Chapter 5

Morning dew kisses my lips as I crack my heavy lids open. Somehow, I ended up lying on my side on the ground. The air on my back is cold, but in front of me, there’s a crack in the earth where hot air seems to be escaping, like a natural vent of some sort. I must’ve migrated toward the heat in my sleep.

My body creaks and protests as I sit up, still not fully recovered from everything that happened yesterday. One, quick look around shows me that the ‘grass’ has been restored, the throng of creepy bugs tucked beneath the earth for the day. I do my best not to think about it as I try to find my feet.

It’s much brighter now than it ever was last night, offering me a better view of the woods.

The trees appear endless, their trunks so varied in size that the smallest is about as thick around as my arm while the largest could be a skyscraper in its own right. I brush my hands down my bare legs to clear away the dirt, and then finally tear off the last scraps of my pants with a huff.

Now, it’s just me and a cute matching bra and panty set that I originally bought to surprise my ex, Mack, with. Stupid fucking Mack. He never did get to see it. Seems fitting that some random alien creature would be the first to view the nicest lingerie set I’ve ever owned.

Barefoot. Wearing a dirty white lace bra and underwear. A glowing pink headset hanging around my neck. Right. I don’t feel vulnerable at all.

“Are you awake?” I call out, cupping my hands over my mouth.

There’s no response.

I pace back and forth for a moment before I try again.

“Hello? Are you in there?” Nothing. Not a peep. Either the dragon is sleeping or else he left to … hunt or something. The thought of him slinking by in the dark while I slept creeps me out; the thought of him leaving me alone in the dark creeps me out even more. I try his trigger words. “No? Little? Fuck?”

Nothing.

Shit.

Now what?

I look down at the grass and notice that the path we walked yesterday is somewhat clear, as if the little bugs didn’t appreciate being trampled on. If I follow that, could I find my way out of here? Part of me wants to stay here until the dragon comes back, but every minute is precious. Jane … something could be happening to Jane.

That, and it’s clear that while Dragon Dude isn’t going to eat me, he also has no intention of helping me out anymore than this. After all, he didn’t answer my question about the nuts scattered all over the ground. That, and he left me alone to sleep in the dirt in the middle of the woods. Would it really have taken him all that much effort to carry me into the ship with him? I’m obviously no threat.

He healed your wound, didn’t he? I ask myself, but I don’t want to think too much on that. Or do I?

With a sigh of frustration, I start off along the bare dirt path in the grass, winding my way past the same ships I saw yesterday. That’s a good sign: I’m going in the right direction. I continue on, alert for any movement in the bushes or the trees, but there doesn’t seem to be any. Either everything here is nocturnal or else they’re all scared of the dragon.

I’m betting on the latter.

I walk until my body’s slick with sweat, until my bare feet ache, and then I keep going. There are no other options. I can’t sit around in the woods and wait to be eaten, wait to starve, wait to die of thirst. And I cannot fucking leave Jane. Or hell, even Avril the Medic. She saved my life, and Moth Guy took her … What if she’s still somewhere in the market? And what about poor Connor? Madonna? What if we could all find some way to get home?

Well, except for the lawyer. RIP. You won’t be missed by me.

Crack. Snap. Shfft.

I stop suddenly, looking around the shadows for the sounds I just heard. If I didn’t know better, I’d say there were footsteps. Obvious ones, too.

My breath escapes in a rush when I see two men in gas masks emerge from the brush. They don’t seem particularly surprised to see me, murmuring something to one another before the one on the right takes off his mask.

It’s Tusk Guy. Or … well, not the same Tusk Guy but another male of the same species.

“Don’t be afraid,” he grumbles out, looking me over. The way his eyes scan my body, I’ll admit—I’m more than a little freaked-out. At the same time … the guy offers me a thermos, and I realize then just how thick my tongue feels, how dry my mouth is. It’s hot here, humid as fuck, and I swear that the gravity on this planet is like, ten times heavier than Earth. My body feels like it weighs a million pounds.

I lift the pink headset up onto my head and take a cautious step forward. These guys appear to have no problem speaking English, but it never hurts to be prepared. I accept the thermos and unscrew the top, scenting some sort of gamey broth inside of it. My stomach rumbles, and I take an educated gamble. These Tusk Guys are looking for brides, right? Why poison me? Also, this isn’t their first time at the rodeo; they must know what humans can and cannot eat here.

The broth doesn’t taste so bad, like venison stew or something. It wouldn’t be half bad with some proper spices, the right vegetables, maybe a hunk of buttered bread on the side. I drink it all as the first Tusk Guy replaces his mask. He growls something out to his companion who responds in turn.

“Here … get … lost. Finds … we …. eat.” The first man shakes his head, lifting his goggle-covered eyes up to the canopy. I’m taking a guess here, but did he just suggest we get lost before we get eaten? Because that’s what it sounds like. He reaches out to take the thermos back, and I hand it over, waiting as he secures it to his belt. When he removes what appears to be a leash of some sort, I start to get nervous.

“What is that?” I ask as he hands a looped end over to me.

“This will ensure we don’t get separated in here,” he explains, which seems logical enough.

Only … I’m not sure how comfortable I am right now.

“Slip over wrist,” the second guy grinds out in broken English. “We need go.” He gestures with a large hand and takes off. The first guy—the one who gave me the thermos—slips the loop over my wrist, and it tightens automatically, cranking up that nervous feeling in my belly.

