Chapter 12

“What …” I’m so beyond dizzy that when I struggle to sit up, I fall back and end up tumbling stupidly into the furs. Agony strikes me in the stomach, and I look down to see that there’s a ragged, angry wound around my middle. But I’m whole. I’m alive. I’m in a lot of fucking pain, but I’m alive. “Big D …” I don’t know his name—he won’t give it to me—but I sure wish I did.

Because I owe him. Again. At this point, if he wants to mate with me, I should just say yes sir. I bungled his rescue attempt and ended up making the fight even harder on him. And after I just rejected him? Hell, I’m stupid sometimes.

It’s not easy to get up, like all my limbs are fuzzy and asleep. When I finally do stand, I’m like a newborn foal trying to get my unwilling legs to obey. I stumble into the living room with a hand on the wall for support.

That’s where I find Big D.

He’s lying on his side, panting heavily. I can no longer see the gash in his wing or the claw marks on his throat. He must’ve healed all of those with his magic spit. And yet … he doesn’t look so good. He’s small. The smallest I have ever seen him. Dim, too. His bioluminescent shine is dull and dispirited.

He looks like he’s dying.

“Big D, are you okay?” I ask, pushing up off the wall and coming over to stand beside him. I can’t keep my feet, so I end up falling hard to my knees and gritting my teeth against the pain. I reach out a hand and place it on his scales. His purple parts have faded so much that they pulse with a whisper of light before going dark. That, and he’s incredibly sweaty in a way I haven’t seen before.

Was it not like twenty minutes ago that he looked like a dark and unyielding god, standing with his arms spread and his wings raised against the lightning-cracked sky? What the hell?

“Venom,” he replies without ever opening his eyes. He doesn’t have the translator, so he must simply be guessing as to what I just asked. “Death.”

Death? He can’t die. This can’t happen.

We were just about to … you know.

I take the headset off and put it on his head.

“What can I do to help you?” I ask, immediately removing it and placing it on my own rapidly swelling migraine. I mean head. On my migraine-swollen head. I wait as he cracks one eye open to stare at me.

He doesn’t answer. It could be because he’s stubborn and only answers when he damn well feels like it … or it could be because he’s actually dying here. His eyes close, and I find myself fixated on the rise and fall of his chest.

Primal terror oozes into my blood, turning it sluggish, making me waver on my knees. For a few seconds there, I’m sure that I’m about to pass out. Me and the dragon, dying together in a sweaty heap. It’s far less terrifying to confront the idea of death with him here beside me. I don’t feel quite as alone as I did when I was in the gullet of the female.

My body gives an involuntary shudder as I swallow down a sour taste in my mouth. When the adrenaline is gone and I’m lying in the dark waiting for sleep, I’ll relive that moment and it’ll torture the hell out of me. For now, I have to at least try to do something. Although, isn’t that how you ended up in this position in the first place? If I’d just let Big D fight the female on his own, maybe it would’ve gone down a little better?

I remind myself that she’d already made him bleed before I ever got involved. Doesn’t help any. I feel so guilty right now. The gurgle of regret is worse than the aftereffects of the ragged wound around my midsection or the chemical burns on my face.

I look to my only friend and companion, a semi-sentient bitch of a chatbot named Zero.

We are so fucked.

“Is there anything I can do to save him? He says he’s dying, that he’s been poisoned. Is there someone in the market I could ask for help?” I’m desperate here. This stupid alien has been nothing but nice to me. On top of that, he’s … he’s courting me. It feels like he’s my boyfriend or something.

I’m fighting for both of our lives.

“Are you sure he said he was poisoned?” Zero queries, and I blink in confusion. When I don’t respond right away, she clarifies. “If you bite it, and it’s harmful, it’s poison. If it bites you, and it’s harmful, it’s venom. Is he envenomated or poisoned? Seeing as we’re discussing a mating battle between two Aspis—highly venomous species who rarely fail to strike—I’m assuming the former.”

I want to scream.

Teeth gritted, I grind out a reply.

“Envenomated then. He’s envenomated.”

“Did the female bite him?” she asks, but I’m not sure. Looking back at Big D, there aren’t any visible wounds that I can find. “Did any of the spines along her back or tail penetrate his skin?”

“I think she got him with her tail,” I reply, doing my best not to look at the wound around my midsection. The pink space suit is trashed, and I’m held together with little more than dragon spit and an iron will. I reach out a tentative hand, hovering my palm over Big D’s scales. When I touch him, he gives a violent shudder and a growl that ripples in his lips and shows his teeth.

Don’t think about it, Eve. Don’t go there.

So I don’t. I won’t. I can’t think about the horror of being swallowed.

“I might be able to help you. Might being a very strong word.” That’s what Zero has to say when I look back at her—well, not her face. The black screen with the pink MS-DOS circa 1985 text on it. That, and the big blinking block of a cursor that follows after. “My people were working to produce antivenom before our research team was—”

The text cuts off abruptly and Zero starts a new line.

“The Aspis produce a type of venom that’s not been documented in the whole of the Noctuida." I have absolutely no idea what she’s talking about at this point, but I also don’t know how to say ‘hurry the fuck up and tell me what to do!’ without causing her to shut down completely. If she doesn’t help me, it’s over. There’s not a damn thing I can do.

Big D shifts, a groan of pain escaping him just before he turns and coughs purple blood all over the spaceship’s dirty floors. He collapses again and curls up on himself, tail tucked close, wings folded.

“The Sucker Tail,” he breathes without ever opening his eyes. “Trust only him.”

I’m so lost. What is he talking about now? Is he trying to get me to leave him?

Zero’s screen fills with unhelpful nonsense.

“I’ve calculated the chances of saving this creature’s life, and the odds are not good. He has a seventeen percent chance to live with your assistance, and a sixteen percent chance without.”

Am I truly that useless? A one percent difference? It occurs to me that Zero might understand and relish the use of sarcasm.

“I want to help him. You said you have antivenom?” It’s too much to hope for, isn’t it? A convenient store of antivenom locked away somewhere that can save Big D’s life. I let myself latch onto the idea of a magic space suit and a net gun, and look how that turned out. Still … “Where can I find it? How do I administer it?”

“If it is still viable and intact—there is a seven percent chance of both events occurring simultaneously—then it will be located in the front end of our once great ship. Based on the trajectory of the crash, the force of gravity, and the winds that plagued the region that day, I can estimate where you might find it. But it is only an estimation.” There’s a long pause here for drama’s sake. “Although, perhaps I will not tell you how to get there. I don’t need him alive. He serves me no purpose.”

Rage swells inside of me, so complete and absolute that I don’t trust who I am or what I might do.

“If you withhold this information from me, I’ll set this entire ship on fire with you inside of it. How would you like that?”

Harsh, but I’m serious. I can’t let Dragon Dude die. I won’t. I’ll do anything it takes to fix this.

It feels like it’s partially my fault. If I’d mated with him like I’d wanted to, would—

But I can’t fixate on that.

Did Zero lie about the boots and the gloves and the net gun? Is she lying now?

What else can I do but trust her? There’s nobody around to help. She spits out several new insults in response to my threat.

“I hope you’re painfully slaughtered in the forest on your way there, and I pray to every god in my pantheon that someday I get a new body so that I can kick you in your hideous vagina.”

Coordinates appear on the screen.

Mm. Coordinates. Like I have any clue what to do with a random set of numbers. I barely understand latitude and longitude when in reference to Earth.

“What am I supposed to do with that?” I ask, reluctantly pulling my hand away from Big D’s heaving side. He looks to be asleep. Or worse. In a coma or something. If I leave now, this might be the last time I see him alive. The thought makes me feel violently ill. “Please tell me you have a handy GPS unit hidden in the attic.”

