Chapter 6

I wake feeling refreshed, stretching my arms above my head and yawning. When I blink myself fully back into reality, I see that Dragon Dude is already gone. I take my time getting up and frown when I get a whiff of my own armpits.

“A bath would be nice,” I grumble, craving water and thanking the stars that I didn’t die from what I drank yesterday. Didn’t even get a stomachache. However that beetle died, it wasn’t because the water was poisoned. Good to know.

I find my new roommate in the main room, sitting at the edge of the ship with his legs dangling over the edge. Once again, I’m struck by the very human pose. I’m also struck by how much smaller he is today. Again, he’s a giant of a dragon-alien-man, but he’s a foot shorter than he was last night.

I decide to join him, taking a seat on his left. He looks at me like he has no idea what to make of me, as if I’m as alien to him as he is to me.

Then again, he has a face the likes of which I’ve never seen, so maybe I’m reading his expressions all wrong.

“Put the headset on.” I try to hand it over to him, but he doesn’t take it. “Please, Big D. We need to talk.”

“Talk,” he grinds out, his large mouth rippling in a growl that says that maybe it was never designed to speak English. Only, he definitely is. That wasn’t the translator; that was him.

“How much English do you know?” I ask, but I get no response to that and sigh. When I try again to hand the headset over, he takes it and puts it on my head instead. “Me understanding you does us no good; I need to get back to the market.”

“No.” He says that word easily enough. The meaning is clear. He growls something else out that’s definitely not in English, and the translator picks it up. “Dangerous hell.”

Yikes.

“My best friend might still be there!” I snap at him, feeling more and more frustrated by the second. “This isn’t my home; I don’t want to be here.” I stand up then, but he stays where he is. Doesn’t matter. He’s still almost as tall as I am in a seated position. “I need to get back to Earth. Do you know where that is or how to get there? I see spaceships all over the place in these woods; there must be some working one somewhere. I had to get onto this stupid fucking planet in a ship, right?”

He snarls at me when I say fucking, but at least he doesn’t grab me again.

Instead, he leans over, resting an elbow on a knee, and he stares into the woods like he sees something.

“Are you even listening to me?” I demand, but he’s obviously not. With a snarl of my own, I turn and pace back into the ship, pausing to read what’s on the computer screen.

“The headset you’re talking about, is it pink?! If it is, I can help you. Lay it on the pad to the left of the keyboard.”

I take a look, but there’s no ‘pad’ next to the keyboard, just a bundle of wires.

“Sorry, it’s gone.” I shrug and start to walk away when the screen fills with several more lines of rapid-fire English.

“Check for a universal cord. Any intact one will do. If you can plug the headset in, I can get it working again. Then maybe we can both speak to him.”

It’s a tempting offer, but I don’t see any cords around. If there were, they’re buried under years of forest debris. I decide to ask the alien dragon.

“Hey, you don’t happen to have a treasure chest filled with old cords or anything like that?” He ignores me. “No? Fine. Suit yourself.” I step to the edge of the ship, right over the spot where the chair-shaped tree is growing. My best bet to get out of here uninjured would be to shimmy down that thing. Before I go though, I’m getting my fill of fresh water.

I head to the bathtub, drink as much as I can stand, and then use a leaf to open the seat of the toilet. There’s not much I can do about the musky male scent surrounding it, but I’m able to do my business well enough.

When I return back to the front of the ship and try to climb out, things definitely don’t go as planned.

Dragon Dude grabs me around the waist and draws me back, slamming my much smaller body into his chest. My feet aren’t even touching the ground anymore.

“No.” There’s that word again. It’s seriously pissing me off this time.

“You have no right to tell me what I can or cannot do. Put me down now.” I struggle in his arms, but he won’t let me go. Instead, he carries me back to the bed and tosses me onto it. It bounces just enough that I’m not hurt, but then he’s crawling in and taking up all the available space.

He straddles me on all fours, his eyes blazing, wings raised, the clawed fingers at the apexes curling into tight fists.

“Market … pain … death.” He struggles to get the concept across with this piece-of-shit translator between us. “Me … die. You … sold.” He snaps his teeth at the air near my face and then licks me again before releasing me and moving deeper into the nest area. He kicks his back legs, fluffing pillows and moving furs around.

I roll onto my side and sit up, frowning.

“You can’t go into the market with me? You seemed to have no trouble taking down like, a dozen tusk guys.” Well, maybe no trouble is an inaccurate thing to say. He had some trouble, but surely, if he wanted to go into the market and shop like anyone else, what’s the problem? “Is your type of alien not allowed in or something?”

