Dragon Romance: Dragon Fire (Paranormal Shapeshifter Hero Protector Firefighter Romance) (Fantasy Shifter Werewolf BBW Pregnancy Women’s Fiction Short Stories) (7 page)

Christopher stands there, staring at me with a raised brow. He steps aside after a moment and I tentatively step inside.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he says quietly, flipping on the hallway light as he closes the door so we’re not trapped in darkness. Visions of our intimacy and the bites he placed on my skin bring a hot flush to my cheeks.

“I need to speak to you and Damien,” I say shortly, averting my eyes and looking down the hallway in search of Damien’s familiar form. “Please.”

“Follow me,” Christopher says with a shrug, making his way down the hallway and back to the sitting room I was last in with them. I settle onto the couch it hesitantly while Christopher goes and fetches Damien.

Finally they are both sitting before me, but suddenly I cannot find my words. I bite my lip and play with the sleeves of my shirt, looking up at them hesitantly.

Damien’s eyes are trained on my lip, watching how my tooth captures the soft pink flesh. But then as soon as I look at him his eyes dart back up to my own. There’s something dark and wanting in his eyes which I try to ignore.

“Why did that happen?” I say finally, my voice coming out smaller than I would like. I clear my throat. “At the club you stopped drinking from me well before I was in any danger.” I look pointedly at Damien. “Why didn’t you do that again? Either of you.”

Damien and Christopher exchange a look, and then Damien sighs deeply. “Sometimes we get carried away, especially when involved in this sort of situation.” He gestures out with his hands towards myself and Christopher. “We both got carried away in the moment. It won’t happen again.”

I think about his words. They haven’t completely comforted me. “If I were to . . . become one of you, could that happen again?”

“Yes,” Christopher says seriously. “We are still at danger of running out of blood. Blood still runs through our veins and we still rely on it, we’re much like yourself in that respect. But it’s more difficult for us to get to that dangerous threshold. It’s safer, if you’re one of us. And you bounce back much quicker. Plus, you could probably stop us yourselves at that point.”

I think about his words, rolling them over and over again in my mind. I’m frightened, I can’t deny it. I’m frightened of what happened, I don’t want it to happen again. But the longer I go without one of their bites, the more it haunts me. I need it again. I need the experience. And I’m willing to go to great lengths to get it.

“I want to become one of you.”

My words hang in the air. Damien and Christopher both stare at me with dark and searching eyes, before exchanging a look with one another. Then Christopher cracks a smile.

“I think she’s ready, Damien,” he says slowly. “You had your doubts. Mine are all gone, personally.”

“Yes, I agree,” Damien says with a nod. “The fact that you’re so willing for this even after that traumatizing experience, and after taking a few weeks to think about it . . . I’m willing to do it.”

“How
do
you do it?” I ask breathlessly. My heart is thumping wildly in my chest. I can’t believe they actually agreed. It was more than I could hope for.

“It’s simple, really,” Damien explains. “We drink from you until you are near out of blood. And then we allow you to drink from us. It’s a little messy at first, as your teeth won’t be fully formed. But you’ll get the hang of it.”

They’ll drink from me. Yes. I feel a grin spreading across my face involuntarily.

“I’m ready,” I say, my voice hardly louder than a whisper.

Damien gets up suddenly, moving towards me. He sits down beside me and rests a hand on my thigh, sliding his fingers down until they are between wedged between my legs before giving me a squeeze. I gasp and he grins, before drawing aside my hair and baring his teeth against my neck.

I see Christopher approaching out of the corner of my eye. I feel his fingertips on my shoulder, sliding down my back until he reaches the hem of my shirt. He tugs it upwards, causing Damien to pause in his ravishing of my neck as my shirt goes over my head. I reach towards Christopher, fumbling on the button of his pants but eventually managing to get it. He growls deep in his throat before grabbing my chin and wrenching my face towards his, capturing my mouth in a kiss.

Damien sinks his teeth into my skin and I gasp against Christopher’s mouth as his tongue probes into mine. I lightly bite at his tongue and he lets out a growl.

With my hands I reach down and take hold of him, feeling him grow instantly hard in my grip, and begin to work my hand up and down the length of him. Damien’s hand moves down the flat of my stomach and down my thigh until it reaches the hem of my skirt. He flips up my skirt and I shudder as he places a hand against my bare crotch.

As Damien drains blood from my neck Christopher kisses me with a passion like nothing I have ever experienced before. This time is even better than the last. As I stroke Christopher he pulls off his shirt and leans into me. I can feel his hard body against my own as he takes one of my nipples in his mouth. I shudder and let out a moan as he works his tongue in circles.

