Alien Dragon's Spawn (Dragons of Arcturus Book 1) Read online

  But if she went back now, Skal would never give her another chance to escape.

  It was now or never.

  Katrine pressed on, side-stepping down the craggy slope, pulled by gravity more than by her own will. She would keep going, find someplace, an overhang or a cave where she could ride out the storm, and then she would move on.

  But the brunt of the storm moved in faster than she expected. In mere minutes, the surrounding fog was black as night. When she occasionally caught a view through the wisps, she saw above her a sky leaden with stormclouds. The floodgates opened up, and she found herself drenched to the bone in seconds by the downpour.

  More lightning strobed blue-white. The wind came, slanting the rain at a stinging angle.

  Shelter. She needed to find shelter quick.

  Katrine’s bare feet slipped on the wet stone.

  Her stomach lurched into her throat as she felt herself going over. The helmet and shoulders of her armor absorbed the impact well enough, but she could do nothing to stop her tumbling descent. The rocks rubbed the skin from her knees.

  Finally, a protruding rock jolted her to a stop.

  Katrine staggered to her feet, dizzy and disoriented. Already the wind had picked up even more. The rain was coming in sideways, needle sharp against her bare arms and thighs.

  Lightning flashed with a simultaneous pop of thunder. A smell of ozone followed.

  God, that had been close.

  She needed to get out of this metal armor right now before she got struck. She was about to throw down her weapons and wrench off her helmet, when she heard another familiar sound.

  A growl.

  Under the circumstances, she almost thought it was a roll of thunder. But this sound did not come from the sky. It was a skin-tightening animal sound, born from the depths of a deep, hungry throat and salivating jaws.

  Katrine saw it moving, a dark, bulking shape, darker even than the surrounding storm, indistinct through the gusts of stinging rain. The only features she could make out clearly were the quadruple green glints of four feline eyes and the white curves of murderous teeth.

  A scimitar cat.

  “Nice kitty,” Katrine whispered.

  Maybe this one is the mate of the other that got killed on her account, she thought. Or maybe it was just another hungry cat. Either way, the sharp, almost electrical snarl that ripped from its throat made it very apparent that it didn’t want to make friends. Knotted muscles coiled like springs.

  The scimitar cat pounced.

  A camera flash of lightning disclosed its enormous dark body emerging toward Katrine through the curtains of rain. Long bone-dagger claws extracted from black paws. Feline lips peeled back from a pink maw bristling with white teeth. A fetid carrion breath hit her senses like a punch.

  It was not Katrine that swung the sword; it was raw animal instinct.

  Survival.

  The blade clashed with a white saber fang in burst of sparks. Claws raked the metal chestplate of her armor and were deflected harmlessly. A little lower and they would have opened her bare midriff like a sandwich.

  The impact sent Katrine sprawling. She landed on her back, body spinning, armor scraping on the wet stone.

  The sword fell from her hands, clattered away.

  The rush of blood in her ears nearly drowned out the howl of the wind and crashing thunder.

  More lightning flickered. She saw the cat land, saw its paws skitter for purchase on the hard ground.

  The beast hissed. In another triple strobe of lightning, she saw its wrinkled muzzle pulled back from its snarling mouth. A bright red line angled from the creature’s lip to its nose. A coppery smell of spilled blood.

  She had wounded it. But now her sword was gone.

  With a heart-stopping shriek, the predator leaped again. Four monster eyes shone with green hatred.

  No time to think. Not time to even react.

  Again, Katrine had the impression that it wasn’t herself that moved. Her body was running on pure adrenaline and primal reflexes. It was like watching someone else, a movie in slow motion.

  An arm raised the gun.

  A finger squeezed the trigger.

  Red lightning arced, not from the sky, but from the muzzle of the alien pistol. The bolt connected with the scimitar cat’s open mouth, and the monster’s head burst in a shower of gore and sparks like a firecracker had been stuffed into a melon. Chips of bone and teeth glanced off Katrine’s armor. A white fang as long as her arm boomeranged inches from her face.