“No such luck, human. But I will translate the coordinates into instructions that even YOU will be able to understand: walk straight for five hundred paces, turn left, continue for fifteen-hundred more paces, turn right and follow the stream. If you get close enough, I imagine you will see it even through the trees. Only a fool could miss it.” Long pause. “In which case, perhaps you should be worried?”

I grit my teeth.

Let it go, Eve.You can always smash her screen later. Better yet: save Big D’s life and encourage him to piss on her. That’d teach her a lesson, eh?

With great effort, I rise to my feet, fighting back not only dizziness but nausea, too. Though I’m loath to do it, I look down at my middle and the barely-knitted flesh. In an altercation, I could easily tear what little skin is holding my body together. Big D worked some magic on me with his saliva, but it appears that his healing abilities only go so far.

“Fuck.” With a deep sigh, I move over to the edge of the ship only to be rewarded with the sight of the dead female. Don’t look at her. Just don’t look. It’s impossible for me not to. She swallowed me. She was eating me. So, to the Aspis, I really am an easy snack.

Just not to him.

Whatever it is he sees in me, it isn’t food.

“Fuck.” I say it again, the word that saved my life (or maybe it was my supposedly magical pheromones). I exhale, force my trauma aside—being eaten by a dragon alien is literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to me—and study the thick vines clustered at the edges of the hold’s opening. “By the way, Zero, thank you for the tip about the magic space boots adhering to the ship. It failed miserably and got me eaten!”

I don’t bother to look back to see what the asshole AI chatbot has to say.

I’ll do my best to find my way to the antivenom, but the odds of me getting there intact aren’t great seeing as this is an alien forest and I’m a caterer with a master’s degree in food service and hospitality. I am not a park ranger or a parkour instructor, not a professional sprinter or Ms. Olympia, I’m probably screwed.

I grab one of the vines and test the strength of it by giving it a tug. Seems secure enough. Seems secure.

“Here goes nothing,” I murmur, and then I step off the edge of the ship. My adrenaline must be running hot or something because I don’t feel much as I slide rapidly down the sweaty vine, slamming my pelvic bone into the ground as I land on the forest floor ass-first. The gloves prevent my palms from getting rope burn—or vine burn as the case may be—but the impact is jarring enough that I’m momentarily stunned.

Last time, I hit my pussy. Today, it’s a bruise to the ass.

Fantastic.

I should’ve just let the dragon fuck me.

As I struggle to recover my senses, I notice that the grass is coming to life, grasshopper aliens popping up like daisies to bounce into the rapidly darkening woods.

I … did not think this through.

I’ve just left the ship on the verge of night. But can I wait until morning? Will Big D survive that long?

Another issue becomes glaringly obvious. Say I get the antivenom and return to the ship in one piece. How do I get back up? I turn and stare at the vine I just used to slide down. In high school, we didn’t have the whole ‘climb up the rope’ routine. We did yoga. Downward dog and tree pose did not prepare me to scale a spaceship with only a vine as a handhold.

Issue number three (in my haste or perhaps my daze from the fight, I missed a lot of important shit): I have no light. I didn’t think to ask the computer or look through Big D’s horde. Better yet, ask him.

Yeah, I’m a dead woman.

A whump sounds behind me, followed by a bestial groan that raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

The female! She’s still alive!

I whip around to see … Dragon Dude standing there with his tail whipping behind him.

He’s crouched like a man, head down, elbow resting on his knee, massive horns flaring from his head. His wings are tucked close, eyes closed, but as I gape at him, he opens them slowly to stare at me.

He extends his knuckle claws and gets onto all fours, looming over me like a storm cloud.

“Hi.” It’s all I can think to say. For a few seconds there, I’m filled with so much relief that I want to cry. He’s okay? But then I notice the slight sway of his body, the way his markings flicker like lightbulbs at the end of their lives. His eyes are a much duller purple than they were before, and his ebony scales are moist with sweat. That muscular tail of his unwinds and wraps me around the waist, lifting me up to his face. Earlier, when he did this, it seemed as if the move cost him little effort. Now? He pants as he does it, like he’s run a marathon.

I take the translator and put it over his head.

“You stay here; I’m going to get medicine for you.” I keep my words as simple as possible, hoping the shitty shit translator can handle it.

Dragon Dude doesn’t like my condescending tone, not at all. He growls at me, that huge mouth of his rippling. Although … it isn’t as huge as it was before. Definitely not ‘swallow me whole’ huge. He’s still shrinking.

“Listen, Big D. The ship”—I point for emphasis, feet still dangling off the ground as he holds me in the air—“told me where to find some antivenom. I can save you if I hurry.” I push at his tail and try not to fixate on the hot smoothness of his scaled skin, the strength of it as it squeezes my waist even tighter. He follows me the way thunder follows lightning. Always. “Do you know what antivenom is? This could save your life.” I tap at his tail as Big D sets me on my feet. “Do you understand?”

He removes the translator from his head with the tip of his tail, jamming it back onto mine.

“Poor alien tech … not stupid male. You understand, female?” He emphasizes that last word in such a way that I know he’s mocking me. Not for being female, but because I insulted him by talking to him like he was dumb. I’m a prickly person, sorry. Always been like this. “Antivenom where?” His tail thrashes behind him in agitation as he paces a circle around me, taking the translator back.

It’s nearly impossible not to feel like I’m being hunted again.

I shudder and wring my hands out in front of me. I’m not feeling great either, to be honest. I’m dizzy, and the cut around my midsection is starting to ache and pull. I’m tired. I’m exhausted.

I’m afraid.

It seems silly to admit it now, after all the shit I’ve been through, but … I was just eaten. It’s only by the grace of Dragon Dude that I stand here. I’ve used flippancy and sarcasm to make it this far, but let’s be frank. I’m one person. Literally, I am one of—at best—five people on this planet. Seeing as one of those people is Tabbi Kat, let’s just say four. She once called Jane and asked if laundry bleach was the same as hair bleach—after putting it on the tips of her hair.

I need Big D to go with me. Even if he’s dying. If something attacks me out there, I’m fresh meat. Actual fresh meat, like legitimately, not metaphorically.

“I know how to get there; I’ll show you the way.” I turn toward the trees and squint into the dusk as Big D circles around me like shadow and smoke, but the effects are fading as quickly as they came. He’s slowing down, and it’s happening by the minute, not the hour. “It’s supposedly in the front piece of that ship.” I turn back toward Big D’s den as I gesture, and that’s when I notice the mangled logo on the side. It was torn in half by the accident, so I can’t read it (would probably not be able to anyway since it’s in some Alienese that I won’t know), but it’s a vibrant, psychotic Barbie pink.

I see.

That’s what Zero meant when she said I’d recognize it off the bat.

Big D tucks the translator back onto my head.

“I will take you.” He moves at a forty-five degree angle from the ship as I jog to catch up, gasping and curling in on myself as the pain hits me all at once. Whatever Big D did to my wound, it’s fading and I’m starting to feel it. My lips part, but I can’t make any words come out. I don’t even have the energy to crack a quip about it.

My knees buckle, and I’m on the ground again, watching more alien grasshoppers burrow their way out of the dirt. Blood seeps around my fingers as the edges of the wound reopen, and I stare down with wide eyes and disbelief.

I am not taking this seriously enough.

My head swims, but then, as seems to be his habit, Big D is there to save me.

His tongue uncurls from his demon lips and swipes my belly. It shouldn’t feel good. I’m ashamed of myself for even thinking it does, but that’s the truth. It feels amazing. I bite my tongue as hard as I can to shake the sensation and blood wells there, too.

