Alien Dragon's Mate: Braxan (Science Fiction Alien/BBW Romance) (16 page)

Then he closed his eyes and lay lifeless on the rocks.

“Braxan? Can you hear me?” Her voice stuck in her throat. He had a pulse, but it was very weak and slow. It felt worse than if it had been fast. She couldn't wake him up.

He was out of it, and this time she knew she couldn't bring him back. He'd known it, too. Those things he'd said sounded worryingly like some kind of last words.

Oh god, she couldn't lose him! She didn't care much about any secret he might have kept from her.

“Braxan,” she whispered into his ear, because her voice failed. “I don't know if you can hear this. But I want to say thank you for helping me so much. I wouldn't have survived any of this without you. You've saved my life too many times to count. I don't care what you may have done before. You've only been great to me. And I love you for it.” A sore sob escaped her, and she clung to him, wanting to keep him there.

She sat there on the rocks, with his head in her lap and stroked him while the life ebbed out of him.

She hadn't felt his head before. Now that she did, she could feel ridges and bumps that were so symmetrical that they had to be a natural part of him. Like the scales, except these felt different. Sharper. Harder. Like ... like a crown, hidden by his hair ...

She bent down lower to get a better look in the darkness. She had seen that sheen before. A golden crown.

The world spun around her as the pieces came together. A golden crown. Uranium in the wound. His secretiveness about how he had been shot. The location of the wound. Marqatzo's warning that he was dangerous. The way she had been saved from her fall. All the little bits and pieces.

The blood froze to ice in her veins. How had she not understood that before? He had to be ... he was the ...!

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck!”

There was a thin scream in the air and her head snapped up. Three huge dragons were diving down on her from straight above.

“Oh
fuck.
”

- A
melia -

She crouched down to make herself as small as possible, and then they were there. Two of them hovered in the air above her, while the third, a sleek, blue dragon, stood in front of her on four powerful legs while it folded its wings together on its back. It had a crown too, but it was the same blue color as the rest of it. It looked at her with eyes that were a solid sky blue, angling its head quizzically to the side.

Amelia met its gaze easily, then calmly looked down at Braxan's pale face. She didn't have any more emotions. She wasn't afraid anymore. She couldn't reach the base through the mass of Pirgks down on the plain. Braxan was dead. This was the end, and it didn't matter much to her if she'd be burned by dragons or killed by Pirgks. She had no more fucks to give.

Have you killed my captain?
The voice in her head was different from the one the golden dragon had talked to her in. The voice that
Braxan
had used to talk to her in when in his dragon form, right before she had shot him.

She shrugged. “I think so. I did shoot him a couple of days ago when he and you attacked our base.”

So he said. It was a particularly nasty arrow you used.

“We were attacked.”

The dragon came closer, smoothly walking on the loose rubble without displacing as much as a grain of sand.
It is the lesser being's lot to die when an Ultraco deems it right.

Braxan's hair was smooth between her fingers. How strange that a dragon could have such soft features on its face.

“Not everyone feels that way. I didn't know dragons could be humans, too.”

Dragons can't. Only we are both. We are the Ultra Draco. What shall I do with you?

The other two dragons circled around in the air and occasionally hovered completely effortlessly. It seemed to break the laws of nature that beings that large could be held up by those wings. “I can only assume that you want me dead, too.”

Perhaps. You did kill my captain. On the other hand, you are his Mate. That must be taken into account.

One of the other dragons came zooming in and landed close by, then quickly walked up to Braxan and lowered its muzzle down to his face, just inches from Amelia. The large head froze for a moment, then snapped up. The blue dragon turned its head away from Amelia, and it looked as if the two beautiful and terrible beings were in some kind of silent conversation.

Then Amelia yelped as the blue dragon unfolded its wings and leapt into the air, casually grabbing her around her waist with one claw and pulling her with it up in the air.

“What the hell do you think you're doing,” she yelled and tried to pry the very sharp claw off her waist with her fingers. It was cold and hard, and it wouldn't budge. But still the dragon held her in such a way that it didn't feel painful or even uncomfortable.