  The dead weight of the scimitar cat’s headless body landed on her with a heavy whump. The wind was knocked from her lungs. Had it not been for the armor, she would have surely been crushed.

  As it was, she was only trapped.

  Alive, but trapped.

  Katrine struggled to free herself from the massive corpse. The water pooling around her was warm with the blood of the slain creature. She was crying, even though it hurt to do so.

  She struggled to draw a breath and tried to scream.

  “Help!”

  All that came out was a paltry wheeze that was lost in the sounds of the storm. More thunder crashed, shivering the earth.

  And again, and again. The ground was shaking like a minor earthquake from the thunder.

  No, not thunder.

  Footsteps.

  Katrine gasped as the dead animal was lifted from her body and tossed aside with a wet flop. A shadow towered over her, dark and winged. Then the lightning flashed again, revealing crimson scales.

  “Skal…”

  CHAPTER 22

  Still clad in her crazy armor, Katrine clung to the dragon like a child. Never had she been so glad to see anyone or anything in all her life. The winged monster who had been her captor now provided her with a much needed sense of security. She shivered against his chest, more from adrenaline than from cold. By the time they reached the dragon’s sleeping chamber and he set her down by the fire, her trembling had mostly subsided, but her legs still felt weak and gelatinous beneath her.

  The blaze in the fireplace was still going strong. The radiating warmth felt good against her damp skin.

  “Does your neck hurt?” Skal ask.

  “No,” Katrine answered, her voice tinny and flat-sounding inside her helmet.

  Still in his full dragon form, Skal delicately plucked the metal headpiece away with clawed hands. Next, the rest of her armor was removed piece by piece. The giant dragon was undressing her like a doll. His yellow serpent’s eyes were bright with concern.

  “You are wounded,” he hissed, looking at her bloodied knees

  “It’s just a scratch, oh—“

  Without warning, Skal’s ribbon tongue darted from between his fangs and flickered over her knees. For a flash, Katrine had a sudden recollection of what that tongue had done to her the previous night in the hot baths.

  An inappropriate wetness blossomed between her thighs.

  Now, however, the dragon was not licking her in that place; he was licking away the blood from her wounded knees.

  “Ow,” Katrine cried. “Stop that, Skal. It stings.”

  But a moment later, the sting disappeared, replaced by a cool, tingling, painless sensation. When Katrine looked down at her kneecaps, she was astonished to find that they had not only been cleaned by the dragon’s licking, but the scrapes appeared to be mostly healed as well.

  What the heck was this dragon sorcery?

  “Enzymes in my saliva,” Skal said distractedly. “Good for healing wounds.”

  His massive body circled her. He craned his long neck, looking her naked body up and down for any other wounds. With his hard, smooth claws, he gently nudged her to turn in the firelight so he could better inspect her.

  “I’m fine, Skal. Really, I am.”

  The dragon gave her a final once over, as the concern slowly drained out of his eyes, replaced by relief.

  “Good,” he whispered.

  The spark of another emotion ignited in his e
yes. He repeated the word, but this time his voice carried a scorch of menace.

  “Good…That means there is no need to delay your punishment.”

  Katrine’s eyes rounded to a pair of white moons reflecting the malevolent golden blaze of Skal’s twin suns.

  “Punishment?” she stammered.

  Skal started to shift. Even though his body was shrinking to his human size, he somehow became even more intimidating. And at a good seven feet, not counting the horns crowning his head, he was hardly small.

  As Skal shifted, his yellow eyes stayed fixed on Katrine with a fearful intensity.

  She instinctively took a step back, but Skal caught her by the shoulders.

  “That’s right,” he said through a cruel grin. “This is the second time you’ve tricked me, my little atma. You tried to escape me while I was dozing.”

  Heat rushed upward into Katrine’s head. Even faced with a towering dragon man, she couldn’t seem to control her temper.

  “What was I supposed to do?” she shouted. “I needed to save my friends, and you refused to help.”