Big mistake.

When Big D draws away, his nostrils flare, and then he’s grabbing my cheeks with both of his hands and shoving his tongue down my throat. My eyes widen even further, my hands automatically coming up to grip his wrists. He slicks his hot tongue against mine until the bleeding stops, and then he draws away to stare at me.

“You just … you kissed me again.” I cover my mouth with my hand as he stares at me from unforgiving purple eyes. He seems wild when I look at them, like a beast. But then my gaze drifts to his mouth, and I swear that he’s grinning at me. I make him take the translator back, and he allows it. The grin gets wider. “Are you taking this fucking seriously?”

With a sigh, I walk past him, acting as if I know where I’m going in the thickly wooded twilight. The sun is very near to setting, and I’m terrified to see what happens when this place is in full dark. I’d be nervous in a forest back on Earth at night. This is a forest on another planet. It’s a forest that houses alien dragons that can shapeshift into even bigger alien dragons who eat people. Who are poisonous. Venomous. Shit.

If another female comes looking for Dragon Dude, we’re both toast.

Again, literally. They breathe fire.

“Sadly enough, I am,” he says and then he shivers all over, scales standing up in agitation along his spine. “Not much time … enjoy you left.” He chucks the translator back at me and lets it hit the ground. He strides past me on all fours and then, after a while, he stands up.

I blush when that happens. How can I explain it? Because he’s got a nice ass? Because he postured earlier and showed me his cocks, his sack. He was really performing for me, wasn’t he? I scratch my temple and close my eyes, forcing the image to retreat. If ever in my life I received a marriage proposal, I would imagine it would feel something like that. Every cell in my body was screaming to say yes.

I open my eyes again and there he is, staring back at me with his horns flickering purple. He growls at me and then turns back to the woods. He walks through them in a way that makes me feel powerful, like I’m at the top of the food chain here. It’s a nice feeling, but it doesn’t last.

Big D pauses after some time and crouches down, panting hard. He’s substantially smaller than he was earlier, less beastlike and more humanoid in scale. He shakes his head and then opens his mouth, snarling in frustration. He digs his claws into the ground as I grip the tattered remnants of my spacesuit top. No. No, you can’t die here. You can’t die right now. Don’t die on me, please.

What the hell am I supposed to do without him?

I carefully adjust the translator on his head again, just below his horns.

“What’s your name?” I ask, hoping to finally get an answer. If he dies, I’d like … to at least know what his fucking name was. Oh my God, this is so goddamn sad. I’m so goddamn sad. Tears prick my eyes as both fear and loss sweep over me. If he dies, that’s it. I’m dead. I keep saying it, but I haven’t once believed it. He’s saved me so many times since I got here. This can’t be it. It fucking can’t.

I’m still not being honest with myself, am I?

I’m not scared for him because by proxy, I’m scared for me. I’m just scared for him. Period.

He growls at me, and I understand implicitly that his name is what he’s just said. That sound. I can’t possibly make that sound with my own mouth, so I’m going to have to make something up.

“Right. How about …” I wrack my brain, but I’m only creative when it comes to food. You should see the custom cream puffs that I can make. I once did an ‘around the world’ display with kimchi cream puffs, red bean paste cream puffs, curry cream puffs. What a hit that was. Something with the letter ‘X’ in it; alien names always have the letter ‘X’. I snap my fingers and point. “Abraxas.”

He cocks his head at me, the purple spirals on his horns brightening before falling impossibly dim. I don’t like that, not at all.

I take his silence for acceptance.

“Abraxas it is. Better than calling you Big D forever.” I shrug and continue walking. As I pass by him, his huge mouth splits in a snarl, a low, hissing growl falling from the length of his wicked tongue.

“Abraxas.” It sounds vaguely menacing, him hissing Abraxas like that. It also weirdly sounds similar to the name he gave me which could only ever be translated as onomatopoeia.

“Don’t you think it has an alien ring to it? It’s perfect.” I plant my hands on my hips, strange forest sounds echoing through the rapidly dwindling light. Give it ten or fifteen minutes more, and the sun will be long gone and the storm will finish rolling in. The only light we’ll have is from Abraxas’ dwindling glow and occasional flashes of lightning. “You can call me whatever you want,” I add as an afterthought. Seems fair. I made up a name for him; he can do the same for me.

“Eve.” He growls that out in such a way that my skin ripples and a strange bird takes flight from the tree above us. I don’t see much of it, but it had a glowing tail with a curl at the end.

My name’s the sexiest I have ever heard it sound on a man’s lips. Or … an alien male’s lips.

He turns away and continues on all fours into the woods.

“Right. You can pronounce my name, but I can’t pronounce yours.” I jog to catch up, taking advantage of the translator’s location atop his massive skull to ask questions. It’s a useful distraction technique. “How do you know English anyway? I’ve heard you speak a handful of words.” I swallow down a strange lump. “Especially the word ‘fuck’.”

He stops walking to look at me and there’s a strange sadness in his eyes that I don’t quite comprehend. What do you mean, you don’t comprehend it, Eve? He’s dying. He’s dying and he knows it.

If only we can get ahold of that antivenom.

“Fuck?” he repeats, and then shakes his head. Abraxas turns away again, weaving around the trunks of skyscraper-esque trees. They look like the redwoods of the California coast. Correction: they make the redwoods of the California coast look like saplings.

There are ferns, too, big enough to swallow a person whole were they so inclined. I … I don’t think they’re inclined, but this is an alien planet, and we did nearly die via dragon alien female, so I steer clear of any foliage.

Snake-like creatures with two front legs and no back legs hang from tree limbs, snapping insects out of the dusky twilight. Thankfully, these are easy to avoid because they, too, glow like a college rave. I bet Abraxas isn’t the only poisonous—err, venomous—beastie out here.

I steer clear of those, too.

We exit the treeline and move into a clearing that looks oddly like a vineyard, rows of neatly curated plants dripping bejeweled fruit. I’m so goddamn hungry that I nearly reach out and snatch a cluster of pearly orbs with reddish-green leaves.

Abraxas snatches my wrist with the tip of his tail, keeping my hand from touching the fruit or … whatever it is.

“No. Not for females.” He releases me, and I curl my lip at his retreating back. He didn’t say ‘not for humans’, did he?

“What, I won’t bleed from the eyes this time? Is this, like, a rite of passage thing for dragon guys?” I ask, following him down the cleared space between rows. Is this farmland or just an odd alien phenomena? It really does look like a vineyard in the way it’s laid out. A small furred something darts out between the rows, and I bite back a scream.

As long as Abraxas is with me—and there are no female Abraxases around—I’m safe. Ish. Just ish.

We re-enter the trees on the other side of the clearing, and then pass by a large steam vent, similar to the one he danced in earlier today, before life was total shit. Strange smoke twirls from it, the same obnoxious purple as his markings. He pauses beside it and inhales, and for brief seconds, all of his bioluminescent stripes flare with light and vibrancy.

Abraxas shudders and turns away, moving past it like it pains him to leave.

I steal the translator back, and, surprisingly, he answers my previous question.

“Toxic to female hormones,” he says, which is an interesting concept. I wonder how he knows that? Like, is it common knowledge among his people? Seems to me that members of his species don’t talk much.

“Female dragons?” I ask, and either he knows both of those English words already or else he understands them from context.

“Mostly toxic to female aliens.” Abraxas pauses near another vent, the purple glow from inside illuminating his face as he cranes his head around to look at me, like he’s considering something but hasn’t yet made the decision to act on it. “Many stolen aliens like you live here.”

He means humans, I guess.