He ignores me, working up a mound of pillows and then … mounting them.

My mouth drops open as both cocks swell from his groin and he casts a deadly look at me over his shoulder. That massive mouth of his splits into a growl, and he turns away, hips thrusting against the pillows with undulating swells of muscle.

From here, I can see that perky ass of his, taut and clenched as he rocks his pelvis violently into the pillow heap. Shamelessly. Powerfully.

My own thighs clench, and my breath catches as I force myself to look away. What the hell is he doing?! Well, I mean, obviously I know what he’s doing, but why is he doing it in front of me? Maybe because he’s a barely sentient alien beast dragon monster? Ever think of that? Animals don’t feel shame; only people do.

But this? I feel zero shame. Instead, his display is doing surprisingly strange things to my body. My mouth goes dry, and I have to force myself to swallow past a sudden surge of need.

Pretty sure we’re not compatible sexually.

Not only is Dragon Dude way bigger than the average human (although he’s now about half the size he was when I first saw him)—he has two dicks.

I’m freaked out by the fact that I’m even having this discussion with myself. He’s not human, and it’s really not okay to sleep with anything that isn’t human if you are one yourself. Only … I say barely sentient, but it’s just that we have a communication problem. He’s not an animal. He lives in this ship, and he rescued me, and he gave me a translator, and he healed me … He’s a ‘person’, even if he isn’t a human.

“Shit.” I shove up to my feet and take off into the main area of the ship, giving the computer screen a sympathetic look as I pass. “Does he do this often?” I ask, assuming that he probably does.

“No, not really.” That’s what it says to me. I flip the screen the bird and then pace around a little, trying to ignore the grunts and snarls emanating from the nest. Now seems like a really good time for me to make my great escape, but I need something to help me get down the tree. A bit of fabric torn off one of the cushions would probably help. I could loop it around the tree and sort of shimmy my way down.

My gaze shifts in the direction of the nest.

Do I dare go back in there? What if I try to escape and fail? Will he lock me up? Eat me? Force himself on me?

“Is there an easy way for me to get out of this ship?” I ask, turning back to the computer again. It needs a name, stat. Or … it doesn’t because I’m not staying here. I’m not.

“I will tell you if you take me with you,” it explains in bold, italicized text. “The vessel you would need to carry is quite small; I can even get you transport and help you find some items of value in the woods. We can barter and sell our way off of this planet.”

“I’m going to need something worth more than I am, apparently,” I whisper, but I bet Big D can hear me anyway. He’s probably got super alien dragon senses or something. “Some clothes would be nice, too.”

“I may be able to assist you with both things. Don’t rush our escape. Take it slow, so we can plan accordingly. First things first: I need that universal cord.”

“Well, if he has a stash—and he must because he gave me the headset in the first place—I don’t think it’s on this ship. There’s nowhere left to go, right?”

“Not true. There are several passages that are currently blocked by locked doors. I can’t sense them anymore, but based on the floor plan of the ship before the crash, I could guide you in the right direction so you might see if they’re accessible somehow.”

“Where’s the first one?” I ask, pausing to look over as Big D appears in the nest’s doorway. He glares at me before padding back into the bathroom. I hear the lapping sound of water as I turn back to … “Hey, do you have a name perchance?”

“Oh. A name. It’s been so long since anyone’s asked me. Yes. Before the accident, I was a Cartian female, and my name was 01010010—” She continues to type out a massive string of binary code that means nothing to me. I think it’s about forty-digits long, not including spaces. Mm.

“Zero, it is then.” I keep things simple.

Also, how do you pronounce Cartian? Car-shin? Close enough. I don’t even know what sort of alien that is, but good to know.

Dragon Dude comes back into the main area, but I don’t worry too much about our conversation. Not only can’t he read what’s on the screen, but he doesn’t understand ninety-percent of what I’m saying anyway.

“Have a pleasant jerk-off session?” I ask sarcastically. He claws across the ground until he’s looming over me from behind, wings spread, bioluminescent parts throbbing with that deadly purple glow. He’s got those shadows around him again, hooking one horn on the right side of my face and putting his cheek up near my left.

“Yes.” In English, mind you. He stalks away from me, tail thrashing, and I turn after him, briefly forgetting all about my plan with Zero (still partially convinced she might be a murderous AI bot or something).