  “I’ve changed my mind about that,” Skal growled. He was guiding Katrine, steering her toward the edge of the nest.

  “You have?”

  The dragon man nodded his horned head.

  “Yes. I will help you find your friends.”

  Katrine’s heart ached with joy. With a happy yelp, she threw her arms around Skal’s middle and buried her face against his chest.

  “Oh thank you, Skal, thank you, thank you…”

  She pulled back, staring up at him with wide eyes. She was remembering the sound of those drums in the distance. The ones she’d heard before the storm set in.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “We can’t waste any more time…”

  Skal shook his head.

  “Not now,” he said. “Listen.”

  In the wordless pause that followed, Katrine realized what Skal meant. Even here in the heart of this stony mountain, she could hear it. The shrieking chaos of the squall outside.

  “We can’t go out in a storm of this magnitude,” Skal said. “For one thing, you might get struck by lightning. And for another thing, I would never be able to fly in those winds. Even we dragons have our limitations. But that’s a good thing.”

  “It is?” Katrine asked.

  “Yes. As long as this region is beset by storms, the other dragons, including Mordragg, will all remain bound inside their own mountain fortresses. And the same goes for any other large predators in the area.”

  “But the scimitar cat…”

  “It must have been as surprised by the storm as you were. That cat was on its way back to its lair and just happened on you by sheer chance. Thought it could grab an easy meal to tide it over during the storm.”

  “Well it was wrong,” Katrine whispered.

  Skal grinned at her proudly. “Very wrong indeed. And it has paid grievously for its error.”

  He toyed with her mangled curls.

  “Trust me, if your friends have shelter, as you say they did when you left them, then this storm is the best thing that could happen to them. As long as this storm rages, they will be safe. As soon as the storm breaks, we will search for them.”

  Katrine breathed a sigh of relief. Skal knew what he was talking about. And once the storm had passed, they would finally search for her friends.

  Skal wasn’t done talking, however. A growl rumbled deep in his chest, beneath Katrine’s palms.

  “But until then, my little atma, we have other matters to attend to.”

  “We do?” she whimpered.

  Skal nodded.

  “Your aforementioned punishment.”

  Skal dropped his hips and sat down, straddling the rim of the nest. He dragged Katrine down with him, bending her over his muscled thigh, both hands pressing down firmly on her back to hold her in place. She was completely naked, all of her armor having been stripped away, and she felt totally exposed.

  “Wait!” Katrine shouted. “Skal, what are you doing?”

  Her question was answered not with words, but with a sharp smack of something muscled and scaly-smooth striking her backside. Her whole body jolted on Skal’s thigh.

  He was spanking her.

  Hard.

  “Skal stop it!” Katrine cried.

  “You have been very naughty, my little atma,” Skal rumbled. “It is my responsibility to discipline you.”

  Another smack jolted her body. Katrine yelped, more from surprise and embarrassment than from actual pain. The sting on her naked bum was transitioning into a warm, tingling sensation.

  Katrine tried to struggle away, but Skal’s hands held her in place.

  Both hands.

  But if both of his hands were on her upper body, then how was he spanking her bottom?

  Oh God.

  His tail.

  Skal was spanking her bare butt with his long, serpentine tail. The weirdness of that fact added to Katrine’s already considerable mortification.

  “It is my duty, atma. I must remind you that there are consequences for disobedience. And I must remind you of my dominance.”

  Again his tail spanked her, and again Katrine cried out. Her voice echoed.

  “Skal stop it! Stop it!”

  “It is my duty,” Skal repeated. “You need this, little atma. Your body needs this...”

  Smack!

  Smack!

  Smack!

  Katrine was incensed. She had never been treated this way by a man before, had never been so thoroughly dominated. It was shameful. She wasn’t some submissive little woman. Back on Earth she had been one of the leading mathematicians in the world. The idea of being treated in such a demeaning way by a man was infuriating.