I blink back at him. This is the longest, most coherent conversation we’ve ever had. This new translator is about a million times better than the last. The more we use it, the better it seems to work. Must be like a self-learning AI deal or something. But what do I know about technology? I’m a caterer.

Abraxas rises to a standing position and then steps up close to me, ignoring a wave of bioluminescent bats that scatter through the trees behind him. He reaches out with oddly human fingers and takes my chin. The swipe of his warm fingertips on my jaw is an all too pleasing sensation on a body that’s only half-sewn back together with dragon spit. My hand comes up automatically to touch his wrist, fingers grazing over one of his markings. It’s still slightly sticky, but the effect is muted, stirring my belly with fireflies of desire rather than jetliners.

He taps a nail against the side of my jaw, and then all subtlety is gone as he takes my face in both hands and curls over me. That Cheshire mouth of his splits open to reveal teeth, teeth, teeth, and sweat beads instantly on my forehead and palms. He isn’t her; I trust him.

That whiplike tongue finds my mouth and parts it without preamble, sliding over my tongue and tickling the back of my throat. My lids are wide but they quickly close, my small hands squeezing tightly over his wrists. He’s large enough that my fingertips don’t touch, not even close.

Heat races through me in an arc, and I shift, lifting onto my tiptoes, struggling to stay on my feet.

Abraxas takes his time, running the sharp tip of his tongue along my bottom lip, tracing my top lip with such fine precision that when I close my eyes, I can imagine it’s one of his fine fingertips. He dives back in, leaning closer, pushing his tongue deeper, and while I know he doesn’t understand the concept of a kiss, I think he well-understands my reaction to it.

He draws back, those eyes of his prisms of color, of lavender and violet and cerulean, of amethyst and sapphire and gold. There’s a single ring of it, of the gold, wrapped around his dark pupil. While he has no whites to his eyes, these, too, are weirdly human. Absolutely sentient. What was I even thinking? He can speak basic English which is more than I can say for myself and his language.

That horror movie mouth of his twists up to the side in what could very easily be called a smirk.

“Have you changed your mind about mating?” he asks hopefully, and I gape at him. “I would not ask again, but under such circumstances, I fear I must.”

Whoa. The translator is getting way better. Quick. That seems … odd.

“No!” The word escapes me in a rush. He’s asking about sex when he’s poisoned—envenomated!—when he’s having trouble standing upright without swaying? When he’s dying? After he gets better, sure. Now? Fuck no. “Are you crazy?”

But that kiss was … I liked the kiss. I have a crush on a dying alien.

Abraxas’ face shutters, mouth closing and flattening to invisibility. He lowers his head and then turns away again, dropping to all fours.

My hand comes up to my mouth, fingertips brushing my tingling lips. I tell myself it’s because of his weird pheromones, that odd sticky substance that comes from his markings. But that’s not the whole reason, and I know it. For a pair of aliens, we sure have good chemistry.

I jog the distance between us, slowing to an easy stride beside him.

It’s full-dark now, but he’s glowing enough for us to see. Beyond that, I think he knows implicitly where we are. This is his stomping ground after all.

A large shape looms up ahead of us, breaking the steady, predictable pacing of the trees. It’s so dark that I almost miss it, but then I squint my eyes and I see that it’s darkness layered on darkness. A ship.

“Oh my God, we’re here?!” I rush forward, this odd sense of desperation in me that I’m afraid to acknowledge. It’s panic is what it is. True panic.

“Human, no.” He steps in front of me to block my approach and lowers his head, the spirals on his horns flickering. “Not this one.”

He moves away from the hulking figure of the ship, and I strongly question whether he’s bullshitting me or not. But why would he? It’s his life on the line. Soon enough, I see that he’s telling the truth with my own eyes.

We’re passing a veritable graveyard of downed ships now—in all sizes. There’s one that’s as small as a sedan, another as big as a commercial jet, and everything in between. We pass directly by the doorway of one, and I can’t resist.

There are glowing flowers clinging to this one, adding enough light that I’m able to see a chair—and a skeleton strapped into it. The skeleton is not human in any way whatsoever, but it is a bone-white skeleton nonetheless. How is it possible that life here is so different yet so oddly similar to life back on Earth?

I reconsider whether or not I’m high on acid, stumbling around Tabbi Kat’s soiree and faux-kissing an alien. The thought bothers me more than I’ll allow myself to admit. I push away from the crashed ship and keep pace.

For about an hour there, everything seems fine, but then fatigue sets in, adrenaline fades, and I’m tripping over roots and foliage that I promised I wouldn’t touch.

“Abraxas, wait!” I call out, hitting the ground with already bruised palms. My midsection hurts, and I can feel hot trickles of blood running down my belly. He appears as if summoned, as much a part of the night here as anything else.

I feel his tongue before I see him, swiping along my back, rolling me over—his tongue is strong enough to roll me over—and sweeping my midsection. His saliva patches me right up, numbs the pain, and stops the bleeding all at once.

He uses one of his wing-hands—I think it’s one of his wing-hands based on the texture—to haul me up to my feet.

“Thanks.” I brush myself off and we keep going, but this time, I press my palm against his side and feel the sweat slicking his scales.

It’s a fact now that he’s slowing down—substantially. I no longer have to jog to keep up. It becomes the opposite problem, with my needing to slow down. And that’s with me out of shape, bitten in half, and exhausted.

He’s fading away, Eve. What the fuck do I do? What if there is no antivenom? What if it’s too late?

I’m so busy in my brain, trapped in total darkness and struggling not to fall over, that it takes me a few seconds to realize that we’ve left the trees. We’ve stopped and now we’re standing in another clearing. There are several moons in the sky—at least four that I can see from here—and as I blink, my eyes adjust to their silver glow.

Abraxas is dying.

He opens his mouth and blood dribbles out onto the ground, steam escaping his nostrils when he huffs. He shakes his horned head, drawing his claws into his knuckles so that he no longer looks like a dragon on all fours, but like a man hunched over in agony.

I look up to see if we’ve arrived at the ship or if we’re close or—

There’s the market.

Its high walls are made of hammered metal scrap with black spikes along the top that may or may not be iron. Fires burn on either side of the entrance, and a cart ambles along the dirt road. I stare at it, and then I turn to glare at him.

“What have you done?” I demand, a shriek entering my words that I can’t seem to hold back. Rather than take me to the antivenom, he’s guided me to the market. Now, what are we supposed to do? Does he not understand that he’s at death’s door?

I suck in a huge breath to continue my rant when he turns those brilliant eyes of his to look at me. Already, they’re dimming. Fading. It’s not that he doesn’t understand the assignment, it’s that he understands it far too well.

“Find the damn Sucker Tail,” he breathes, and damn, he must’ve been hiding it from me for the last twenty minutes because it’s labored and wet and terrifying. Dragon Dude—Big D—Abraxas—isn’t going to last much longer. “No Moths.” He jerks one of his horns in the direction of the market entrance, and then turns back toward the woods.

He barely makes it past the tree line before he collapses at the base of a red-brown trunk. He curls up tight against the leafy fronds of a giant fern and closes his eyes with a groan, head pillowed on his arms. His tail wraps around him like a blanket. The little bit of moonlight that reaches us highlights his sweaty sides and the way he shakes with fatigue.

My lips purse.

He intentionally led me to the market instead of the ship.

I move over to where his head is resting, squatting down beside him. There’s no light left in any of his markings; he’s completely dark.

“What am I supposed to do now? Just leave you here and walk into the market?” Seems like a pretty bad idea with the state I’m in, practically cut in half and wearing the bloodied scraps of an old space suit. But that’s the reality, isn’t it? Without Abraxas, I am completely and utterly alone on an alien planet.

