After Vlosh left the bathroom, Indigo peeled off her clothing and stepped into the impossibly deep bathtub. The water was just a bit too hot, but it was perfect for how she felt right then. Every muscle in her body ached. She felt she needed to cleanse herself from the trauma of the day.

Vlosh may have told her that she shouldn’t feel guilty, but she couldn’t just stop feeling that way. In her mind, she had done something dreadfully wrong. It was so disloyal and almost gruesome to not bury them. She felt she had betrayed them.

She dipped under the hot water and washed out her hair and spent a long time soaking. She leaned her arms over the side of the cool tile and rested her chin on her crossed wrists. She didn’t want to think or feel anything. She just stared blankly into the cool white wall across from her.

Eventually, she would have to get out of this bathtub, but she didn’t want to leave yet. If she could boil away all of her sins, or at least begin to feel something other than dread, panic, and despair by the time she got out, maybe she would be able to go through with this whole mating thing.

Her mate was even bigger and more imposing than the already massive Draconians. She had noticed his equipment. It was impossible not to see it with it framed as it was by the skintight uniform. She bit her lip thinking about it. Vlosh was nearly two feet taller than her. How was this ever going to work out?

Girls had been going to mate with the Draconians for the last several years. The interviews that she’d heard with the brides never mentioned exactly how their anatomy fit together. The girls just gushed about how wonderful it was to be mated to a Draconian, encouraging every other Earth human girl to join the lottery.

Now that Indigo was facing the inevitability of mating with a gargantuan Draconian male, she wished that other brides had been more forthcoming about the matter. How was he supposed to fit inside her to make the babies the Draconians so desperately wanted? It was like a Great Dane mating with a poodle. The visual just wasn’t right.

She shook her head, thinking about it. She had gotten herself into this mess by joining the mating lottery two years ago. She could have just run when she got the word she’d been matched. With the chaos happening on Earth, the Draconians never would’ve found her. But she had chosen to go to the consulate and get on the spaceship to come meet Vlosh in person. Now she was here. She had the responsibility to see it through.

The secretary at the consulate had been quite clear about the importance of allowing Vlosh to claim her as his own. If she didn’t mate with this guy, and he went mad, it could jeopardize her entire planet, her entire race. She already felt responsible for the death of her best friend and her parents; she couldn’t also be responsible for the death of humanity.

But the thought of Vlosh’s huge cock fitting inside her teeny little vagina sent a shiver up her spine, even in the hot tub.

She climbed out of the water and turned on the forced air fan that quickly dried her skin and hair. She found the Draconian uniform in the closet and held it between her thumb and forefinger with both hands.

How in the hell was she was supposed to put this thing on? She pulled the neck apart and slid her foot down into the leg hole. The uniform stretched around her form, accommodating her size and shape. She slid the other leg in and pulled it up around her breasts. Then she slipped her arms into the arm holes and pulled it the rest of the way up over her shoulders.

When she was inside the uniform, she noticed how comfortable it actually felt while still allowing a full range of motion and regulating her body temperature. Feeling clean and fresh and better than she had since she’d left the cabin that morning, Indigo strode out into the bedroom and climbed into the big memory foam bed. The material conformed to her body, holding her like a cloud. She let out a deep sigh and a cover rose up from the foot of the bed and came up to her chin.

It was all strange and alien but in some way, that helped allow her to forget. It allowed her to take comfort and rest.

When Indigo opened her eyes again hours later, she saw Vlosh standing over her, his eyes shining with dangerous desire. It was almost as if she could see the dragon thrashing behind his irises. It scared her and she gasped.

“Do not be alarmed, little human mate. I have contacted the ground forces about your family. Their remains will be treated with all due respect and will be given all human burial customs. Rest assured, we take care of our own.”

A single tear bubbled out of the corner of her eye and trickled down her cheek as she sat up to look directly up at him.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Now, we must commence with the mating process.”