Our captain turns out not to be quite dead. We can't help him ourselves. Only you can.

The other dragon had the lifeless Braxan in its claws and came after them, while the third kept behind them.

Amelia froze. Braxan wasn't dead? The bright spark of hope lit up her mind. But the worry and fear were back, too. “Me? I've pretty much done all I know. If the nanogel doesn't work, I'm fresh out of ideas. But there's a doctor on the base.”

No doctor can help an Ultraco. Our bodies are not entirely in this realm. We function in other ways, more ethereal ways. Healing a wound must be done by the same person who inflicted it.

Amelia glanced down. There had to be thousands of Pirgks surrounding the base. It was obvious that their main attack was close at hand. “Yeah? How?”

In kind. Like for like. Symbolically, of course. There are always two elements to the healing. In this case, it's up to you what those elements are. It is the intent that matters. But there must be symmetry.

The dragon was flying fast, but not so fast that the wind around Amelia's ears was uncomfortable. They were getting closer to Belzon Base, and she could see the dirty gray mass of Pirgks under her. Some of them cheered when they saw the dragons. After all, they were allies. “There must?”

Yes. Symmetry. You shot him with an arrow, penetrated his armor. Thus he must penetrate you. Somehow.

She bit her lip. “Um. Yeah. I think that's been taken care of.”

Ah. I thought so. There is a slight shimmer of Ultraco in you. Only one who has known the ecstasy of the Ultraco's embrace have the soul that I sense in you. You have gold in you now, thus it was the golden Ultraco who placed it there.

The Pirgks below them looked up, and now they were all cheering. It was a deafening disharmony, like nails on a blackboard. Amelia reflexively pulled her legs up under her to get as far away from them as possible. “Uh-huh.”

Then you must address his actual wound. Healing him. Making him whole again.

They were very close to the base now, and Amelia cringed at the thought of the chaos inside there when the barricaded colonists saw the dragons come this close. They must be sure they were about to be fried. “How?”

Making him whole again. Add what was taken. Sacrifice something of your own, something that resonates with him.

The dragon flapped its wings as it put her gently down on the ground right by the entrance. The other dragon landed and carefully placed the unconscious Braxan on the sand, then took off again.

The blue dragon beat its wings lazily as it hovered over her.
Only you decide what that is. It must happen soon. Our captain is almost dead.

“Can you help us against the Pirgks? Even if he dies?”

In this, I can only act as ordered by my captain or my Emperor.
The dragon turned in the air and beat its wings, and suddenly it was a hundred yards away, its long, elegant tail flowing after it as it soared.

The three dragons disappeared into the sky, and the Pirgks kept cheering with their broken voices.

Braxan was unconscious on the ground.

Amelia banged on the titanium door to the base with her fist and looked straight into the camera positioned above it. “They're gone now. Let us in!”

The closest Pirgks were just fifty yards away, and she was feeling very vulnerable. If that door didn't open pretty damn soon, they could snatch her again.

She banged on it until her fists ached. “Hey! Come on!”

The door hummed and she heard the hiss of escaping pressure as it slid open. Daria and a large man, who Amelia recognized as one of the defenders of the base, peered out. They each had a gun.

“It's really her,” Daria said, and her face brightened.

“But who is that?” The man aimed his gun vaguely in Braxan's direction.

Amelia could smell the inside of the base. Plastic, lubricant, cleaning chemicals. It was never that pleasant a smell, but in contrast to the sulfuric air out here, it smelled like safety. “He saved me from the
Pirgks. Now he needs help. He's dying.”

“Sure,” Daria said. “We need all the friends we can get.”

The man squinted at the Pirgks that were all staring at them. “It's against regulations to let any alien into the base except for the quarantine section. And that has been abandoned.”

Amelia used the last of her energy to straighten up and look the man in the eye. “I vouch for him. The situation is desperate. If he can't come in, then I'll stay out here, too.”

The man's position was impossible, and he realized it immediately. Without a word he bent down, grabbed Braxan under his arms and pulled him inside and into the base.