Alone.

I am alone.

My eyes fill with tears as I drop down to my ass, hands hovering over his massive head, like there’s something I could do to save him. He used what little strength he had left to walk me here, to make sure I got here safely so I wouldn’t be alone in the woods by myself.

“Sucker Tail,” he breathes again, without ever opening his eyes. “I go peacefully to the dirt, Eve. Be safe.”

That does me in, the way his body shudders, like even the act of speaking is too much.

Finally, my hovering hands find purchase on either side of his face. That warm skin of his is now ice-cold. I nearly pull away, but as soon as I touch him, I can’t do it. Because my touch seems to calm him, and if all I can do in his last moments is keep him comfortable then that’s what I want to do.

I’m crying now, no shame. I’m not hiding the tears or the sniffles or the wracking sobs.

Abraxas cracks one eye, but it’s so dull that I wonder if he can even see me.

Our gazes lock, and I feel this profound sadness that our journey comes to an end here. So fucking sad. I can barely stand the pain filling my chest, and he isn’t even dead yet. What happens when he lets out his final breath, and I find myself sitting in the dark woods with his corpse?

“Do not stay long past my death.” He closes his eyes and lays his head back down, effectively ending the conversation. My eyes prick with angry tears, frustrated tears … sad tears.

Using what little moonlight we have, I move up to a nearby fern, and I start ripping fronds off at the tips. The bases are too thick for me to get my hands around, but the upper parts are fragile enough that even I can tear them. I gather as many as I can hold and then I turn and lay them carefully over Abraxas’ back.

He cocks an eye, but doesn’t move, watching as I continue the process. Pick fronds, cover him up, repeat. I do that for so long that his eye closes again, and I get this strange sense of being alone in the vastness of space. I’m glad that I can’t see the stars or the extra moons, and it helps to have a single-minded focus on something that I can actually do.

I can’t save Abraxas, but I can keep him warm. He’s not dead yet. Maybe if I nurse him a little, he might recover? Zero did say that he had a sixteen percent chance to live. Sixteen is better than zero.

It takes me almost an hour—by my estimation—to cover him, and only then because the fern fronds are enormous. He’s a big guy, no doubt about that.

I swipe my hands on my ruined space suit and look around, gathering leaves and twigs from the forest floor until I’ve got a comfortable pile going. As an afterthought, I take the translator from my own head and plop it onto Abraxas’.

He doesn’t move. Like at all. I don’t even think he’s breathing.

I drop down to my knees beside him, leaning in and listening carefully. At first, it seems like he might actually be gone, like he’s died, and it’s all over. But then I hear a slight gurgle, and his nostrils flare as he draws in another breath.

“Don’t die on me, okay?” I stroke my hand up one of his horns, but there’s zero reaction. None. Not a growl or a tail flick or god forbid, an alien smirk. I turn and sit on the ground with my back pressed against his body. With the way he’s curled up, I feel almost protected, like I’m safe so long as I’m within the circle of his protection.

That was a pretty damn true statement until about … two hours ago.

With a sigh, I pick up two sticks and I stare at them, trying to remember how to start a fire. It didn’t go so well last time, but surely, there must be a way to do this? As I said, even the Naked and Afraid contestants can start a fire. Yeah, but they usually have fire starters, don’t they, Eve?

I don’t think about that.

“Any chance you want to start this fire for us?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder. Abraxas’ mouth splits and he exhales a plume of smoke and not much else. He doesn’t stir beyond that, but at least I have hope that he’s listening to me talk. I don’t know if a loner alien dragon feels the need for things like conversation or companionship, but talking aloud will calm my nerves, at least. “Alright, fine. No problem. I can do this. It can’t be that hard, can it?”

I get to work with the sticks, trying to fit one perpendicularly against the other so I can spin it between my hands. Friction equals flame, right?

It’s not that easy. Or maybe it’s because we’re on an alien planet, and I have no idea if the chemistry of such an act is the same. Probably both things are true.

Doesn’t matter.

I keep at it, and I keep talking.

“So, back on Earth—that is, the planet where I come from—I own my own business.” I’m so proud of that. Even here, even with a half-dead audience of one, I can’t keep the satisfaction out of my voice. “I knew from a young age that I had a serious problem with authority. Miserable bosses and cranky shift managers, I couldn’t do it.” One of the sticks breaks, so I toss it aside and start over again. “I’ve only ever been good at one thing, and that’s cooking, but I knew that I couldn’t handle the heat of a commercial kitchen—figuratively or literally.”

I look over my shoulder, and maybe I’m imagining it, but it feels like Abraxas is more alert.

You’re imagining it, Eve. He hasn’t moved. And he hasn’t. For all I know, he’s already dead, and I’m sitting here talking to myself. The tears spring up again, but I ignore them.

“So anyway, one day my best friend—that’s Jane Baker, manager to the stars—asked me if I couldn’t whip up some last minute dishes for this stupid party that her client was having.” My mouth twitches when I think about Tabbi. She’s probably dead. That girl is far too stupid to survive a cutthroat world like this on her own. “She called me the next day, talking about this bigwig or that bigwig wanting to hire me for the next stuffy rich people party, and so it went from there.”

With a sigh, I sit up and rub my arm across my forehead. If I can just get a fire going … he should at least be warm when he dies. That’s a pretty basic comfort. I take up my sticks again and get to work.

“This is the most boring story known to humankind, by the way. It’s not just you. I’m a pretty boring, unremarkable person, but in a good way. I don’t have a lot to complain about. I’ve never gone hungry, never had to fight for clean water, always had a roof over my head.” My eyes are just dripping salt at this point, but I can’t help it. I want to go home so badly that my chest aches. I want to see Jane. I miss my family. Fuck. “And now I’ve got a successful business going. I’m at the point where I can buy a house. Me. How many twenty-five year olds do you know that own a business and a house both? Exactly. None.”

I work at that stupid fire—and babble incessantly—for what must be hours. My hands are covered in blisters, and now I’m crying out of rage and frustration as much as anything else.

“Goddamn it.” I throw the sticks as far from me as I can get them, sitting there with my knees up, the heel of my hand pressed to my head. “This isn’t working.” I drop my arm and look around, but it’s as pitch-black now as it was ten minutes ago. And two hours ago. And will be for several more hours to come.

With nothing else to do, I crawl back over to Abraxas to check on him, touching my hands to his face. Still ice-cold. I swallow hard, leaning closer, listening for breaths. Nothing.

The vents. It pops into my head, and I stand up suddenly. I won’t think about the fact that he’s not breathing. Nope. Won’t go there. Why didn’t I think about the vents before? I could start a fire if I stuck a stick in one of them, right?

It’s worth a try.

I get on my hands and knees, searching for a large stick that I might be able to make a torch out of. It takes a while—the moons have shifted, and it’s mostly dark again—but I find something eventually. Can’t see it. Can’t see if there are alien spiders or alien ants or alien whatevers clinging to it, but it doesn’t matter.

Now. Where might I find a vent? They seem to open up at random on this planet, but I can’t wait around and hope for the best. I have to be proactive.

It might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, but I head back in what I think is the direction we came from. May or may not be. Doesn’t matter. I come up on one of those strange steam vents anyway. Dropping to my knees, I peer into the cracked earth and the purple glow emanating from it. What if I disintegrate or something?

But I’m going to die anyway, and my only redeeming feature is that I’m plucky.

I shove the stick into the vent before I can talk myself out of it, and then I hold it there until my hand begins to burn with the heat. When I yank the stick back out, there’s no flame, but there is that strange sticky substance on the end of it, the same stuff that was dripping off Abraxas earlier.

Great.