Damien moves in front of me and frees himself from his pants. He enters me as Christopher takes his tongue and runs it up my neck. I lean into him in anticipation of his bite and when it finally comes I gasp in ecstasy. I can feel my blood being drained by both men as Damien makes love to me and I have never felt anything like this before. My orgasm slams through my body causing my back to arch and every muscle in my body to go taut. Damien lets go of my neck and thrust into me with abandon his tight, muscular body glistening with sweat as he moves. I run my hands over the contours of his shoulders and down his tight abdomen. I wrap my arms around his waist. Gripping his buttocks with both hands, I force him to thrust even faster.

Christopher continues to drink from me as Damien begins to moan with pleasure. I can tell he is near climax, but right now I want nothing more than for him to stay inside of me. As his orgasm comes, he latches onto my neck and drinks deep of my blood. Pure ecstasy shoots from my tips of my toes and nearly blows the top of my head off.

I am panting like a racehorse as Damien moves aside and Christopher steps between my legs. Unlike Damien, he never releases my neck. As he enters me my body once more shudders with pleasure. With both of them draining the blood from my body I feel ecstasy like I have never felt before. I moan and throw my head back as Christopher reaches his climax. Christopher’s hard body presses up against mine as he thrusts on final time, but something is different. My vision is beginning to fade a little around the edges and my breath is much harder to catch. Still the pleasure of both men drinking from me at the same time is so intense that I don’t want them to stop. My breath comes in shallow, ragged gasps. Like before my body is covered in a sheen of cold, clammy sweat and it is getting harder and harder to think. I know that I am getting close to how weak I was last time when they nearly killed me, but I want more.

I feel the familiar weakness setting in. I moan aloud, feeling the slick, hard bodies of Damien and Christopher against me. But suddenly Damien stops, and then Christopher follows suit.

Damien crouches down beside me, cupping my face in his hand and turning me so I look at him. I grin at him lazily.

“Why did you stop?” my voice is breathy and weak.

“Because it’s time,” Damien purrs. He holds up something in the light, it shines silver. A knife? I watch in my lazy stupor as he brings the blade towards his skin and slashes across his collarbone. A thin line of red bubbles to the surface.

He places a hand on the back of my head and guides my face towards his chest.

“Drink.”

My lips press against the red stain on his skin. I tentatively open my mouth, my tongue flicking out against him. It tastes strange . . . metallic. But I’m curious. And the more I drink, the better it tastes. That familiar euphoric sensation is washing over me. And with it comes this incredible sense of power. Something feels strange in my mouth. I can’t pinpoint it, but all of a sudden I can
bite
him. I press my teeth down and they break through the skin easily, effortlessly. Blood trickles into my mouth at a steadier pace and I let out a moan of ecstasy.

“It’s working.” Damien’s voice drifts to my ears slowly and languidly, as if through a haze. I feel Christopher leaning over my shoulder, his lips against my skin again. And then he’s biting down and he is drinking from me as I drink from Damien. My entire body is trembling. My skin is on fire but in the best way.

I am a vampire, and nothing has every felt so good.

THE END

Bonus Story 2 of 20

Jamie Gettner steps down from her SUV and looks around the surrounding area. Walls that are at least twenty feet high and made from everything imaginable, from car hoods to sheet metal, run along the perimeter of the Astara camp near Elk Ridge, Montana. A small shack sits beside the only door visible in the wall. A single guard stands beside the shack with an automatic rifle in his hands. Jamie notes that he is wearing a gasmask. She can’t believe that people still think that the Astara will somehow infect them. Her supervisor from the Gazette, Larry Davis, walks around the back of the car and stops beside her. He lets her take the camp in before he lays a hand on her arm.

“Are you sure that you want to go through with this Jamie? I’ve heard that the Astara can be very aggressive toward outsiders. Especially if you belong to the race that has kept them in these camps for nearly twenty years.”

“I know that Larry, but I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.” She pats her purse and the small revolver inside. “I just want to get a perspective on how they go about their daily lives. Maybe if we show the world that they are not dangerous...” She lets the sentence go unfinished.

“You know that the likelihood of the government ever letting these things out is a shot in the dark, don’t you?”

“They’re not
things
, Larry. They are Astara. I hate when people say ‘things’. It’s like they’re saying that these beings don’t have souls.”

“Do you believe they do?” Larry asks.

“Look around you. They’ve built a society inside the confines of their walls. To build a society implies that they want to make something for themselves and their children. That is the very basic proof that they have souls. Wanting something better for yourself and those that you care for.”

“You can get as philosophical as you want. I still think that this is a really bad idea.”