He flicked a spot at the base of his neck and his uniform contracted, leaving him completely naked. His erection was enormous and pointed stiff and rigid toward the ceiling. Indigo let out a startled scream and covered her mouth with shock. Her eyes grew wide as she stared at his body. Even the skintight uniform could not have revealed how completely ripped his body was with muscle. It was as if his muscles had muscles. If not for the humongous penis staring her in the face, she would have reached out to stroke the rippling abs and the bulging pectorals.

“Why are you alarmed?”

She was surprised that he was surprised. He really needed to learn more about women.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re like two feet taller than me.”

“This is common in Draconian and human matings. Were you not aware of this fact?”

He was so clueless. Indigo put her hand to her forehead and shook her head. It was almost funny how completely clueless he really was.

“I knew. But that doesn’t mean that I was prepared for the reality of it. I’ve never even met a Draconian until today. And if you remember, I just lost my entire family this morning. A girl can only take so many shocks at once.”

When she said it, it made her realize that she should actually be kind of pissed at him for not being more empathetic to her needs.

She let out a long breath, remembering that they were a different species and their ideas about relationships were possibly different, too. Even if he could eventually understand where she was coming from, he probably wasn’t going to today. That wasn’t really his fault. All that still didn’t mean that she was ready to be impaled by his gargantuan rod.

“You are unready to commence the mating. I can see that. I can honor your need for time. But it is imperative that we complete the mating procedure as soon as possible. My inner dragon screams in the most frustrating way. I have known about you for several days. My priority was pushing back the Mulgor, but I see now that it was unwise.”

“I don’t even know if your penis can fit inside me,” she said reluctantly.

“No, no, no. I will not enter you on our first mating. First, I must spill my seed on your flesh. The pheromones will serve as a way of bonding you to me and allowing for your body to become accustomed to my DNA. The more of my seed you are exposed to, the more your body will accommodate my larger size. It will not harm you when I finally claim you.”

“What do you mean by claim me?”

“Because Draconians mate with other species, we must claim our mates as our own. It allows our DNA to mingle. It will give you a longer life, similar to that of the Draconians. It will also make it possible for your body to accommodate the Draconian pregnancy.”

“How does claiming work?”

“When I enter you, after your body has grown open to me, I will sink my fangs into your neck and give you the mating bite.”

“And that’s going to make me live longer?” she asked.

“Among other things,” he said.

“So, how do we begin?” she asked. She still wasn’t ready to get down and dirty with a guy she’d just met.

“I must spill my seed on your flesh.”

“You have to come on me?” The idea was not totally revolting.

“If that is how humans put it, then yes.”

“You want to do that now?”

“Unquestionably. However, I appreciate that you have had a trauma. I do not wish to traumatize you further. You will be the mother of my young. You must be strong. I do not wish to break your mind.”

He flicked the spot at the base of his neck and his uniform spread back out over his body.

Indigo was almost disappointed that he didn’t press the issue further. At the same time, she was relieved. She definitely wasn’t ready to have him inside her, but she wasn’t ready to have him come on her either. It was super weird, and they didn’t know each other at all.

She needed to sleep for like five months before she could put the events of earlier that day behind her. She certainly wasn’t going to feel better in just a couple of hours.

“It is the hour of sleep. You require much more rest. I will sleep beside you this night, and we can become accustomed to each other’s pheromones.”

“That sounds fine,” she said.

They both laid down on the bed. Vlosh wrapped his arm around her and pulled her toward him as the cover swept up over their bodies.

“Is this acceptable to you?” he asked, his breath hot at the back of her neck. It sent an electric tingle down her spine that excited her body in spite of herself.

“Yeah,” she whispered. She really did like it. His strong arm around her waist made her feel safe. The feeling of his hard, muscled chest against her back gave her a kind of grounding that the trauma had taken away from her.

She let out a deep sigh, grateful that this experience had turned out to be better than she had expected. Vlosh might be pretty clueless about how to talk to human women, but she could tell that he was a good guy. She was lucky that she had landed a Draconian who was so willing to accommodate her and her needs.

With Vlosh’s strong arm around her little body, she quickly fell into a deep sleep.