“Come. We’ll get you out of here safely.” The first guy takes off, dragging me along behind him like a pet. That’s what the sign read, didn’t it? Humans. Pets. Meat. Mates. What a combination. With few other options left, I follow along, finding myself beyond relieved when we emerge from the trees and into the same clearing where the wagon was attacked.

It’s still there, turned on its side, a pool of dried blood cracking beneath the too-bright rays of the sun. As soon as we step into it, I feel it searing my skin and force myself to look up. Holy shit. There really are two suns in the sky. One is much smaller than the other, but their combined heat is equivalent to that one time I took a hiking tour into the outback of Australia.

It’s sweltering.

I don’t like that. I don’t like the leash. I don’t understand why these guys are wearing gas masks.

They drag me toward a group of others, all of whom are wearing masks, all of whom are looking me over like so much meat. Shit, shit, shit. My instincts with these guys were dead-on. My initial captor was too nice; I was better off with the dragon.

“Get her in the palanquin,” one of them demands, gesturing over at a wheelless vehicle with four poles protruding horizontally from its base. Those four poles are meant to be lifted up by people and carried. The palanquin itself is closed-in and claustrophobic-looking.

There’s no way in hell that I’m getting inside of it.

My suspicions are confirmed as the masked men start to converse in their own language. I guess they’re just as confused as I am as to what this glowing pink oversized headset is.

“Woman … damaged … decreased value.” That’s what crackles in through my headset, and I look askance at one of the tusk men. Did he just say what I think he said? Or is this translator just beyond bogus?

The other tusk man scoffs and shakes his masked head.

“Who cares? Holes … to mate … only.” He looks me over as he passes by, readying himself on one knee beside a massive weapon. The end of it is perched on a stand, but it appears to be a cannon of some sort. My stomach churns, wasps instead of butterflies.

I feel sick.

Holes to mate only.

There’s no misinterpreting that.

I think about Jane then, and poor Avril. Connor. Madonna. Even … Tabbi. What’s happening to them? What might’ve already happened? What the fuck is going to happen to me?

I give the leash on my wrist a tug, but it’s an endless loop with no discernible seam. The Tusk Guy that’s on the other end of it has attached it to his belt. He’s not looking at me, his attention focused on the man with the large metal cannon. From all appearances, it seems like they’re waiting for something.

Dragon Dude.

A knot forms in my throat, choking me up. I understand that the dragon ate their friend yesterday, but I also feel this strange sense of guilt. If Dragon Dude comes this way looking for me, they’ll ambush him.

Why would he ever come looking for you? I think. More than likely, if he does come this way, he’s in search of food. I have nothing to do with any of this. Yet, the guilt remains, and I can’t help but wonder if I shouldn’t try my best to intervene somehow.

A roar echoes through the woods, sending up winged creatures in droves. There are massive bat-like animals in vibrant hues, dragonflies the size of cars, and swarms of birds that dive and soar in colorful flocks, like schools of fish.

The dragon comes tearing out of the trees on foot, surprising several of the Tusk Men—guess they’d assumed that he’d come at them from the sky. He digs up huge clumps of dirt as he runs, claws tearing the ground to pieces and scattering the alien grasshoppers that I saw last night. They skitter as fast as they can away from the overwhelming heat of the suns, but most of them die before ever reaching the shade of the woods.

Dragon Guy knocks one Tusk Man out of the way and then snatches up two others with the massive, clawed hands at the tips of his wings. He tosses them to either side like playthings, all while maintaining his forward charge.

The Tusk Man with the cannon fires off a shot, sending out a blast that knocks me to my knees. Heat and sound ripple through the air, and a silver beam cuts into the dragon’s side. With a violent roar, he slams his massive winged claw-hand down on another man, crushing him into the dirt and spilling blood.

The guy who called me a hole prepares to take another shot, and without thinking too hard about it, I grab a piece of the ruined wagon from yesterday and chuck a sharp bit of wood at the back of his head. It hits him hard enough that his shot goes wide, cutting into the bark of a tree and setting it on fire.

Meanwhile, Dragon Guy is bleeding purple blood everywhere; it oozes from the wound in his scaled side as he turns those glowing eyes of his to Hole Guy. The tusked man sets up another shot, but it’s too late. Dragon Dude is on him before I can even finish my current blink. His mouth splits his face in half, teeth sharp and blindingly white in the horrid heat of those double suns.

I’m not sorry to see Hole Guy’s head disappear into that mouth although the sight is a bit gruesome.

“Fire net!” The translator gurgles those words into my mind in a garbled, mechanical voice. No mistaking the meaning though. There must be a second gunner nearby. I look around as Dragon Dude uses his tail to knock the first cannon aside.

The leash on my wrist jerks suddenly and I fall, my bare skin screaming in pain as I’m dragged like so much cargo across the hot ground. I’m trying to get to my feet, but these tusk men are inhumanly fast. I end up with several patches of bloody, torn skin by the time my Tusk Guy comes to a stop next to a man with a piece of wood embedded in his eye.

My captor shoves his dead comrade off the weapon, turning the large gun on a swivel in the direction of Dragon Dude. Either this is another cannon or else it’s the aforementioned net gun. Doesn’t matter much to me: I’m not letting them fire it no matter what it is.

I look down at the corpse of the tusk guy with the wooden stake in his eye and push aside the pain in my arms and legs to deal with later. My hands wrap around the base of the wood, splinters digging into my sore palms, and I give it a hard yank. It doesn’t budge. It’s thoroughly jammed into this guy’s eye socket. Fucking sick.

A second hard tug sends me stumbling back hard enough that the leash jerks on the tusk guy’s belt and he actually pauses to look back at me.

