Rhani (Dragons of Kratak Book 3) Read online

  The giant pig reared back and came down with all its power with its two sharp front hooves to pulverize her when something even larger knocked it sideways. The pig’s hooves hit her face on their way flying sideways. She blinked, and the pig was no longer there, but a monstrous din of squealing and roaring and bellowing crashed into her awareness from somewhere nearby.

  She couldn’t summon the strength to get up, and when she turned her head, her mind wouldn’t comprehend what she saw. The pig tumbled over and over on the ground a few meters away. It slashed with its tusks at the red dragon, who bowled it back and forth across the grass.

  One minute, the pig got the upper hand and overpowered the dragon onto his back. It savaged the creature with its tusks and teeth and pawed him with its hooves. The next minute, the dragon fought his way on top and scorched the pig’s hide with his fiery breath.

  Moira watched the battle from a distance. Her eyes slid in and out of focus, and her head reeled from loss of blood. Some part of her clung to life, even as that life slipped through her fingers. What a mess she made of the years she had! At least she would die on this planet, surrounded by these patterns, where life seethed and fought all around her to pulsate with breathing, primordial power.

  All at once, the dragon gave a great burst of effort and sent the pig bowling sideways. With a surprised squeal, the animal careened over the bank and down the waterfall into the pool.

  The dragon gazed over the side at it splashing to right itself in the water. The pig got its feet under it and shook the icy water from its hair. It growled up at the dragon on the bank above, but made no move to clamber up and confront its adversary.

  The dragon chuckled down at it, and the pig grumbled away down the stream and out of sight. The dragon threw back his spiky head on his whip neck and screeched, but Moira was too far gone to celebrate the victory.

  A snapping branch made the dragon’s head whip around in a flash. The last thing Moira saw before she lost consciousness was a tall figure emerge from the shadowy forest and approach the waterfall. It was Rohn.

  Chapter 3

  Moira tried to roll over, but shooting pain in her chest and legs woke her out of a fitful sleep. She curled into a fetal ball, but even that hurt. She groaned and clamped her eyes shut.

  “Just lie still, and it won’t hurt so much.”

  Her eyes snapped open, but she dared not move to look around. She didn’t recognize the deep male voice.

  “Don’t try to move. You’ll only injure yourself more. Lie still and rest. Are you hungry?”

  She swallowed hard. “No. Just thirsty.”

  “Here. Drink this.”

  Human hands held a wooden bowl to her lips. A strong hand gripped the back of her neck and helped her lift her head enough to take a few swallows of icy water. When her lips touched the bowl, she noticed the hands couldn’t be human at all. Swirling red color patterns darkened the skin and faded. Whoever this was helping her, he must be Kratak.

  Moira let her head fall and closed her eyes again. Everything hurt, but her mind whirled through a million possibilities. Rohn must have found her and stopped the bleeding where the pig gored her in the stomach. He must have.... but this man wasn’t Rohn.

  She took a peek through her aching eyelids, but she wasn’t on the grass. Evergreen boughs made a rough bed underneath her, and she couldn’t hear the waterfall anymore. The dull moan of wind against rocks droned in the background. Other than that, she could hear nothing.

  “Don’t be afraid,” the voice told her. “You’re safe now.”

  Her teeth chattered, and she clenched her fingers into fists. “I’m not afraid.”

  The voice moved from one side to the other behind her back. “Your friend the doctor was here before. She tried to help you.”

  “Rose was here? Is she here now?” Moira tried again to sit up, but collapsed in pain.

  “I’m sorry, no. She went back to the Keep, but I’m taking care of you now. You have nothing to worry about. You sustained some dangerous injuries when the pig attacked you, but I stopped the bleeding. You’ll feel better in a few days. You just need rest now.”

  No matter which way she turned, she couldn’t see the stranger speaking to her. “What did you do to stop the bleeding?”

  “We have our own ways of healing wounds. You learn a few things hunting these animals in the woods.”

  “Do you hunt them often?”

  “All the time. They provide us with most of our food.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Don’t you know? No, of course you wouldn’t know.”

  She craned her neck to see, but winced and lay still. “Where are you? I can’t see you.”

  “Don’t try. You’ll only hurt yourself.”

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re somewhere safe. I heard you screaming and found you injured near the waterfall. I brought you here to help you, and I brought your friend the doctor here, too, although that didn’t work out as well as I hoped it would. She didn’t know how to help you, and she wanted to take you back to the Keep, which would have harmed you more than leaving you here.”

  “But I thought Rohn found me at the waterfall. How did you...?”

  “No more questions. Rest now. We can talk when you feel better.”

  Moira collapsed on the boughs. She closed her eyes and drifted into a semiconscious doze. She couldn’t exist in a world with so much pain. Her mind retreated to a place where it didn’t exist.

  A rustling noise startled her, but she couldn’t look around to see what it was. “What’s that?”

  The strange man didn’t answer. The rustling noise drew nearer, but Moira couldn’t get away. The next thing she knew, the red dragon slithered across her field of view. The long neck arched to fix flashing eyes on her before she faded away altogether.