“How much of what I’m saying do you actually understand?” I ask, pausing next to him as he stares out into the woods. I wave my hand up near his face, and while he looks at me, he doesn’t respond to the question.

“Stay.” The headset burbles his translated growl into my ear, and he hops down, stalking into the woods with the bunching of strong muscles. Only a truly delusional woman would not appreciate this guy’s back and shoulders. Or his chest. Or his ass.

Or his double dicks.

I turn away with a sigh, looking back at the computer and wishing she had a face.

“Do you know where we are? What planet, I mean?”

“It’s known as Jungryuk to most, but its name on my people’s map is”—she types up another mass of binary code, making me wonder if something just isn’t translating correctly—“after one of our minor gods.”

Huh.

That’s all surprisingly unhelpful.

Jungryuk? I can only see it as it’s typed, but … I decide joong-ree-yook is how I’ll pronounce it.

“Where is Earth?” I ask, praying that she has some idea as to where my home is. “The place where I came from.”

“I’m not familiar with the planet ‘Earth’; I only know English because market traders use it. I’m sorry.”

“Fantastic. Okay then, where is the first of these doors?”

Zero shows me a map, sending me out to see what parts of the ship I can access, and if there are any doors left to break into. We find three of them. What I should say is: we find three of them that I have no hope of breaking into. They’re solid metal with very obvious edges, big enough to dig my fingers into. They go absolutely nowhere when I try to drag them open.

The computer guides me to a hatch next, one that’s embedded in the ceiling of a low-roofed niche branching off from the main area. I have to drag some debris over to reach it, but when I hang my full body weight from the edge of it, the whole thing comes loose.

I’m sent flying across the floor as a set of steps—much like attic steps—unfolds from the dark space, hitting the ground just shy of crushing my toes. My eyes are wide as I scramble to my feet and start up the first few stairs, trying to peer into the gloom beyond. Who knows what might be up here? I’m afraid of my parents’ attic back home. Got a black widow in my hair once by going up there. Never happening again. I glance suspiciously back at the computer screen.

“I suggest you hurry so that we can be finished before he comes back.”

“Does it matter?” I ask, staring down at the metal steps beneath my feet. “I’m not going to be able to close this thing up by myself.” I take the last few steps and then stick my entire head into the attic space. It’s vast, stretching well past my field of vision into the shadows. I can hear critters scurrying up here, tiny, frantic feet like mice. Alien mice, no thanks. I reach out for the only item I can see: a small metal box with a lock.

It’s not heavy when I draw it out of the hole, turning it over in my hands a few times to see if I can’t get a read on what it is or how to open it. I look questioningly at Zero’s screen, brow raised.

“What’s going on? I can’t see anything, remember? I can’t even talk. You have to keep me filled in.”

“It’s a small, silver box,” I say, peering at the lock on the front. It looks like a relatively crude fingerprint scanner. Just to test it out, I press my thumb against it and it beeps red at me. Ah. Nice. Biometrics protected luggage. I look up at the metal wall across from me, and then I chuck the box as hard as I can at it.

The lock part hits the wall and little bits of plastic scatter everywhere as the scanner breaks. The entire thing falls to the floor and the top swings open like a broken music box.

Crude, but effective.

I hop down and move over to the box, squatting down beside it to see what was so important it needed to be protected by a fingerprint scanner. There’s a pink something in there—whoever lived in this ship really loved the color—that I pick up and unfold.

It’s some sort of … outfit?

“Huh.” I move the fabric aside to find white boots, long gloves, and—oh my God, yes!—underwear. There are clean panties in this box, and that’s a miracle not to be underestimated. But what if … what if they’re used panties? I pick them up, and they look clean, but … Fuck it. They’ve probably been on this ship for a hundred years. Whoever wore them is long dead. “There are clothes in the box—pink clothes.”

“Ah. My clothing then. It was put in storage when my body died. There should be quite a few boxes like that up there.”

“Only one that I can see, and I’m not climbing through the creepy alien-mice-filled attic to find more.” I stand up, taking the clothes with me. Hopefully, they fit. Ugly as they might be, any clothing is preferable to running around in lace lingerie. And now that I have two pairs of panties, I can wash one and hang it to dry.

I change into the outfit first, frustrated to find that it barely fits. I can get it on, and I can zip it up to my navel, but that’s where the zipper refuses to budge. I end up looking like an actress in an adult film about aliens and not like an actual kidnapped human being that was spirited away by two Chad-like alien twins to a meat market.