More sticky. Why is everything around here sticky?

I try a few more times, same result. Defeated, I head back in Abraxas’ direction—what I think is Abraxas’ direction.

There are several minutes there where I’m convinced that I’m lost, and panic sets in so thoroughly and completely that I’m not even plucky anymore. Just afraid. I’m terrified.

When I stumble over Abraxas’ tail with a grunt and hit my chin on the ground, the end of the stick strikes a tree and up it goes in flames.

Oh.

I’m still blinking stars from my eyes as I sit up and stare at the flaming end of the branch.

“Abraxas, look.” I take the torch and wave it around in front of his face. No response. Swallowing back my trepidation, I set fire to the pile of sticks and leaves, and up they go. A cheery orange glow pushes back the darkness, and it’s only once it’s spreading heat across my bare midsection that I realize how cold it’s gotten. I put a palm over my wound, looking down and examining the ragged edges in the firelight.

In the few hours that I’ve been fumbling around in the dark, the skin seems to have sealed shut. There’s still a massive bruise, deep muscle pain, and the sense that if I fuck around too much, I could break it back open, but it’s on its way to healing. Because of alien spit. Right.

I settle down with my back pressed against Abraxas’ side. He’s so cold, I know that he’s gone. I know it, but I can’t accept it. The night yawns around me, and I wrap my arms around my knees, closing my eyes. I’ll do as Abraxas asked and head for the market just as soon as … Well, I can wait a little longer.

The fire crackles, my only source of comfort. I am so human, I think, painfully human. All alone in the woods and fire is my salvation.

My eyes close and exhaustion rips through me. Understandable—I was bitten in half today and swallowed. Sleep comes even though I try my best to resist.

I’m not sure how long I’m out, but when I open my eyes, the fire has died down to scant embers. Panic and instinct take over, sending me scrambling across the forest floor to gather more debris. I blow on the embers, and whatever this pitch shit is that I found, it goes right back up with a whoosh, nearly searing my eyebrows off.

I sigh in relief and sit back, refusing to acknowledge the dead dragon behind me.

Eyes peer out at me from the darkness, glowing eyes in shadowed faces. Dozens of them. Maybe more. A hand with sharp fingers, crafted of shadow, reaches out toward the flames and then draws back, as if the fire is the only thing keeping it at bay.

A grumble from behind me draws my reluctant attention around, and I find dozens more of those glowing eyes around Abraxas. His tail thrashes to ward the creatures off, but they only retreat for a second before they’re back. Blood drips from his hide to the floor. They’re biting him!

I snatch the branch up and shove it into the fire, reigniting my makeshift torch. With a painfully embarrassing battle cry, I swing it at the creatures, driving them away from Abraxas—who’s apparently still alive—and sending them scrambling into the darkness.

They don’t stay there for long, clawed fingers reaching, braving the edges of the fire and the shadows around Abraxas. I move in a circle around him, all the way around the other side of the massive tree trunk, swinging the torch at the stupid things.

This isn’t going to work, I realize. As soon as I’ve completed my circle, they’re back and they’re biting him again. I think they’re … they know he’s dying and they’re trying to eat him. An impossible rage fills me, and I clench my jaw. I’ve never been an extraordinary person. I don’t volunteer at a soup kitchen or an animal shelter. I don’t donate a lot of money. I’m not a genius or an artist or a philanthropist, but goddamn it, I can at least try to be a good person.

I rush back to the vent—a much easier task with the torch in hand—and then pause. If I shove the torch in there, the whole vent might go up in flames. It could easily kill me. I spend some time (way too much time) looking for another branch. Once I’ve got it in hand, I shove it into the earth’s gaping wound. Earth? This isn’t Earth. Well, whatever it is, it has flammable pitch that’s going to come in handy.

I jog back to Abraxas with both branches in hand, and then I knock them together, setting the second one on fire. The shadow creatures are all over the dark half of him, the side that’s facing away from the fire. I drive them back again with the torches, and then I work to find more sticks and leaves so that I can build fires all around us.

It takes a lot out of me, but once I’m done, there’s a nice ring of fires around us, illuminating everything in orange light and heat. The shadow beasties don’t leave, but they remain outside the circle of light.

I brush my palms together and then move back over to Abraxas’ head, squatting down in front of him. My hand hovers, but I force myself past the nerves, using a finger to trace the seam where I think his mouth is. He stirs and one eye cracks open. It’s nearly black, all of that purple and blue and gold having faded away to darkness.

I’m probably going to regret this later.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” I’m pleading now, and I’m not ashamed. Not only am I worried about myself, but I’m worried about him, too. How can I let someone with such a kind heart die so senselessly? He might be an alien, but he’s more human than half the people I know on Earth. “I’ll … do whatever it takes. Could I sell myself in the market? Buy you a tonic or something? Get you a doctor?”

I tell myself that he could rescue me later, after he’s all healed up. But who knows. I might be signing my own death warrant—or my own captivity warrant. Stuck forever in the woods and forcibly married off to a tusk guy. That could be what happens to me. It could be what happens to me either way. At least if I walk into that market and offer myself up in exchange for something to heal Abraxas, it won’t be a complete waste.

Could I find Cop Guy right off the bat? He genuinely seemed like he wanted to help. And you know what? At this point, I’ll gladly go with the black-eyed stalker Moth if he can save Abraxas. There are worse fates.

Abraxas isn’t amused at the suggestion. A bit of light enters his eyes and he lifts his head, that terrifying mouth of his rippling in a low growl. I’m not wearing the translator, so I can’t be sure of his exact words, but I imagine it goes something like this, that’s a stupid fucking idea, don’t even think about it.

“There must be something I can do,” I repeat, because I hate feeling helpless. I’ve felt helpless since the moment I opened my eyes in the market. I don’t want to feel that way anymore, but the fact of the matter is this: I am nothing and nobody here. So if I can save my only source of power and comfort and safety, I’ll do it—cost be damned.

“Fuck.” This is what he says, as he lays there half-dead. I cock a brow. We’re back to this again? “Mate.”

Right.

He tilts his head toward me, and I get the idea that I’m supposed to take the translator. I do. I wait to hear this pitch. Is he asking for a final goodbye fuck? Is that what this is? I find it hard to believe. Something must be getting lost in translation here.

“We mate, I live,” he growls out, but there’s no heat in his voice. It’s dreary and distant.

“That’ll save your life? If I … mate with you?” He can’t understand what I’m saying, but it doesn’t seem to matter. He gets the gist of it.

“Mating … antivenom.” He waits for me to absorb that information. I don’t understand it. It makes no sense. But he looks serious enough about it. “Mated, never separate.” Something in his expression softens when he looks past me toward the ring of fires, and a strange warmth permeates my chest. I did something right tonight. I saved him this time. “Death from broken hearts.” It’s not so much the translator’s fault this time, and more like he’s having trouble speaking whatsoever.

Err. Now I’m really confused. I push aside the broken heart nonsense and try to get back to facts. I put the translator back on him and yet again wish we had two of the goddamn things.

“You’re serious? If I mate with you, it’ll heal you?” I ask, and he growls an affirmative. I think. Still getting used to the sounds he makes. They’re nowhere near human. I’m still not sure I can fit him, even at this size. And … wow, I went right to it, didn’t I? But I could use my hand or … something. You were into him from moment one, Eve.

I’ve always had weird taste in guys. That entomologist I dated, he bred moths in his apartment. Every time I opened his front door, a half-dozen would flutter out. No matter how careful he was, some would inevitably escape, gathering around the light above the dining table, resting on the glass doors to the balcony, getting tangled in my hair. But this? This is even weirder than that.