Jamie opens the back door of the SUV and grabs up her backpack. Inside are a few notepads, some pens, a laptop with charger, and a digital camera that she hopes to use to take a picture of all the Astara in the settlement. She also grabs a handheld digital camcorder to record footage. She pushes the ‘on’ button to make sure the digital camcorder is charged up. It comes on with a couple of beeps. She pans around the inside of the SUV to make sure that the picture is good and everything is still working properly. With a flick of her wrist she closes the camcorder. Turning around, she gives Larry a smile and places the strap of the camcorder around her neck.

“Your opinion is duly noted Larry, but I’m still going in. You’re not changing my mind on this one.”

“Fine.” He throws up his hands in defeat and walks with her to the small door set into the side of the wall. “But promise me you’ll be careful.”

A guard opens the door for Jamie and she steps inside. Before the guard closes the door she turns around and waves to Larry.

“I’ll be careful. Like I always am.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Larry calls to her as the door swings shut.

The door closes with a resounding thud, and for a split second Jamie wonders if she has made a terrible mistake.
Nonsense,
she tells herself,
you can always knock on the door, show your ID to the guard, and he’ll let you out. Now calm down and think about the reason you are here. You’re a reporter, so start acting like one.

Taking a step forward, she lets her eyes drift around the camp. Near the walls, the houses are stacked one atop another making them more like apartment building and less like shacks, but she can’t help but notice the material that the shacks are made out of. It all seems to be junk. Here and there a fresher piece of steel or tin shines like a diamond among the horde of rusted and junked metals. Clicking on her camcorder, she pans it around and gets a panorama of the surrounding area.

Young Astara run in all directions as they play some type of game that she can only guess is much the same as tag. The only difference between the small Astara children and human children is the hair and eye color. No human on Earth has ever had yellow or orange eyes without contact lenses, and no human has ever had blue or green hair without some kind of dye. A few older adult Astara are milling around near a small well. They look much the same as the children, only each adult Astara has an identifying mark that runs horizontally across the bridge of their nose. It seems to be some kind of birthmark or something.

Jamie pans the camcorder over to film the adults standing around the well. As she does she notices that a few of them have small tattoos on their necks. The four Astara with tattooed necks step away from the well and start toward her at a quick walk.

She raises her hand in a wave and offers a friendly smile to them, but they don’t acknowledge either. Taking an involuntary step backward, she almost bolts for the door, but she steels herself and lowers the camcorder.

“Hello. I’m Jamie Gettner. I’m a reporter with the Gazette. I was wondering if you would like to have your picture taken for my article on this camp.”

“Human.” The Astara in the lead, a tall, whip-thin alien with long orange hair pulled back in a ponytail, almost spits the word.

“Yes, I’m a human, but I just want to observe your lives for a month or so, and find out how it is that you live. I don’t mean you any harm. In fact I’m trying to help you because if you ask me these camps you live in are not justifiable at all.” She waves a hand around at the walls for effect. “I think that keeping you and your families locked up behind walls is wrong and something should be done about it.”

“Sure you do. Human.” Once again the leader spits the word ‘human’. His voice is filled with rage as he continues to speak. “Do you know how many of my kind you killed when you shot us out of the skies? Do you?”

“I didn’t shoot anything. I was a very young child when that happened.”

“Sure. All you humans are the same. You all want the same thing. Now I think it is our turn to give you back a little bit of what you’ve given us.”

The man darts forward with eerie speed and grabs Jamie by the arms with hands that clamp down like vices. She struggles against him, but his hold is like iron. Leaning down so that his lips are touching her ear, he whispers to her.

“You should have stayed in your fancy high-rise, human. Now you’re gonna pay for what your kind has done.”

The other three Astara advance toward her with grins on their faces. One of them pulls out a piece of metal that is about a foot long with a large chunk of leather attached to it. Jamie has seen enough television shows to know that the weapon is called a blackjack. The leather is usually wrapped around something hard and sewn together. She knows that it is an effective weapon for causing lots of damage.

“I promise you that I had nothing to do with what happened twenty years ago!” Jamie says, as she begins to panic. She struggles fiercely against the Astara’s grip, but gains nothing.

The alien with the blackjack raises it in the air and steps forward with a smirk. The blackjack whistles through the air.
I should never have come here. Now I’m probably going to die in this camp.
Just before the blackjack makes contact with her skull something blurs in front of her eyes.

The sound of the blackjack smacking against flesh and bone is loud in the small courtyard. Jamie opens her eyes and sees another male Astara standing in front of her. He is unlike the others. His shoulders are broad and heavy with muscle. The hair on his head is shaved into a mohawk and is black instead of blue, green, or orange. Even his eyes are a different color. Most of them are yellow or orange, but the newcomer’s eyes are gold in color. The alien that was holding the blackjack is now lying on the ground with blue blood oozing from a wound on the side of his head. At first Jamie is sure that the Astara is dead, but he groans and rolls over. She isn’t sure what happened until the golden-eyed Astara speaks.