“Put that down, woman.” He yanks on the leash to pull me toward him, using his other arm to rotate the net gun. Seems he doesn’t see me as a threat. Good luck for me then. I jam the wooden stake into his shoulder … and it does nothing. His skin is much thicker than it looks, certainly thicker than a human’s skin, and my makeshift weapon does little more than annoy him.

Either the eye is just a much better place to stab a wooden stake (it is, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to get it in there without him stopping me), or else alien-dragon-man really sent that debris flying with some force.

A guy is a guy in any universe, I’ll bet. I drop down to one knee which hurts like hell, and I stab the wooden stake into my captor’s crotch as hard as I can. It doesn’t penetrate the fabric of his pants or his flesh, but it at least causes him to miss when he fires the net.

A glowing web shoots from the end of the cannon and opens up over Dragon Dude’s right wing. When it comes down, it comes down hard, not like any net I’ve ever seen. The glowing silver threads dig into the dusty earth of the road and yank the dragon down onto his side.

My captor swings on me, hitting me in the face so hard that I actually black out for a second or two. The pain doesn’t even register until I’m opening my eyes and tasting blood in my mouth. My vision is blurry, my face feels puffy, and the headache that’s coming on has me questioning my life choices.

I should never have agreed to cater Tabbi’s stupid party; bad shit happens every time I’m in the vicinity of that woman. To be fair, I don’t think I could’ve predicted that we’d be kidnapped by alien bounty hunters and sold as pets, but I knew it was a bad idea from the start.

On my first day off in weeks, I’m lying cheek-down in the dirt of an alien world with two merciless suns baking me to death while a dragon that eats people battles against tusk-faced alien sex traffickers. This has got to be a low moment for me. Surely things can only go up from here.

“E-net … again … fire,” a tusk man snarls at my personal captor, helping him adjust the broken tripod (when did that happen?) so that they can turn it in my savior’s (questionable choice of word) direction.

Dragon Dude seems to be stuck where he is with the net holding onto his wing, but he’s not entirely helpless either. I see three more dead men on the ground surrounding him. The two that are wielding the E-net thing or whatever seem to be the only ones left.

It kills me to push up to my hands and knees. The pain is so intense, and I’m so sunburnt and thirsty and hungry and tired that I nearly vomit. But if Dragon Dude loses, I am screwed. These guys aren’t going to forget anytime soon that I got several of their comrades killed by trying to help their enemy. My captor definitely isn’t going to forgive me for trying to drive a wooden stake into his dick—assuming he even has one. Hell, maybe he’s got two? What do I know?

With the very last of my strength, I lunge behind my captor and use the leash like a garrote, wrapping it around his neck and hanging my entire body weight off of it. He grunts in annoyance but doesn’t even bother to acknowledge me. Maybe that’s not how this guy breathes? Shit.

I switch tactics suddenly, reaching up my hand and digging a fingernail into one of his eyes. Now that gets him to howl, and the other man is forced to release the broken E-net gun to wrangle me, jerking me violently off the other guy’s back.

That’s when Dragon Dude (DD for short?) finally breaks free of the net and comes charging at us on all fours.

Tusk Guy Two (the one not connected to my leash) chucks me aside like garbage and sprints down the road in the direction opposite the woods. The other guy tries to run, dragging me behind him for a painful few steps before his head disappears into the dragon’s massive mouth. Snap. His decapitated body collapses beside me, spurting red blood as DD chases down his final opponent.

I don’t see what happens, but I can hear it: bone snapping, screaming, a wet splatter.

I stay right where I am, seated on the ground with a dead body attached to my wrist.

Now what?

I’m panting heavily, and my tongue feels like sandpaper. My eyes are still blurry, and my head is threatening to split right down the middle. Plus, if I don’t get out of this sun soon, I’m going to get heatstroke and die. No joke. I lied when I said it reminded me of the Australian outback; this is worse.

The dragon’s footsteps draw my attention around just as a blissfully cool shade cloud descends over me. I look up to see that he has one of his wings out, shielding me from the blaze like an umbrella. He’s standing on two legs now, like a person, his front claws sheathed, long fingers visible.

“Little … stupid.” The translator crackles in my ear, and I’m shocked to realize that I’m actually still wearing it after all that. The mic part seems to have broken off which I guess is no big loss since it didn’t actually work. Purple blood drips from a wound in DD’s side as he considers me, peeling back his lips so that his wide mouth and all its sharp teeth are on display. He squats down beside me and bites down on the leash, severing it from the dead man’s belt.

I sort of assumed he wasn’t going to kill me, regardless of his reasons for actually attacking the tusk men. He didn’t kill me last night, and he could have easily done so. Then again … he’s an alien. I don’t know anything about this … whatever he is.

“Fuck,” I breathe, and he reacts by lashing out and yanking me into his arms. I’m tossed over his shoulder like a bag of laundry, and the sudden movement is so intense that I pass out briefly. When my eyes open, I’m relieved to see that we’re back in the shade of the trees, the steady, rhythmic footfalls of the dragon guy paired with the sounds of birds (alien birds), insects (alien insects), and a distant roar that sounds much like the ones he made.

He pauses to listen to that, turning over his shoulder to glance in the direction of the sound. And then he keeps going. His wings are held up and to the sides, giving me a clear view of the ground behind us.

“I can walk now, I think,” I offer, but I’m not sure if that’s true. Also, he can’t understand me, so why am I even bothering to talk? I do it anyway. “Really, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but is it possible for me to maybe get some water and some food? A ride back to the market? I know it’s a lot to ask, but there isn’t anybody else around that can help me.”

