I guess you could put it that way.”
“I see. So, for you, this would be a mating of the best with the best.”
“I don’t mean to sound arrogant,” said Agena. “It’s just that I’ve always looked for the best in myself, or maybe I’ve always reached for the best in myself. And when it came time to look for someone to have a child with, I did what I’ve always done and looked for the best.”
Thrax frowned slightly, not a frown of anger or offense as much as a frown of consideration. There was a truth about her words, not so much a truth of facts as a truth of person. “I’m honored you think so. I only hope you find I’m everything you expect me to be.”
“I already know you’re a strong, brave man. I already know you care for your world and you care for others and want to help them. You must have risked your life for other people and you’d do it again. I can’t think of a better man to want to have a child with.”
“I’m honored again,” said Thrax. “Tell me…in your travels from planet to planet in your sport, of course you’ve had lovers. Have you ever known a man like me in bed before?”
Agena straightened up in her chair and blinked a bit, as if the alcohol had gone to her head and she were trying to keep her wits about her while starting to feel a buzz.
“I’m sorry if the question is abrupt or forward,” Thrax said. “But you’ll agree, our whole situation is rather abrupt. I didn’t know how else to ask.”
“I understand,” she replied. “But it’s a natural question.”
“So…have you had relations with a male of my type before now?”
“Honestly,” said Agena, “yes, I have. More than one. A few.”
Thrax nodded. “Then you know already, at least generally, what you can expect of me.”
She rolled her eyes to one side, remembering once again the Knights of her past and the way they had made her feel. Then she returned her eyes to Thrax, bringing those memories along and fixing them on him as she had at the platform. She had every belief that when he topped her in bed, the sex would be like a meteor hitting a planet. “I know,” she said.
“You know the way we are in bed,” Thrax said. “You know that in bed, we are very powerful, very prolific, and very demanding. In sex, even more so than with a human, we are consumed, and we put everything that we feel into the act. The act is prolonged and never just once. We go many times, and always with the same passion. It’s no boast when I say that human females in bed with Lacertan males, especially the Knights and the Corps, have been known to faint. That’s how intense we are.”
Softly but firmly, without intimidation, Agena said, “I never fainted.”
“No,” said Thrax. “I’m sure you didn’t.”
They were silent then, sitting face to face with only the table between them, pondering the honesty and frankness of their words—and beginning to imagine how it would be when there was no table or anything else between them. Not even his armor, not even her body suit. It felt warmer in the suite, and definitely not just from the champagne.
The silence passed. Thrax rose from the table and stood there, looking over and down at her. Agena watched him, wondering what he would do next. She could practically hear the heart pumping in her chest, feel the blood shooting hotly in her veins. What would he say now? What would he do? Would he again extend his hand to her, to lead her away from the table? Where would he lead her? What would come next? She studied his face, awaiting his words.
“I believe,” said Thrax, “it’s time for my swim.”
Agena exhaled, letting the anticipation flow out of her. She had forgotten about that, but of course, he had not. Whatever was to come of the conversation they had just had would have to wait a while. For the moment, Thrax had other needs that she could not fill.
“Right,” she said. “Your swim. You need to go to the lake.”
With a hint of a smile, he said, “You are, of course, welcome to join me. You will not be allowed to enter the lake, but if you’d like to accompany me…”
“Yes,” said Agena. “I would.”
Thrax stepped around the table and offered her his hand once again. It seemed to be becoming a running theme in their relationship.