Amelia followed, and then the thick door slid shut behind her and the lock cycled.

She was home.

And she had brought a dragon.

- A
melia -

Daria was in a chipper mood and didn't let go of Amelia's arm as they got Braxan onto a gurney and rolled him towards the medical dome. “Ohmigod he's a total hunk. Are those tattoos? Or some kind of insert? Maybe it's because I've been out in space for too long, but he has to be the dreamiest guy I've seen.”

“He's pretty cool,” Amelia agreed. She suddenly felt more tired than she could ever remember, and she appreciated Daria allowing her to lean on her. “Saved my life a bunch of times.”

“I wouldn't mind having my life saved by someone like that. Where does he come from?”

“From far away, he says. He's pretty hard to get to talk about those things.”

Daria gently touched Braxan's scales. “But actions speak louder than words, right? And if he's a good guy, where he comes from doesn't matter that much, I guess. Damn, he looks strong! Is this, like, armor?”

Amelia nodded. “Something like that.”

Hanson came towards them, and he looked as tired as Amelia felt. But he managed a relieved smile that looked genuine. “Amelia. I'm glad to see you. Get a check-up, and then we absolutely need to know what happened. The situation is getting pretty desperate, as I'm sure you realize. Anything you can tell us about how you made it could be crucial.”

They entered the medical dome, and chief medic Carl and a nurse came towards them and took over the gurney. Amelia felt one knee buckle under her, and Hanson quickly pulled out a chair.

“I've got some good news,” Amelia said and collapsed on the chair, feeling like she would never get up again. “And some of it concerns him.” She pointed at Braxan. “But I'll have to tell you later. Right now, I don't know which way is up.”

Hanson looked at her with a worried expression on his face. “Very well. Get everything you need. Like you instructed, the base can be evacuated at short notice. We don't think the Pirgks will attack in the darkness. There's still a few hours until the orange sun comes up, and that's when they tend to get aggressive.”

The base commander turned and left the medical dome. Carl glanced over at Amelia. “This the one with the uranium poisoning?”

Amelia nodded. “It's depleted uranium.”

The physician passed an instrument over Braxan's wound, then frowned. “
Depleted
uranium got him this sick? How long has he had it in him?”

Amelia was seeing black spots dance in front of her eyes. If she closed her eyes for just a second, she'd be asleep. “Just a couple of days.”

The doctor tried another instrument. “Yep, looks like depleted uranium. Only trace amounts of it. I can barely pick it up. Any human could live for decades with a much larger amount in them and never notice. His species must be extremely sensitive to it.”

“Could be. He's very alien.”

The doctor sighed. “You're telling me. Well, I can probably stabilize him. Curing him is another thing altogether. I'm not sure I can.”

Amelia felt her head drop, and she snapped out of the microsleep. She had to watch over Braxan, make sure he got better. Even in this state, his skin still had that golden tone to it. To think it had taken her so long to put two and two together ...

“That's fine,” she said. “They say
I
can.”

- A
melia -

“And then they dropped us here.”

The center dome was so silent you could have heard a grain of sand fall through the air. They all had looked at her with rapt attention while she told most of her story, trying to make sense of it herself. Not everything was known to her, like how Braxan had got there in the first place, but there were so many weird things in her story that a small detail like that didn't seem too important. And other, more private details was no one else's business anyway. But now everyone knew that she had brought a dragon to the base. Or an Ultra Draco, as the blue dragon had called it.

“Okay,” Commander Hanson said, his face gray with fatigue. “So there's a chance that old spaceship can keep us safe?”

“There's a chance,” Amelia said. She had only been asleep for three hours, but that had been enough to give her a little rest, at least. And Carl had given her a solid cocktail of pharmaceuticals to keep her alert. “How big a chance, I don't know. Marqatzo himself didn't know. Anyway, even if he can't protect us that well, I think we have a better chance in the jungle on top of him than here inside the crater. He seems willing to help us. He doesn't control the jungle and the beings there, but he says that he can lock his cargo bays pretty securely. I mean, as a last resort.”