He ignores me.

We continue walking for some time, and I eventually give into my exhaustion and fall into an uneasy sleep.

The next time I wake up, I’m in the grass and the dragon guy has my face cradled between his massive palms. His hands easily engulf my entire head with room to spare. Also, he’s licking me again. With his long tongue, he bathes a particularly painful spot on my forehead, using measured strokes of that slick, heated muscle to diminish and then banish the ache entirely.

So he was healing me then, I realize, remembering the pseudo erotic thigh lashing I got yesterday. Once he’s done with my forehead, DD moves his tongue to my lips, flicking it across the dry, parched, and split skin and causing me to cry out.

It hurts more than the forehead.

My eyes slam shut, but he pauses, waiting for me to open them again. His lip curls a little, revealing several of those massive teeth. They’re the length of my thumb, easily. Although … is he smaller now than he was earlier? I swear that he’s shrunk some. A growl rumbles through him and even if I can’t understand much of what he says, I understand that. He’s telling me to hold still.

He resumes his once-again-pseudo-erotic licking across my mouth until I’m starting to get uncomfortable, shifting weirdly in the grass and squeezing my thighs together. What is wrong with me? I know I haven’t had sex in a while, but this guy’s not even remotely human. What a reach, Eve. You perv.

Then it gets worse.

Dragon Dude tilts my head back, using his strong fingers to hold me firmly in place, and then he thrusts that massive tongue into my mouth. My eyes go wide and my hands come up to grab his large wrists. His claws are out now, protruding from his knuckles like Wolverine.

He digs in deep, dominating my mouth with strong, sure licks. Slowly, the last of my headache begins to recede. My eyes go half-lidded, and my hips thrust upward of their own accord. I don’t mean for any of that shit to happen; it just does.

My skin begins to tingle, and I can feel this … this hotness burning through my blood. Like poison. I struggle for a minute, sure that, accidentally or not, this alien man is poisoning me with his saliva.

I shove at his wrists, but he just presses his body forward, forcing me to lean back and lose my balance. I end up clutching at his arms instead of pushing them away. There’s a heat in his skin that matches that strange feeling inside my body; sweat begins to pour down the sides of my face.

My entire body goes limp, as if I’m paralyzed from head to toe, and that’s when DD finally pulls away. His mouth opens, this odd, guttural growl emanating from it.

“Last … will … hurt.” He uses one of the clawed hands on his wings to snatch the headset off of me, placing it over his own head. I didn’t think it’d fit, but it seems like there’s plenty of extra headband to unfurl, like a seat belt or a tape measure or something.

“Wait … what?” I manage to murmur, and I know he understands me because he’s got the damn headset on. That long tail of his swings around, and the spikes along the length of it stand on end. As I lie there helpless in his arms, he uses it to wrap around my waist, lifting my shoulder to his mouth.

He bares his teeth at me and then bites down. I can feel those sharp fangs of his entering my skin, penetrating nearly to the bone, but for whatever fucked-up reason, it doesn’t hurt. And then there’s that sinful tongue, lapping away at my blood. This lasts for maybe sixty seconds, but the image of him above me, purple-eyed and alien and wearing a pink headset, is going to stick with me forever.

He releases my shoulder and then licks it, nice and slow and languorous. All that, and I’m left with only faint pink scars, freshly healed over and virtually painless. There are dozens of them from all those teeth. DD looks at me expectantly, as if I’m supposed to respond to what he just did. Err. Okay. I rub at my shoulder with a shaky hand.

“What’s your name?” I whisper, afraid that I’m going to pass out again.

He uses his wing-hand to put the translator back on my head, drops me into the grass, and stands up. He makes no attempt to help me up as my fingers and toes tingle like they’ve been asleep this whole time. Still can’t move though.

I’m struggling to turn on my side for a better view of him when he drops back to all fours, claws digging into the ground as he stalks to the edge of the clearing, wings folded against his back. His tail thrashes behind him, spikes raised and glistening with a purple liquid of some kind.

“Hey.” I force myself into a sideways sitting position, leaning heavily on my palm. “Can you please help me up here? I don’t appreciate being licked and left. At least take me out to dinner first.” I murmur this last part knowing he won’t understand me.

Dragon Dude turns suddenly, the scales from his back lifting like a cat’s raised hackles, the edges glowing purple to match the pulsating spirals on his massive horns. He skitters across the grass in such a way that even if I wanted to pretend he was a man when he was licking me, it’s grotesquely obvious that he’s not.

He scales the side of a massive tree using his claws and then disappears into the brush on one of the limbs. A scream follows, and then a shower of blood. It rains down from the branches just before a body slams into the dirt beside the stream, rolling slowly until it tips over into the water and is carried away on a deceptively strong current.

I’m able to get a good enough look at it that I recognize it for what it is: one of the tusk men.

“Fuck.” I know; I curse too much. I’m trying to kick the habit, but probably won’t. I have good intentions though.

Dragon Dude lands in the blood beside me, spattering my skin with enough of it that goose bumps prickle across my arms and legs. He narrows his eyes at me and curls his lip, letting out another one of those long, low warning growls.

“Get … the … wish.” Whatever it is that he’s trying to say, it’s meant to be a wry tease. I’m sure of it.

“Get the wish?” I ask, realizing as he stands there, towering over me even on all fours, that he’s waiting for me to stand up. It takes me a few tries, but I’m eventually able to get my feet under me. When I sway a bit, he catches me with his tail and pushes me upright.