Abraxas waits for me to take the translator back and then repeats himself.

“Mates can never separate or they’ll die from broken hearts.” He waits to see what my reaction is going to be, but I swear that there’s more color in his eyes.

Okay. Yeah. I’m going to agree to this, and we’ll deal with the broken heart stuff later. I’m still going home, but I can at least make an attempt to save his life. He’ll be single later, yeah, but he’ll be alive. He’ll thank me for the casual sex.

“I accept. Yes. Let’s do it.” Literally. I sit back on my haunches as he blinks at me. A slow, strange smile spreads over that sharp-toothed mouth of his, but it doesn’t last. He might be asking me to sleep with him, but he’s still fucking dying.

He rolls onto his back with a groan of pain, wings crushed underneath him, staring up at the canopy. Fern fronds scatter everywhere.

“You might’ve suggested this earlier,” I tell him, feeling irrationally pissed off. Then I remember that he kissed me and asked me to mate with him hours ago. Hours. In fact, if I’d just mated with him when I wanted to—when I would’ve been thrilled to try it—we might not be in this situation. If he survives the night, we’re getting another translator. I don’t care how it happens, but it needs to happen.

I pause beside him, our bodies bathed in firelight, and I stare at his cock as he uses his fingers to coax it from the slit at his groin. It’s just the one this time.

It’s huge. Absolutely massive. Smaller he might be, but that dick is a monster cock. I bite onto my lip, attention shifting to Abraxas. He’s staring at me, eyes half-shut. I’ve thought he was dead multiple times over the last few hours. What if this can really save him? What if he’s full of crap? I snort, pushing my tangled, matted hair back from my face. Is it the worst thing in the world if he’s lying?

It would be, if he died. That’s the part I’d be most upset about.

My attention falls on his dick again, and I realize with a start that it’s the only part of his body where that purple bioluminescence pulses strong and hot. It wraps around his shaft in strange spirals, like a tattoo or something.

I move a little closer, laying my hand on his side. He’s still so cold, even with all the fires going. I breathe deep and climb up onto him, enjoying the way his muscles contract beneath his smooth, scaled skin.

I straddle his thighs, and the crazy thing is, my knees don’t even remotely touch the ground. Like I am up here on an alien dude who changes size, who has a tail, who has wings with hands on them, who—at his smallest—is several feet taller than me.

“I don’t think … You said yourself that I was too little.” I choke on the words as I study him, reaching out tentative fingers to brush against the side of his shaft. A deep, rumbling growl follows, one that I can feel in my very bones. He’s probably … the size of a wine bottle without the neck?

“You won’t be too little now.” He replies to my words despite not wearing the translator. I figure it’s the word ‘little’ that cued him in. He seems to have no problem with that one in plain ol’ English.

Fuck it. I wrap my fingers around the base of him, and he hisses. My breath rushes out, and I feel this strange coiling in my belly. The sticky substance from his markings soaks into my skin, priming me for sex. I can feel it infecting my bloodstream through my skin, just the way it did when I inadvertently rubbed it on my bare belly. His smell, the pungent reek of sex pheromones, dizzies my head.

I can’t even get my fingers around it,I think with a burst of heat in my cheeks. The biggest guy I was ever with was too big. We had a shitty sex life because of it. We’re not talking about having a sex life here, just about saving a life. With … my vagina.

I am going to save an alien’s life with my vagina.

Using both hands, I rub my palms up the length of him wondering where the ‘antivenom’ part of this mating comes into play. Maybe we don’t have to go all the way to make it work?

“No, female.” Abraxas grabs my wrist with one of the hands on his wings. His tail slithers into what’s left of my pants, and I gasp as it rends the fabric, tearing it down the seam and exposing my ass to the night air. The length of his muscular tail slips between my legs, and I choke on the sensation. It feels so fucking good, amplifying the heat in my blood. The tip of it slithers upward and over my clit before curling around the front of my hot pink pants.

Thread pops and fabric tears, and Abraxas wrenches the crotch right out from underneath me. His tail snatches my waist and lifts me up into the air, moving me so that my wet cunt is positioned right over the crown of his shaft.

“Like this.” He lowers me slowly down, and I gasp as the head of him pushes against my folds. I’m convinced that he isn’t going to fit, that even if he does, it won’t feel good. I’d say I needed more foreplay, but not only am I worried that we don’t have time for it, I don’t need it. Touching him was enough. The pheromones on my palms are enough. He is enough.

“Slow.” The word chirps out of me and suddenly, I’m not so plucky anymore. I’m aroused. I’m hot all over. I’m wanting in a way I can’t quite explain. In the woods? In the dark? With shadow monsters everywhere? Not only that, but the guy I’m fucking is on his deathbed.

This is so messed up.

Despite everything—his impending doom, his clear advantage over me, his obvious arousal—he listens. He lowers me down nice and slow, and my breath catches. Those pheromones that were so wild on my palms, they’re inside of me now. The sensation is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. I feel primal all of a sudden, feral, like I’ve wanted and waited for this moment my entire life. That sticky heat in his purple spirals, it loosens my body for him, primes me, relaxes me. Whatever that stuff is, it’s making our full union a real possibility.

“More.” The word comes out before I can stop it, and then he’s pushing me down hard and I’m overwhelmed with the sensation of being full. I can hardly believe I’m taking him all the way let alone how good he feels. Hot and fierce and male.

His tail releases me as I sit there, fully seated on his cock, and stare down at him. He’s looking back at me, eyes hooded and bright as jewels, like some of that inner fire is already back in his gaze. That does it for me. I want to see him at full strength, hot-blooded and prowling, an apex predator.

My palms press flat to the muscles of his belly. His stomach and midsection are relatively human in appearance, minus a belly button or nipples. Doesn’t bother me. That thought keeps circling in my head. I don’t care what he is. He’s male, and I’m female, and this works. Oh, it works. Better than that, it’s incredible. Abraxas fills up all my empty space, makes me feel tight and satisfied and triumphant somehow.

I lift up on him, leaning forward and raising my hips until he’s close to slipping out. And then I slam back down, as hard as I can. As fast as I can. Claws of pleasure are already digging their way into my blood, my nipples tightening to sharp points. I want him to touch them. He seemed to have no trouble figuring out what to do with them before.

Abraxas growls when I push the torn upper half of the space suit up, when I reach for one of his wing-hands, when I push it against my breast. His fingers dig into the soft flesh, fireflight bathing our contrasting colors. He’s purple tinted in this light, just a bit of violet in those ebony scales.

I’m moaning now, unashamedly. We’re in the woods. Who’s going to hear us?

It hits me that we’re relatively close to the market, but if Abraxas really does get better, who could bother us? Not those orc men with their nets and their guns. Nobody.

Power rushes through me in a heady wave. Freedom rushes through me. The sensation of being wild and unfettered, without rules or responsibilities. A strange thought occurs to me, one where I live in these woods with this monster, where I sleep in a nest filled with furs and eat fire-roasted meat, where I have no bills to pay or laws to follow.

The purple markings on his belly and chest and horns, they all come to life like they’ve been pumped full of fresh blood. His skin heats up underneath me. A rumble tears through his chest.

He rolls us over so that he’s on top, hips driving hard enough that my ass digs divots into the soft ground beneath me. His wing-hands snatch my wrists and pin them down, his other hands pressed to the forest floor for leverage. He curls his back like no human ever could, and that sharp, hot tongue finds my mouth. For an alien who’s (presumably) never kissed a woman before yours truly came along, he seems to know exactly what he’s doing.