“Fuck.” I end up taking my old underwear and washing them in a giant leaf that I fill with water because I don’t want to contaminate the bathtub drinking water. Zero guides me to a particular flower that’s growing from the wall of vines, and I’m able to crush that for some sort of sweet-smelling sap that lathers like soap. I hang them to dry.

It’s getting dark outside, and I’m not making a run for the market without sunlight and some items to sell. Period. I need something good to barter with. My eyes flick to the drying pair of lace panties. If all of these aliens are pervs like my friend Big D, maybe I could sell them and get a ride off this stupid planet?

Or maybe I think so highly of myself that I believe my used panties are worth that much.

I end up waiting for Dragon Dude to come back, sitting at the edge of the ship and watching the suns set through the trees. The vent below us bellows occasional steam, but it doesn’t bother me or knock my ass out, so I figure the air is safe enough to breathe, at least from this distance. The cricket creatures crawl up out of the dirt and hop off into the shadows just before I hear the steady footfall of heavy paws.

Big D appears, leaping into the ship as easily as a leopard leaps into a tree. He has another, smaller dragon creature in his mouth that he drops to the floor before sitting back on his haunches like a crouched person.

“Skin … better.” That’s what the translator says, accompanied by some sort of crude stare that makes me fidget. Why do I feel just as naked in the pink bodysuit as I did in the lingerie? Dragon Dude looks at me like he might force-feed me again, so I sit down near the dead animal and stare at its torn throat.

“I need a fire so that I can eat this,” I explain, offering up the translator. He won’t take it which drives me absolutely up the wall. I gesture at him with it, but he stalks away like he has no clue what’s going on. Once again, he retreats to the nest and spends an inordinate amount of time fluffing the furs and cushions.

I wait in the doorway with the curtain pulled back, watching him, wondering if he isn’t going to … Why am I watching if I think he’s going to do that?

He rolls onto his back, looking absurdly human as he reaches between his legs and—

I see.

I turn around so I don’t have to watch that, looking around the main area for items that I might use to make a fire. It’s easy enough to gather sticks and dried plant material. Then I sit there and try to think about any survivalists I might’ve seen on TV and how I might actually go about doing this.

Starting to think this isn’t as easy a task as I imagined it to be.

I stab one stick with another stick and then try to spin it as quickly as I can for some friction. It doesn’t do jack shit. I have no clue how to make a fire from scratch. Seriously. I’m making the crazy people on Naked and Afraid look like real survivalists.

Dragon Dude comes back a short while later and finds me there, working my ape-like charms on the pair of sticks. When he gets close enough to sniff my hands, I throw the translator onto his head and he growls at me.

“Look, I’m sure you’re as keen to get rid of me as I am to leave,” I begin as he reaches out with long fingers, carefully rearranging the crude pile of sticks that I’ve done my best to assemble. With a sweep of his tail, he adds some dry leaves that have gathered on the floor. He still doesn’t appear to understand what it is that I’ve said. “Alright, well, you don’t have to talk, but I need you to listen.”

He crouches low, opening that massive mouth of his. I shudder when I see the rows of sharp teeth, jagged and white like porcelain knives. It stretches from ear to ear (not that he has any visible ears), that terrifying grin, and then out comes a spout of flame, dancing from his tongue and igniting the tinder on the floor.

An old smoke alarm goes off somewhere and brackish water rains down on us, putting the fire out instantly and soaking my one and only outfit. Dragon Dude looks pissed about it, too, especially when the water short-circuits the translator while it’s still on his head. The damn thing sparks and he hisses, using his tail to pull it off and throw it at the wall.

The stupid pink thing shatters to pieces, rendering it even more useless than it already was.

The sprinklers stop as Zero types up a response on her screen.

All it says is: “LOL.”

Like, really?

I look up at Big D, but he’s sitting back on his haunches looking disturbingly person-like.

“I know you can’t go to the market, but if you could just give me something to take, something that’s worth more than I am, then I could barter for a ride back home.” I make myself smile when I say this. Body language and all that. It’s universal, right? But … but is it galactic, too? “There are some doors around here that—”

He pads off on all fours, leaving the room in the middle of my sentence.

When I see where he’s going, the sudden rage in me dissipates a little. He moves right over to one of the doors that I tried so hard to open earlier. I’m surprised when he stands up on his feet and reaches out with both hands, digging his knuckle claws into the crack, and then he drags the door open with a horrific metal-on-metal screech.