He turns to stalk away, and I look back at the river, wetting my lips. I’m so thirsty right now; I’m willing to risk that muddy bank and those strong currents. When I turn to see where Dragon Dude’s gone, I find him slowly disappearing into the trees and start to panic.

Being alone in these woods with no idea where the market is, that scares me. I’m a brave girl, but that’s a surefire way to an early death. Not to mention that Jane is still out there somewhere.

“Wait!” I jog to catch up to DD, surprised by how great I feel all of a sudden. Thought I was dying twice in as many days, so this is a nice change. “What did you do to me?”

I take the headset off and hand it over to him, assuming that he’ll put it on and then we can go back and forth for a somewhat normal conversation. He looks at it briefly but doesn’t take it. After a while, he stands up like a man and walks the way I’m walking. It’s a comfort, I won’t lie.

He’s way fucking taller than I am; it’s ridiculous. I’m an average-height girl, but he’s huge. Although … I swear that he was bigger earlier. Can he really change size? My eyes drift down to the spot where his cock might be, but there’s nothing there except for smooth, ebon-scaled skin. Damn it. Supreme disappointment floods me followed by supreme shame. What am I even thinking right now?

“You did something to me.” I point at him, but he doesn’t look at me. Instead, his nostrils flare and it seems like he’s scenting something in the woods. “I appreciate the healing stuff, but I could do without the hormone surge.”

I put the headset back on; if he’s not going to wear it, I may as well get use out of it.

“You riled up my female pheromones and yet”—I gesture at his crotch—“you have no dick. Seems a bit messed-up, don’t you think?” I sound hysterical, don’t I? I am hysterical. Yesterday morning, I was a business owner working my way toward purchasing my first house. By the next, I’m kidnapped by sex trafficking tusk men, and then tongued by a dickless dragon. “Guess you don’t get to mating much?”

That stops him, and he turns those brilliant purple eyes down to me. The relatively normal pupil is nice, but the lack of whites is disturbing. I should’ve fought to go with the moth guy. Except, there was Avril’s blood-curdling scream … I shiver.

DD turns fully toward me then, and I notice that a slit is opening up in his groin. The head of a massive cock emerges, growing to such gargantuan proportions that I clamp both hands over my mouth. Then a second cock appears below it at a slightly different angle, just a tad smaller than the first.

“When … I … little.” That’s what he says to me, and then the slit is closing and both of his cocks are retreating back inside. “Get … the … wish.” He continues walking as I gape at his admittedly very nice ass from behind. It might be covered in smooth scales, but it’s perfect otherwise. I get a nice juicy view of it as his tail moves from side to side.

“Holy shit.” I choke on those words, and then I’m silent for the rest of the walk.

He has two dicks? Do females in his species have two vaginas? Oh, maybe one is for anal? Why am I even thinking about this? Should I keep calling him DD or should I change his nickname to Big Double D? Big DD? Big D?

I decide Big D is too prime a nickname to pass up.

When we get to the spaceship from last night, I spot my tree branch and notice that the small heat vent has grown much larger. Purple smoke drifts up from inside. The closer I get, the more I’m sure I’m not supposed to breathe that. Guess this is why the tusk men were wearing gas masks? I’m lucky I didn’t accidentally kill myself by sleeping next to it.

I edge around it, looking up at the thick canopy overhead as I try to determine how close to nightfall it is. The days here are either really short, or else I was passed out for much longer than I thought. Even with heavy branches overhead, I can see that it’s edging toward darkness.

The thought of spending the night alone on the ground again does not appeal to me. Besides, if I don’t get something to drink soon, I won’t make it that long.

I turn to Dragon Dude aka Big D, determined to argue with him, but he’s already reaching out with his tail and snatching me up by the waist. He hops the fifteen or so feet into the ship like it’s nothing and then sets me down on the floor beside him. The space is a strange mix of decimated tech and woodland chic.

Massive roots grow through the floor, their lengths worn smooth from frequent touching. The metal ground beneath us is covered in feathers, straw, pine needles, and leaves. It makes for a cushiony surface as I get onto my hands and knees to crawl further away from the edge. I don’t trust my sense of balance at the moment.

When I stand back up, I realize there’s a massive computer screen on my right, and it’s got a blinking pink cursor with a prompt.

“Hello? I hear a new voice. Perhaps you can read one of the six million languages that I currently understand. I have attempted to assess your language based on the sounds you’ve made; please tell me if I’ve guessed correctly? You are English.”

Um.

The computer is mostly right—I’m American, but I do speak English. Also, what the fuck?

I decide to ignore that for now. The ship is obviously non-functional. Maybe it’s like, ChatGPT on steroids and solar power or something? Bet this planet would be ripe for solar panel sales. Outside of the woods, it’s unbearably hot.

Dragon Dude is stalking down the length of the ship on all fours. He disappears into a nook off to the left, and I follow after. When I get to the doorway, I look in and see that only half the room remains. There’s a structure that looks a bit like a bathtub, but behind it, the wall is gone. Instead, curtains of vines create a living canopy of green.

The dragon crouches by the bathtub, curled over the end of it in an almost comical sort of way. He massively overshadows the tub, lowering his head down and lapping at the water with that long tongue. My own mouth waters, and I decide that I can’t resist. If this water isn’t good to drink, what will be?

I stumble over and drop down to my knees, using my hands to scoop water into my mouth. As soon as it hits my tongue, I swear that I can feel my cells dancing happily, expanding and plumping with each sip.