I’m left not only breathless but stunned. The longer we fuck, the healthier he seems to get. His body lights up with a ferocious violet blaze, inky shadows growing around him as he slams deep enough to slap our pelvises together with a sharp crack. I seem to have no trouble taking him. More than that, it’s like I was built to take him. Like I was meant to be here.

Our skin sings to one another, the brush of his scales against my soft flesh a pleasant scrape that makes me writhe, heels digging into the grass. My pelvis thrusts up to meet him, and he loves it. He growls at me as he kisses me, as he takes over my small, tender lips with his massive mouth, with those teeth, that tongue. It should rightfully terrify me, having been swallowed whole and all.

It doesn’t.

I want him. So bad. Like, so so bad.

He’s so hot. Apex predator hot.

My hands grip his arms, my short nails digging at his skin as I moan loud enough to scare off the shadow creatures in the dark. Or … Abraxas raises his head, lips rippling in a massive snarl. The spines along his back and tail lift up, and his body blazes with bioluminescence. I hope that whatever those things are, they’ve learned their lesson.

“Mate …” he growls, inhaling my hair, snorting so that it flutters around my face. There’s heat in his breath, sparks and embers and flame. He smells like a campfire, like something else musky and strange yet somehow familiar. “Female.”

He fucks me so wildly, so ferociously that I enter a trance-like state, head thrown back, body blazing. I can barely remember my name let alone where I am or why I’m here. None of that seems to matter. I’m close, close, close … I’m falling and orgasming so hard that I scream. The sound breaks through the trees, startling periwinkle blue bats into the dark canopy.

An odd sound, something between a laugh and a growl, ripples through him. I look up through the stars in my vision, and I see a horned god above me, something dark and fierce and ancient and old. Wow. Fucking wow.

Tears prick my eyes and stream down my face, but they’re just pleasure tears. It feels so good, and my orgasm is so complete that I can’t stop them.

Abraxas ruts me so hard that I can feel it in my bones, my legs spread as wide as physically possible to accommodate him. His wing-hands claw the dirt around my wrists as he uses his other hand to tilt my chin up. His tongue dives into my mouth, and I go hot all over as he comes inside of me. I can feel it, molten liquid deep in my core. It makes me thrash underneath him, seeking more, wanting more. Another orgasm threatens but doesn’t quite peak.

His body relaxes substantially, lowering down so that he’s covering me completely. My cheek is pressed into his rib cage, and I can feel his tail as it whips around behind him.

“Okay, Big D, scoot.” I’m panting for breath, pushing at him. It’s not like pushing a brick wall. It’s like pushing a skyscraper made out of steel and antimatter. His muscles are so hard that there’s not even a give of skin over flesh. Abraxas is a rock. But he’s a living rock, and that’s what matters.

As promised, sex has restored him to full strength. I don’t understand how. Maybe he was bullshitting me and pretending to die so he could get laid? The thought comes and goes just as quickly. No. He was truly dying, and he used the last of his strength to bring my ungrateful ass to the market.

I owe him an apology or at least a thank you.

“No.” That’s his latent response to my question. He hefts himself up as best he can, curling his spine in that way of his, so that he can stare down at me, wings spread wide, shadows dancing around his body, blurring the edges between his strong form and the darkness around him. The fires could use some tending, but I have a feeling that nothing else will bother us tonight, not with Abraxas functioning enough to fuck like a fiend. “I cannot. We are post-coitus and joined.”

I wiggle a little, and that’s when I feel it, something strange but not unpleasant. It’s like … like I can feel him, his heartbeat, his blood. I’m giddy with the rush of it. When I move my hips again, I can sense something connecting us on the inside, like small filaments linking his body to mine. We’re stuck together, but not knotted like a pair of mating dogs. Something different.

We lay there, his body not only inside of mine, but all around me. Four hands searching my body, a tail wrapping my ankle, and that goddamn tongue. He uses it to lick the side of my face, right up and into my hair, like he’s grooming me.

“Stop that,” I whisper, heart pounding. When my pulse races, I swear that I can sense his speeding as well, like our very blood is connected. My cheeks flush as I shift beneath him. Trapped but not unhappy. I have the strongest predator in the jungle poised above me, cleaning the blood and tears and dirt from my face. “If I hadn’t screamed the word fuck …” I trail off with a laugh that makes him growl, grinding his hips more deeply against mine.

My thighs quiver with the stretch of staying open for him, but he’s so big, I have no choice. Guess I’ll get real flexible real fast, I think, and then my eyes widen in disbelief. What the fuck, Eve? No. You’re going home. You’re going back to Earth eventually!

I have so much to return home to. A big, loving family, an incredible career, prospects of a house and a husband and children. I want all of that, and I can’t have that here. Not even if … I don’t let myself go there. I have to find Jane, and I have to get us both out of here. Abraxas can help me with all that, can’t he? That’s what he’s been doing thus far.

He takes the translator from me with one of his wing-hands and puts it on his head, waiting, I guess, for me to repeat myself. So I do.

“If I hadn’t screamed the word fuck, you might’ve eaten me,” I whisper, wondering how I’m managing to hold a conversation with a massive alien dick between my thighs. My blood feels so hot, almost foreign, like he’s doing something to me through the connection between our pelvises. I have never felt this vulnerable and exposed with a human man before. This is sex on a whole other level.

He gives the translator back, and his mouth splits into a terrifying grin.

“I knew before I heard or saw you; I knew because of your smell,” He leans down and licks the side of my neck, causing me to moan and bite my lower lip hard enough that it bleeds. “You weren’t to be eaten; you were to be mated—by me.”

The translator … I’m impressed.

He relaxes again, covering me protectively with his body. I’m tempted to stroke his arms with my fingers, but that feels way too intimate in a situation that’s already stretched far beyond the limits of my shame and acceptance. I need him off of me, so that I can process whatever it is that’s going on between us.

No sooner do I have that thought then he draws back, sliding out of me.

There’s a sharp pinch that makes me whimper, and a little bit of blood between my thighs. I sit up suddenly, quick enough to notice that his cock is dark before it draws back into his body. No more purple spirals or glowing. The rest of his body though? He’s as lit as I’ve ever seen him, and he’s supernatural in his poise. He towers over me, a force to be reckoned with.

I just so happen to look down at my own body, and I … what the fuck? My eyes widen as I notice a purple glow coming from my vagina. Like, from inside of me.

“What did … what did you just do to me?” I ask him, looking up to see him crouching over me in his gargoyle pose. It’s all the more intimidating for his sudden vigor and vitality. I understand now what he meant by not too little later. Yeah. He changes size, and his dick changes sizes with him.

I swallow a lump of dread.

My vagina saved his life.

And now it’s glowing from the inside.

Of all the dumb-dumb alien romance plots, this one takes the cake.

Abraxas cocks his head at me. Crap. I blush as I sit up, and I realize that our entire relationship is now completely different. Jane calls it ‘the sex thing’.

“You know how it’s hard to be friends with someone you find attractive? You know why? It’s the sex thing. It’s the possibility that you could be fucking at any moment.”

Sigh.

The sex thing.

I look up at him, firelight dancing across the very alien planes of his face. His mouth is split in a shark-toothed grin.

“Mates,” he repeats, reaching out to dig clawed fingers into my hair. “We are mates.” He slithers forward, a brush of shadows across the inky night, and curls his massive body around me, dwarfing me completely. The fires continue to crackle, adding to the after-sex atmosphere. I’m simultaneously full of energy and also exhausted all at once. “Rest, female.”

He takes a moment to lick the wound on my midsection and then tucks me in close. I feel unbelievably safe with his body protecting mine.

What did I just commit myself to? I wonder, but there’s not a lot of time for that.

I relax on my side with his tail wrapped around my legs, and I let myself drift to sleep.