He releases the door, crouching back down behind me. I can see his shadow in the pattern of light falling across the room’s shadowed floor. He looks like a gargoyle again. I pretend not to be creeped out (or turned-on), and step into the pitch-black.

There’s just enough light coming in that, after I adjust to the darkness, I can see that I’m standing at the edge of a massive junk pile. The room is absolutely filled with crap. Cords and pieces of metal, computer chips and large branches, broken lights and plastic tubes, skeletons. More than a few skeletons.

Okay, half of this pile is made of ivory and tanned hide.

This guy eats a lot. I’m just not entirely sure why he hasn’t eaten me.

“Can I take anything in this room?” I ask, moving carefully. I appreciate the sound of my boot heels on the metal floors. It makes me feel more … normal. Like I’m not lying in a hospital bed hallucinating an alien abduction. Or even worse: actually experiencing one. “What’s worth money?”

I look back, but Dragon Dude isn’t listening to me. He isn’t even there. I can hear the sound of his footsteps—presumably he’s walking on two feet right now—as he returns to the main area of the ship. For sake of ease, I’ll just start calling it the living room in my head. As far as furniture goes, a large screen with a soul trapped inside, an alien keyboard, a pile of debris, and a few old benches against the walls does not a great living room make.

Close enough.

I dig through the items, but it’s all junk to me. I have no idea how to tell a valuable item from a useless one. I do my best, taking a few computer chip looking things back to the living room.

“Hey Zero, how do I know what to look for? The dragon has a lot of crap. I think he might be a hoarder, NGL.”

“I am unable to generate images, but I’ll make a list of items you should look for.”

“Are dead animals worth money in the market? He’s got plenty of hides and bones and ivory, some nice furs.”

“Unfortunately not. Those items are easily procured on this planet. It is a very fruitful environs. If not for the heavy gravity and the lunar tides, it would’ve been colonized a hundred times over.” There’s a pause where the computer stops typing, and I sense hesitation. Might be an AI chatbot, but she’s got personality. “Not to mention the Aspis.”

Aspis?

I decide not to dig into that story. Not my business. Also, I don’t particularly care. I just want to go home.

My catering business is finally getting off the ground, I’ve got near enough money saved up for a down payment on a place of my own, and I have a big family that I love. Let’s not mention the slug creature that swallowed the mayor’s lawyer, the gray-skinned sex traffickers, or the fact that I only have two pairs of underwear.

Those are all amazing reasons for wanting to leave this place.

“I will do my best to provide you with a comprehensive list, but you must be careful. If you take the wrong item into the market, it will not go well for either of us.”

“Thanks for the warning,” I say with a sigh, tossing the computer chips aside. My hair is dripping down the back of my neck, and the pink suit I’m wearing is disturbingly uncomfortable when wet. I reach for the zipper and yank on it, peeling the fabric down my body and over my hips. Seeing as there’s no sign of Big D (he’s not in the nest, so I figure he’s left again), I take my bra and undies off, too.

Using the same type of flower from earlier, I lather up the clothes and wash them to get the brackish water and the smell of old pipes out. I hang all the items in the bathroom over an old rail that’s rusted and bent into an interesting shape. There are a few small snails that I have to peel off in order to claim the space, but sorry, not sorry.

“You have a whole forest to slime over,” I tell them, depositing them in the leaves behind the bathtub. When they come out of their shells, they’re glowing angrily at me, little spikes protruding from their striped and spotted bodies.

I’m not super comfortable being naked, but I also can’t handle wearing clothes soaked in brown water that’s been sitting in the pipes of this ship for God only knows how long. Everything needed to be washed, and now it has to dry. I need nice clothes in order to pull this off. How can I walk into the market looking like a bum?

I step out of the bathroom, using my fingers to brush my hair when I realize that I can feel eyes on me.

Dragon Dude is sitting crouched in the opening of the ship, a pile of sticks beside him. He’s staring at me, but we’re not even the same species so … it’s not like it matters, right?

I just stare right back at him. If we’re being technical here, he’s been naked this whole time. What does it matter if I’m naked now?

“Is this firewood?” I ask, trying to remain casual. There are strange things happening to me beneath the intensity of his stare.

Especially when he smiles.

He smiles more like a man than a beast, and that freaks me out.

I continue to act casual, sauntering over to the spot where our first fire failed. I point up at the sprinklers above our head and wish fervently that I had a towel or really any piece of fabric that I could use to wrap myself up with.