“Fuck me, that’s good,” I murmur, and the next thing I know, I’m on my back and Dragon Dude is pinning my arms to the floor. He snarls at me, and I feel the strange press of something hot against my torn and battered lace panties. Um. My body reacts wildly to the feeling, but I really, really don’t think he would fit. Not even close. “Wait, wait, wait.”

He takes the headset with his wing-hand and puts it on again, tilting his head at me as if to say repeat yourself, human.

“Wait. Don’t.” I’m well-aware of the translator’s limitations, so I keep it simple.

“Fuck,” he growls in English, still staring at me like I’m insane. “Mates?”

Fuck. Mates.

…

Oh!

“Right, okay. Listen up, Big D. I think we have a certain misunderstanding here.” I wait for that to register on the headset, but either he doesn’t understand what I’m trying to say or he doesn’t believe me. I’m leaning toward the latter. The words he was saying before—too little!—now make a whole lot of sense. “Fuck doesn’t always mean to mate; sometimes it just means … that the situation is bad.”

The translator gurgles in his ear, and then he places it back on my head.

“Not … too … little … later.” He draws back from me, releasing my arms, and returns to his crouched position at the end of the bathtub, lapping up the water while I sit propped on my elbows, trying to understand what’s going on here. So, Dragon Dude speaks enough English to think that I’ve been demanding that he fuck me?

Wow. Okay then.

Yesterday, when I thought he was going to eat me, did screaming ‘fuck’ actually save my life?

“Wait until I tell my mother that cursing saved me on an alien planet,” I joke, but he ignores me. One purple eye watches me as I approach the bathtub and drink as much as I can stomach. I have never in my life been as thirsty as I am now. The water is relatively cool, and it looks perfectly clear. I wonder where it comes from?

I’m finished long before Dragon Dude, sitting back on my haunches to watch him.

A large beetle with way too many legs falls into the bathtub when the wind blows, knocking it off one of the hanging vines and into the water. Within seconds, it’s dead. I stare at it as it begins to float, and then Big D leans in and eats it.

I almost vomit.

He notices my reaction as I turn away, and he growls at me again.

“Picky … starving.” He grumbles what might actually be a laugh and stands up on all fours, leaving what I really do believe is a bathroom. My gaze catches on something too amazing to be real, and I creep forward, digging through vines until I find a porcelain wonder waiting for me.

It’s a toilet.

It’s literally a toilet.

Tears fill my eyes and I wrap my arms around it.

“Oh thank God, I’m saved!” I quickly lift the lid and peek inside, finding myself staring down at a straight drop to the forest floor. So … more like a pit toilet. Not surprising. Doesn’t mean I can’t use it. My eyes dart around for a suitable leaf, but how will I know if I’ve just picked up the alien equivalent of poison oak? Or worse.

“If only it had a bidet,” I murmur as I browse the vines hanging over the side of the ship in a thick blanket. I select the softest leaf and tear it off, carrying it into the main portion of the ship where I find Dragon Dude licking the nearly non-existent wound in his side.

He healed it.

He healed the giant hole made by the laser. I’m not surprised, but I am impressed. His saliva saved the day more than once, didn’t it? So the guy has two cocks and magic spit? Totally OP. I bet he tells horrible jokes. Or maybe he’s a two-pump chump? Four-pump chump if you factor in the double shafts. I grin.

Yeah. There must be something horribly wrong with this guy’s personality that I’m just not keying into due to lack of proper translation. I should probably be grateful we can’t carry on a real conversation.

“Hey.” I shake the leaf in his direction. “Is this safe for my skin?” I rub it along my arm to see if he reacts. He just keeps staring at me, hunched over with his wings lifted and curled partially around him, like a gargoyle or something. His spike mane looks like hair when he’s sitting this way, and it’s a very pretty, glossy sort of black to match his scales. Purple designs pulse faintly on the underside of his body and along the arm-like portions of his wings. “Do you want to take the headset so you can understand me?” I point at the glowing pink nightmare, but still, nothing from the guy.

With a sigh, I head back into the bathroom area, wondering how a very human-looking bathroom ended up on this planet. As far as I know, we haven’t discovered any planets with intelligent life that are reachable by modern space travel. Maybe the world governments have banded together to hide the existence of this place from us plebs?

Seems more complicated than that though. There’s a full-blown marketplace with at least five different species, not including humans. I’m no expert, but it appears that there are several civilizations with access to advanced space travel. Doesn’t seem like they give a shit about human governments if they’re trapping us like stray cats and then selling us off for a few measly coins beneath some shitty, hand-drawn sign.

I exhale past the sudden spike of fear, taking my moment to pee in a proper toilet, and then using my leaf. It’s no Charmin, but I drop it down the hole and then close the lid. I don’t want to dirty the drinking water, so I have to settle for not washing my hands. Bummer.

Dragon Dude creeps back into the room, nostrils flared. I’m not sure if an alien dragon monster with no visible mouth can look surprised, but if it can, this guy does. He prowls over to the toilet on all fours and sniffs it—vigorously.

“Excuse me,” I grind out, but he ignores me. “Could you please stop being creepy?”

He rises to his full height, and then whips out one of his dicks. It swells from the slit at his groin, and then he’s clutching it in one hand and pissing all over the closed lid of the toilet.

Seriously? So, I guess it doesn’t matter what universe we’re in: men will be men.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I ask, and he growls at the word fuck. Doesn’t stop pissing though, not until the toilet is soaked. His cock slips back into the slit as he crouches and then gets back on all fours again. “Were you … marking the toilet?”