  But the fact that it was a scaly, python-like tail doing the deed made one thing clear.

  This power play wasn’t a man-woman thing. It had nothing to do with a man’s dominance over his woman.

  No, this was a dragon-human matter.

  Katrine was being punished and forced into submission by a dragon. And an alien dragon at that. A being not even of the same species. Everything about this was wrong on multiple levels.

  Another spanking blow from Skal’s tail landed lower, striping across the top of her thighs, and catching her exposed sex in the process. The rough smack to that hypersensitive area sent a lightning bolt of mingled pain and pleasure zapping into her deep center.

  “Skal!”

  This time, the dragon did cease in his spanking. While one hand kept her upper body pinned, the other palm slid down her lower back and smoothed over her tingling tush.

  “Goddess,” the dragon man growled. “Now your little bottom is nearly as red as my scales.”

  Katrine whimpered.

  Skal’s middle finger moved lower, touching her exposed sex and rubbing between her swollen folds.

  “Atma,” he purred. “You are wet.”

  “No!” Katrine half-shouted. “No I’m not!”

  But there was no denying it. The rough spanking from the dragon’s tail had gotten her hot and bothered in a way that she could barely comprehend. She shouldn’t like it, but the wetness dripping from her punished pussy was impossible to conceal.

  “Don’t try to deny it,” Skal chuckled. “You are wet, little one.”

  “I’m not…”

  Katrine gasped as her body was suddenly lifted, turned, and set back down on Skal’s lap, this time facing the ceiling. Skal reached between her open thighs and rubbed her sex more firmly, gathering her arousal on the pad of his middle finger.

  “Oh no?” Skal purred. “Taste it for yourself…”

  Skal raised his arousal-moistened finger to Katrine’s face. The point of his claw teased at her soft lips. She opened for him, and the tip of his finger slipped inside her mouth.

  Katrine had never tasted herself before. The raw, intense tang of her own arousal filled her mouth and saturated her tongue.

  Skal started to pull his fin
ger back, but Katrine caught his hand.

  She took his finger deeper, to the second knuckle. She bobbed her head slowly, sucking his digit like a clawed cock, her tongue working inside, licking away every drop of her bitter fluid coating his scales.

  Skal groaned with pleasure. His yellow eyes locked with hers as she sucked him.

  Katrine stared up at him through the leftovers of her tears. Her cheeks and the tips of her ears burned with the sinfulness of what she was doing.

  But the dragon was right.

  Her body did need to be dominated.

  Every inch of her anatomy was electric with hunger. Her nipples were painfully taught. Her pussy throbbed with the pulse of her blood. She moaned and whimpered around the thick finger filling her mouth.

  At last, she pulled her lips away with a loud smack.

  “More,” she breathed. “Skal, I need more…”

  Katrine gasped as something touched her between the legs. It was Skal’s tail again, his tactile, flexible tail. The slightly rounded tip was working between her lathered folds. It circled her hole, penetrated.

  “Oh fuck!” Katrine cried. “Oh Skal…”

  One clawed hand cradled her lolling head while the other cupped a breast, squeezing, kneading, pinching.

  And down below, his tale pushed deeper, fucking in and out of her wet hole. Her nether lips seemed to suck him just as the lips of her mouth had sucked his finger moments before.

  The tail withdrew from between her legs, and swung to the other side, offering Katrine’s own nectar to her mouth again. She accepted it thirstily, licking and sucking his wet scales as she mewled and whined.

  And something else, long and hard, pressed against her butt where it was nestled between Skal’s muscled thighs. A third leg that thumped with the dragon’s rapidly beating heart.

  The dragon was feeling horny.

  Extremely horny.

  He scooped and moved her body into the soft shelter of the nest. His body covered hers.

  The heat radiating from him was intense. It threatened to scald her. He dipped his head, grazing his lips against Katrine’s ear, raising goosebumps across every inch of her hot, naked flesh.

  “Come, little atma,” Skal purred against her ear. “The time has arrived for you to be bred.”