“Had to wash my clothes. That water smelled like rat shit and rust.” I drop my hand and shrug casually. Big D tilts his head to the side and studies my body like he’s both curious and aroused. The way his cock—just the one—peeks out of the slit in his groin confirms that. I cough into my hand and wonder if it wouldn’t be prudent to slip back into the junk room so I can borrow a hide. I’ll go all Jana of the Jungle until my shit’s dry. “Time for dinner?” I ask, gesturing at the dead animal and hoping that I don’t have to do any of the skinning. I’m a hypocritical carnivore. I’m an excellent cook and an even better caterer, but I’m not a good hunter and I certainly can’t break a successful kill down— especially not an alien kill.

“Eat,” Big D instructs in a rolling growl, but also in English. How does this guy know English?!

Um. He’s also not looking at the carcass. He’s still looking at me, actually. A long tongue slips from his mouth, and he licks his lips in a way that makes me fidget. I’m going crazy here, like there’s some sort of smell on this guy that makes him seem enticing in a way that he shouldn’t.

This is an alien, Eve. He’s an alien. A fucking alien! I know you’ve been hard-pressed for romance as of late, but guys of the same species are a must.

When he starts to prowl toward me, I back up and consider running for the bathroom and the safety of my clothes. What was I thinking? Why did I get naked in the first place?

He comes up close to me, so close that I can feel the overwhelming heat of his body, see the beautiful purple color of his irises … notice the single, large phallus protruding from his crotch. He stands up when he gets close to me, unfurling his body so that he’s standing taller than me and I’m looking up. He’s the smallest he’s ever been and yet … huge. He is still goddamn huge.

Big D is staring down at me like he wants to fuck me, wings spread, claws sheathed and fingers long as he splays them on the wall above my head. When he leans down and sniffs my hair, I go completely still.

My rebellious pussy is throbbing, my nipples hardening to aching points, my skin flushing with a fine sheet of sweat. Can he smell all of that? His slitted nostrils flare slightly as he inhales deeply and then exhales, ruffling up my hair.

With his right hand, he trails his fingertips down the side of my face and then lower, cupping my breast in a huge, warm palm. My breath rushes out, and I clap one of my own hands against his wrist. It looks miniscule, my pale hand on his black scales. It’s a strange contrast, the soft texture of my skin against the silken shimmer of his.

A snarl ripples his large mouth as he squeezes and kneads my breast, words in another language that I don’t understand. He withdraws his hand when I don’t react and then licks his fingers, like he’s tasting me.

I take my chance and stumble away from him.

Because of his location, it’s easier for me to go to the nest area than it is to the bathroom.

That’s a huge mistake.

He follows me there, his massive body blocking the door as I find the spot I slept last night and grab the topmost fur. I climb under it, my entire body shaking, and pull it right up to my chin like a blanket.

“I’m going to sleep here until my clothes are dry,” I explain uselessly. He can’t understand me. Here or there, he knows a word, but he has no idea what I’m saying and vice versa. Now that the shitty translator is gone, I’m really wishing I hadn’t complained so much about it. At least he’s not kicking me out of the nest, so that’s a bonus. Sleeping on the cold metal floor with a blanket of dead leaves is not my idea of a good time.

Big D drops to all fours, padding into the nest, and he comes right up to me, sniffing my hair again. I stay very, very still, unwilling to either encourage or enrage him. He huffs out, stirring my hair and giving me shivers that have nothing to do with the temperature.

“Female,” he says softly, and then he nuzzles me.

I can’t mistake the gesture for anything but what it is: a come-on.

That long tongue of his traces the back of my neck, and I grit my teeth, clinging hard to the fur that’s wrapped around me. Why, oh why, does that feel so good? I’m so confused here. I’m a person. Big D is absolutely not. But he’s sentient. He’s male (obviously). Rather than see me as food, he sees me as … female.

I squeeze my eyes shut and feign sleep, ignoring Big D’s advances. I’m not even sure that we could mate if we wanted to. Our bodies just aren’t compatible. ‘Not too little later’, he said. What did he mean by that exactly?

Doesn’t matter. Does not matter, Eve. Forget it.

Romance rarely works out on earth, so why take a risk here? Besides, who knows what mating with this guy would mean to him? For all I know, these dragon things mate for life like bald eagles or something.

After a while, he seems to accept that this moment isn’t going any further. Rather than force me from the nest or stalk off, he moves to the opposite side of the tilted room and fluffs his pillows.

Well. At least nothing’s eating me tonight.

Not even—or especially—the alien dragon whose house I’m living in.