“Mark … you.” That’s his response. His eyes narrow then, and he explodes across the room, surrounding me in a cloud of black and purple. His horns pulse with a bioluminescent glow, and he inhales so deeply that his nose slits flare wide. “Stay … here.”

He slips past me, but the length of his body slides sinuously along mine, and those strange hormones in me start to go nuts again. I’m convinced that he put them there somehow. Convinced of it.

I follow him back into the front of the ship, watching as he hops nimbly outside and then takes off into the trees. My gaze drifts to the ground. I’m not sure how easy it would be to get down from here; I’d probably break a leg in the process.

A deep sigh escapes me, but I’m not particularly worried. It’s clear that this place is the dragon’s … house? His lair? His den? Somehow that last word feels right. Regardless, he’ll come back here. At least I have a moment to look around without his unnerving presence.

I wander the ship, but there’s not much to see beyond the bathroom and the main area with the computer. It’s still talking to me, by the way, typing out line after line of text. Some of it’s in English, but mostly it’s not. I continue to ignore it, deciding to explore the last of the three rooms.

I step past the shredded curtain in the doorway to see that there’s a significant dip in the floor. It appears that this room was falling away from the ship, connected by a single thick cable and some wires. Over time, the forest took over and filled in the space, bracing the tilted room with a huge branch and tying it back to the main part of the ship with vines.

I test it carefully with my foot before I step in, but it seems sturdy enough. If the dragon sleeps here—it really looks like he does—then it must be pretty stable. The center of the room is a circular dip layered in dozens of furs and dotted with old, discolored cushions. Once upon a time, I think they were pink. I wonder if the headset originated from this ship, from these people with their human toilets and their clawfoot bath.

My curiosity piques and I find myself standing in front of the computer screen and its massive pink keyboard. It’s covered in symbols that pulse and glow faintly, as if in time with my breath. There’s no way I could use this if I wanted to. I look back up at the pulsing cursor—also in pink—and wait for another line in English to appear.

“I am blind, but I can hear you. Don’t worry about the keyboard and speak to me, please. I’ve been bedmates with an angry alien for years. Even after all this time, I cannot understand him nor can he understand me.”

“You’re not going to kill me, are you?” I ask, and another frantic line of text appears.

“Oh, thank you! Thank you for reading and responding to me. Who are you and how did you get here? I am in desperate need of your help.”

“You’re a computer?” I ask. “Like ChatGPT or something?”

“I am not familiar with ChatGPT, but I can assure you that I am not a product of artificial intelligence. I was fatally wounded during a routine flight to Jungryuk; my neural center was placed in a stable facility until we could find a suitable host body for transplant.”

“Mm-hmm.” I’m officially done with the computer thing now; it’s creeping me out. If it is AI, then it’s reached AGI—artificial general intelligence—and it’s probably going to try and kill me. I walk away from the screen. It might be able to hear me, but I don’t have to listen to it.

The massive energy burst that Dragon Dude gave me earlier seems to be fading. My lids feel weighted, and my mind is such a mess of thoughts that I decide that sleep is in order. There’s only one logical place to get it: in the dragon’s bed.

Am I risking something by climbing in there? It looks pretty personal. At the same time, it’s getting cold and dark outside. My only light in here comes from the headset, the glowing keyboard, and the faint flicker of the computer screen. It’s hard to see from the tilted room, but that should make it easier to drift off.

I decide to go for it.

Fluffing some pillows and dragging one of the heavy furs over me makes for a fairly comfortable bed.

“Maybe when I wake up, I’ll be in a jail cell with a hangover trying to explain why I was found with the mayor’s bloodied lawyer on the roof of a luxury apartment building.” A snort escapes me, but then my cheek hits the pillow and it’s lights-out.

At some point in the night, I wake to find myself still alone in the bed. Frantically, I climb out, desperate to see if Dragon Dude has returned. If I’m going to make it back to the market in the morning, I’ll need his help.

I find him crouched over a corpse in the front room.

The scent of blood washes over me, making me feel queasy and, grotesquely enough, like I’m starving.

I don’t dare move, watching that muscular body hunched over his prey lest I become his prey. Doesn’t matter. He notices me anyway, craning his neck around to stare at me. His wings flare and then tighten against his back, tail twitching. He rests his second pair of hands on his shoulders, like epaulets or something, and snarls at me.

“Hey Big D, are you in the mood to share?” I joke, but obviously he doesn’t understand me. Slowly, so as not to panic him, I creep forward and find myself staring down at the dead body of the kiyo. It’s the same one, too. I recognize it by the reins still hanging from its face. Damn. Savage.

Dragon Dude growls at me with his oversized mouth, and then backs up, curling around me with his body and essentially forcing me to take a step closer to the dead animal. He moves and appears to be a shadow at times, almost ethereal, like he isn’t fully embedded in this plane. Also, he is definitely smaller now. I’m not imagining it. My new alien monster friend is shrinking.

By shrinking, of course, I only mean getting smaller in comparison to how large he was before. He’s still fucking huge.

“Eat.” The command is easy enough to understand, but who knows if I can even eat this thing without having an allergic reaction or something. I remember reading this article about scientists in Australia who cloned woolly mammoth meat and made a meatball. They didn’t dare eat it though, unsure as to how a five-thousand-year-old protein would react with their bodies. Same deal here.

“Humans can go for three weeks without food. Hopefully I’ll be home by then, so I won’t need to eat at all.” My mouth waters, but I turn away from the animal, gesturing at it with my hand. “You go ahead. You eat.” I point at him and then at the food.