  She woke up in pitch darkness with a strange warmth surrounding her on all sides. She could move normally without pain. She put out her hand to grope for any sign of where she was. Her hand touched something hard and solid, something like metal but warm and vibrant. She ran her hand over the surface. It glided smooth and slippery one way, but sharp and hard the other. A few more tentative strokes, and she made out the curved corners of scales.

  She yanked her hand back in a hurry. It must be the red dragon, but how did he get so close to her? In an instant, everything he said to her the first time she woke up came flooding back.

  He found her by the waterfall. The red dragon fought the pig and scared it away, and he brought her here—wherever here was. He stopped the bleeding where the pig gored her in the stomach. Whatever he did, it made her feel better. If the dragon brought her here and healed her, whose hands gave her the water?

  A deep groan answered her touch and she braced herself for the worst, but the massive presence surrounding her didn’t move. “You’re awake.”

  She nodded in the darkness, but she couldn’t bring herself to answer. How did you speak to a dragon? How could he talk to her like this, with a normal human voice when he wasn’t human at all? That was the same voice she heard before. The dragon must have been here when the man gave her the water.

  “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”

  She swallowed hard. She couldn’t just lie here in silence. “You keep saying that.”

  “I keep saying it because I want to put you at ease. I can see you’re not comfortable with me around you, but I had to keep you warm. It gets cold up here at night.”

  “Up here? Where?”

  “You’re in my nest. I brought you here close to death. You’re on my mountain.”

  Images from—when was it? Yesterday? Weeks ago? When did she disappear? Did any of her friends know where she was? He said Rose was here, so at least Rose knew where she was.

  She tried to get up, but the pain rushed back. It stabbed her in the guts, and her knees buckled under her. She fell on the boughs, and her hand flew out to break her fall. She grazed the scaly hide before she pulled her
hand away.

  “You still need to rest. You haven’t fully recovered.”

  “Whatever you did to save me, thank you.”

  “You still have some wounds that haven’t completely healed. There is still more I can do to help you, but I hesitate to frighten you any more than I already have.”

  She let out a shaky breath. “I’m not frightened. I’m just confused. I’ve never been this close to a dragon before.”

  “Never?”

  “We don’t have them where I come from.”

  “Hmm. I find that odd, but then again, I am one so I consider myself normal. I will try to.... Well, I don’t know what I’ll try to do. I can’t exactly make myself into anything other than a dragon.”

  “You don’t have to make yourself into anything else. It just takes some getting used to, I guess, and I never expected a dragon to talk like a man.”

  “Not all dragons do. I suppose I perfected the art since I was young.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “I really don’t remember, to tell you the truth. It’s just something I’ve always done. It makes communicating with people much easier, so I did it.”

  “Are there many others of your kind?”

  “Thousands.”

  “Where are they?”

  “All over the planet.”

  “I haven’t see any, although I’ve only been on this planet a short time.”

  “I’m sure you’ll see plenty before you’re through.”

  Something massive loomed in front of her face, and she smelled sulfur smoke. The starlight glinted off his two eyes hovering inches from her face.

  “What is your name?”

  “Moira.”

  “Moira. That’s an interesting name. I’ve never heard it before.”

  “It’s Irish.”

  “I don’t understand that word.”

  “It comes from my world. It’s the culture that name comes from.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “Before I tell you that, I want to heal your wounds some more. If I give you one more treatment, you should be able to walk around in the morning.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll do anything to get out of this nest.”

  “Don’t agree until I tell you what I’m going to do.”

  She froze. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to lick you. I did it before, but you were unconscious. If you don’t want me to, I won’t do it. I don’t want to do anything too revolting for you.”

  “You want to....to lick me?”

  “You still have a puncture wound on your abdomen and several fractured ribs. My saliva has the power to heal wounds. That’s how I saved your life. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it would help you.”

  She rolled away and closed her eyes. “I’ll do anything to get rid of this pain.”

  He didn’t reply, and she braced herself for whatever would come next. He wanted to....to lick her. The very thought made her skin crawl. He was a lizard. His tongue would be sticky and slimy. How much of it could she stand before she screamed in horror?

  He curled around her with his body. No matter which way she turned, she touched that scaly hard skin. It radiated warmth into her shattered limbs and dissolved the fear and revulsion. She relaxed into whatever he was about to do.

  Beyond the curve of his sides, a brisk mountain wind gusted over the peak. It would blast straight through her if he wasn’t there. He protected her at every corner. He wouldn’t suggest licking her wounds if he didn’t think it would help.

  His massive presence moved all around her. His skin rustled against the boughs, and the thick coils slid sideways. His long tail glided out of the way, and his head wove before her eyes. “Turn over.”

  She eased onto her back, but even that sent bolts of pain shooting through her every sinew. She straightened her legs and looked up into a clear black sky studded with stars. They anchored her. She understood those stars. She could float among them until this was all over.

  His voice rattled her bones. “Lift up your shirt.... please.”