“Let her go Grum. Let her go now.”

“I won’t do it Bol.” The alien holding her pulls her backward a step and tightens his grip. “It’s time that their kind pay for what they have done.”

“She had nothing to do with it Grum.” One of the other Astara steps forward with his fist raised, but Bol turns to him and shakes his head. “Don’t do it Fi. I’ll cave your head in and you know it.”

The remaining two Astara trade a glance and nod to each other. They back slowly away from Bol and the blackjack in his hand until they reach the well. When the reach the well they turn around and make a run for it down a street. Bol turns to Grum with a stern look.

“Let her go! I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”

“Take one step toward me, Bol, and I’ll knock her in the head. You’re fast, but you’ll never be able to get to me before I smash her head in with my fist.”

“You intend to hurt her no matter what I do,” says Bol. He looks at Jamie. “I promise you that won’t happen, but you’ll have to trust me.”

Jamie tries to say something, but her throat is so dry from fear that all she manages to get out is a small croak. Grum hears it and laughs. As he begins to laugh Bol leaps forward with a speed that Jamie can’t believe is possible. The hand holding the blackjack flashes forward, but before it can impact, something hits her on the back of the head. As blackness overtakes her vision she feels the iron-like grips of Grum loosen.
I’m gonna hit the ground face first.
The thought is her last one as her vision darkens and she goes limp.

*****

“are...you...okay...nasty...hit...skull...please...up...”

Jamie slowly opens her eyes, but the light makes her head feel like it is going to explode so she quickly closes them. From the feel of it she is lying on something soft and that doesn’t make sense to her. The last thing she remembers is getting hit on the head by the Astara who was holding her from behind.
Grum...his name was Grum,
she thinks.

“Are you okay? You took a nasty blow to the skull. I need you to wake up if you can.”

The voice speaking to her is husky and deep. It sounds somewhat like the voice of the Astara who kept the man with the blackjack from hitting her, but she isn’t for sure if it is the same. She can’t even remember the name of the alien who kept her from being hit, but she is sure that she heard his name.

“Bol. Your name is Bol.” She opens her eyes just a slit.

He is standing over her with a smile on his face. “Indeed it is. How do you feel?”

“The lights.”

“Of course.”

She hears his footsteps retreat and then a small clicking sound. The lights dim in intensity and she opens her eyes all the way up. She tries to sit up and almost succeeds before the pain in the back of her head gets to her. Falling back with a groan, she puts a hand to the back of her head and feels a bandage.

“Sorry that I had to cut your hair, but you had a pretty nasty cut on the back of your head where Grum hit you.”

“You cut my hair?” She feels around on her scalp and sure enough she only has hair on the top of her head. “Why is my hair like this?”

“I had to cut the back so I could get to the wound on you scalp. I figured that you would not want it left that way, so I styled it in the manner of our warrior women.”

“A mohawk? Really?”

“Yes. We have very few warriors that are women these days, but they still cut their hair in this way.”

“Great. I’ve got a mohawk.”

“I am sorry that you are not pleased with the haircut, but what is done is done and there is nothing that can change it. Would you like to sit up and try to drink something?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me help you.”

Jamie begins to sit up on her own, but the Astara is there in a flash and holding her back with his strong arms. Her head swims as she sits up, but she manages to stay sitting up. Bol walks over to a small fridge at the opposite end of the room and opens it. When he comes back he has a drink in a can. From the looks of the can it is some kind of really old soda, but her mouth is very dry and she is in no position to scoff at the drink. She takes the can and holds it high.

“Beggars can’t be choosers.” She drinks deeply and is surprised to find that the soda is still carbonated.

“That they cannot. Especially if they are Astaran beggars and inside the walls of the Camp Venogar.”

Suddenly, Jamie realizes exactly where she is and how badly these aliens have been treated over the last twenty years. She holds the can out and studies it for a moment. “I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier Bol. I forget my manners sometimes. Thank you very much for the drink.”

“Do not apologize. It is how I am used to being treated by humans.”

“Please don’t think we are all like that. We aren’t. I for one think that keeping you and your people in these camps is a disgusting misuse of power by the government. Let alone a criminal act. I truly am sorry.” She holds out a hand. “My name is Jamie Gettner and I am a reporter with the Gazette.”

“Long life to you Jamie Gettner of the Gazette. I am Bol previously of Sendara now of Camp Venogar.”

Jamie shakes his hand and takes another drink of the soda. As she drinks she looks around Bol’s home. It seems to just consist of one room with a kitchenette and a curtain for the bathroom area. He catches her looking around and waves a hand around the room.