That seems to piss him off. He grabs me with three of his four hands, using the last free wing-hand to dig around inside the corpse and draw out a small organ from the animal’s body. I know some people eat ‘sweetbreads’ or whatever, but organ meat is not my thing. I gag as he brings it to my mouth, utilizing his other wing-hand to pry my lips apart.

I’m struggling in his grip, but he’s at least fifty times stronger than the strongest person I’ve ever met. It’s hopeless.

The meat goes down easily enough, but it tastes like I’ve just swallowed a mouthful of pennies mixed with stewed beets. My gag reflex kicks in, but Big D holds my mouth shut until he’s sure that I won’t throw it up. Then he releases me and I resist the urge to punch him. He could take my head off in a single bite; it’s not worth it.

“You might’ve saved my life, but you’re a fucking dick.” I snap this out without thinking, and then he’s on me again, licking the side of my neck and clutching me against his massive chest like he wants to mate with me. Goose bumps take over my entire body as I shiver under the weight of my own zealous carnal appetite. For an alien dragon? The fuck, Eve? “Wait, wait, wait.”

I’m breathless, the words falling from my lips even as my body reacts to the masculine heat surrounding me, a cloying musk in the air that I swear I can taste as well as smell. It gets worse when Big D’s tongue traces up my neck and over my jaw, slipping between my lips. Is … is he kissing me or healing me or something else entirely?

I’m consumed by that tongue, my hands sliding along the smooth scales of his chest and the purple swirls across his ebony skin. He’s warm and impossibly hard, flexing with feral strength as he moves. My stomach erupts in anxious butterflies, and an insistent pulsing heat clenches in my lower belly. His tongue slips from my mouth and he sets me down, turning away abruptly and heading back over to the meat.

“Ready … not.” That’s what he growls before he sets to finishing the animal by himself. It doesn’t take him long at all, so I just stand there and watch until he grabs the creature’s bones in his long tongue and swallows them whole.

He spends a few minutes cleaning the blood off of his body like a dog or cat might, and then turns to me, eying the tilted room behind me. He rises to his full height, walking over to me like a person, and my heart goes absolutely nuts inside my chest. He looks both more and less human like this; I can’t explain.

When he takes the headset and puts it on, I find myself paralyzed by the idea of having a conversation with him.

“In the morning, can you take me to the market?” I ask, and he growls at me, tearing off the headset and chucking it at the wall. He drops back to all fours, climbs into the nest and then sits back, as if he’s waiting to see what I’ll do. “Wow. Seriously? You let me ask all of two questions and didn’t answer either of them.”

In protest, I leave the headset where it is—with my luck, it’s probably broken—and then I join him in the bed. I keep as far away from him as I can get, trying to find myself a comfortable spot against the wall. He paces the space as I rearrange it, fluffing furs and cushions as he glares at me from glowing purple eyes. As he turns, his horns scrape the wall, gouging the metal.

When he finally settles down, it’s in the center of the bed. He’s maybe two inches from touching me.

“There’s plenty of room in here and that is where you’re choosing to sleep?” I glare at him, and he glares right back at me. I sigh. “If you’re going to crowd me out, could you at least take care of this?” I gesture at him with the bit of dangling leash, and his massive maw ripples in a low warning growl.

When I move to draw my arm back, he reaches out with a hand and snatches my wrist. Everywhere he touches me, I burn. I ache. He’s poisoning me, I tell myself, watching as the glowing purple marks on his fingertips trace the edge of the bracelet. As his finger glides across my skin, he leaves a hot sticky substance that soaks into my blood, thrumming through me as my heart rate mushrooms into something catastrophic and wild.

I’m basically panting, lips parted, eyes wide, body in full, violent rebellion against my rationality. I’m damp with sweat, a feminine emptiness making my thighs clench. As if he knows exactly what sort of thoughts are going through my mind, Big D grins. It’s a wild, toothy expression that breaks his dark face in half.

He offers another growl, flicks his tongue out between his teeth to lick the edge of his lip, and presses some hidden trigger on the leash. The seemingly endless loop breaks apart, and it falls to a useless heap on the faded pink cushion underneath.

“Thanks,” I grumble, pulling my arm back. Only, he doesn’t let me go. With two fingers, he easily encircles my wrist and holds it in a tighter, firmer grip than the leash ever accomplished. Leaning forward, he sniffs my hair, and I go perfectly still all over. If he wanted me, he could have me at any point. There’s literally nothing stopping him but for a pair of ruined lace panties. I swallow back a strange mix of fear and desire.

Seeing him bite the leash earlier made sense. He’s a beast. He’s an alien dragon. He’s wild. But … what he just did? That was oh so very human of him. With a clacking of teeth, he releases me, and I draw back, frowning up at him.

His tail slithers toward the door, snatching up the headset and putting it up against my ear.

“Nest … mine … female … only.” Big D withdraws the translator but, unlike a rational person, chooses not to put it on so that I can respond to him. He just waits, like he’s giving me a choice in … whatever it is that he’s just said.

We stare at each other.

With a pleased huff, he tosses it across the room again like so much trash, seemingly satisfied that my silence is answer enough.

Since I have no goddamn clue what nest mine female only means, I just shrug.

“Whatever.” I turn away from him and snuggle into the furs, thoroughly exhausted. If he won’t take me back to the market in the morning, I’ll follow the trail again. Hopefully with the tusk men dead, I’ll be able to make it back without his help.

Stay safe, Jane. I’m coming for you.

Because a real bad bitch never leaves her bestie behind—especially not on a hostile alien planet.