  She inched up her shirt, but stopped it just below her ribs. If she hadn’t been lying in a nest of tree branches on top of a mountain on an alien planet, talking to a dragon about licking her wounds, she could have been at the doctor’s office.

  A tough scabbed-over puncture wound was in the middle of her belly. It cut up through her diaphragm into her torso when she touched it with her fingers. No wonder she almost died.

  Before she could think anything else, something soft and warm touched her skin right next to her own hand. She froze in place, and a shiver passed along her nerves from her belly down her legs to her feet.

  She felt nothing but this velvet warmth running all over her skin. Nothing slimy or disgusting made her cringe in disgust. It covered her skin with delicate softness and burrowed into her being on kitten paws.

  Intoxicating delirium flooded her mind and washed away every ache and discomfort. She succumbed to its intricate spell. It erased her memories of the Keep, her team, her homeland, and replaced them with such rapturous delight as Moira had ever known. Pain dissolved and disappeared. Nothing remained but the bliss of this moment.

  She closed her eyes against the stars and turned her head to one side. She sucked her breath through her teeth and arched her back into that overpowering sensation. It filled her with desperate longing for.... for what? She couldn’t pin down what she craved with all her heart. She only wanted something.... the source of that overwhelming pleasure.

  Queer energy built to a climax in her central core. It rushed out to animate her limbs. She had to move. She had to do. She had to be something she’d never been and seize something she never knew before. She couldn’t rest until she grabbed it for herself.

  That unexplained sensation crept into her bones and spread over her. It sank its twining roots into her flesh and transformed it into a living part of itself. Those tendrils ate their way into her brain and rewrote the architecture of her synaptic pathways until she could think of nothing else but them.

  Sprouting out of the fermented brew she beheld the dragon, that curious combination of man and beast she first saw in the tapestry. He rose up before her and dominated her every thought. She could see and think and comprehend nothing but him.

  What was he doing to her? In her vision, he loomed over her and blacked out the sky with his curving leather wings. The wind rushed off his scales and blew her hair back from her face. His body crushed her against the ground, and his flesh pulsed against her until she couldn’t breathe.

  All the time this vision flashed before her eyes, that heavenly warmth infused outward from her belly to her extremities. It throbbed in her veins and wormed its way into those sensitive tissues between her legs. Her genitals twitched from the blood pumping through them, swelling them and urging them to stand up and take notice.

  In her vision, the dragon filled her cunt with his body. His shaft stretched her open and filled her beyond endurance, but he couldn’t be doing that in reality. Could he? This was all some hallucination brought on by his healing saliva.

  Her mind couldn’t separate the vision from the reality. He really did conquer her and fill her with himself. Her mind made the vision real, and she gave herself over to it with all her heart. She couldn’t stop herself. Whatever he did to her made her quiescent, body and mind.

  She threw her head back and arched her body against it. She shrieked in orgasmic delight. Her thighs rubbed against imaginary coils slithering between her legs and nudging her clitoris to completion. Warm ooze gushed from her channel to wet her pants and glisten down her ass.

  When he stopped and moved away, she quivered all over with satisfaction. She moaned and whimpered and writhed in aching delight. She never experienced anything like it in her life, and he wasn’t even human. For all she knew, he never entered her at all. He said he wante
d to lick her wound, to cure it, so that’s what he must have done.

  He curled his long body around her once again, and his heat filled her with sleepy contentment. As soon as he stopped licking her belly, the curious sensation faded. Cold clarity returned to her mind. He hadn’t done anything to her. He licked her wound—nothing else.

  She didn’t care. In her heart and soul, he really had done it. He’d stood over her in all his grandeur, and he possessed her as no man could. Her whole body glowed. She would never be the same.

  She fell into a deep slumber and dreamed she was flying over Kratak on outstretched wings. She looked down on Keeps and forests and ice fields, and when she wanted to rest, she landed on mountain peaks and took her warmth from lava flowing underneath them.

  Chapter 4

  Moira woke in cold, grey light, but the solid red coils still surrounded her on all sides. She put out her hand and touched the scaly surface. It meant something different now than it did last night before he licked her wounds. That hard surface was his skin.

  Whatever he was, she wanted to experience it. She wanted him. That was her secret desire last night, to return to him the glory and pleasure he gave her. Could he feel the way she did? Maybe not.

  She ran her hand down the scales. They didn’t give an iota under her hand. Her heart sank. He couldn’t feel her touch. He was a giant reptile. Nothing could ever exist between the two of them. That was just her imagination playing tricks on her in the dark.

  All of a sudden, he growled deep and rumbling in his chest. She flipped over and found a solid wall of red, scaly dragon lying behind her. The part in front of her was just a small portion of his tail looped around her to keep her warm.

  She touched his side, and he rumbled low in his chest again. She stroked his skin, and he purred. “Can you feel that?”

  “Of course, I can feel it. I’m not made of stone, you know.”

  “I wasn’t sure. You didn’t move the other times.”

  “I can feel your touch very well.”

  She stroked those fiery scales backward and forward. She could stroke them down but not up. Their sharp edges caught her hand. She got up on her knees to cover more of his skin.