dragon is trying to claim her, but I can’t allow it. She deserves more, better than me.
“You have space for this many?” Rakstan asks again.
“It will be tight, but enough,” I say.
Tight is probably an understatement. The home that I share with my brethren is enough room for the five of us, maybe we could fit ten and still be comfortable. This many? We’ll be sleeping stacked on top of each other.
What am I to do? I can’t leave her, or any of them, here. This compound is going to flood. In two days it will be fully submerged as the ocean lays claim to it. No one can survive outside without shelter. They’d freeze or starve to death.
No there is no choice. We’ll have to make the best of it that we can, there is no choice, I can’t leave them here in this deteriorating situation. We have to return to my home.
“I don’t like it,” Angota says. “This is our home.”
“It’s flooding,” Rakstan says. “We need to get these people to safety.”
Angota opens this mouth to argue then his mouth snaps shut, and he shakes his head. “Fine.”
“Pack. Fast,” Rakstan orders.
The aliens leap into motion with impressive speed. I don’t know how to help, and rather than slow them down, I step to one side and watch. In particular I watch her.
It’s foolish. I’m teasing myself, imagining a future that can never be. A male takes care of his mate, provides for her. A male is a male—a whole male. I can’t hunt successfully. I saved her and her friend by luck more than any skill. Wielding a lochaber is impossible because I’m too off balance.
Still, I dream. Fantasies spin out through my thoughts. Futures that could be, ones in which she could be mine. Where the calling of my dragon is answered. It knows she is mine, but why did she come into my life too late? Why not before my accident?
“Ready,” the female named Riley says.
It’s obvious that she is Angota’s mate. I can feel the connection between them as well as see it in the soft touches and the glances. She is pretty, but she doesn’t hold a candle to the one my dragon wants. No, my dragon’s girl glows in my sight, like a bright fire burning and calling for me to warm myself in her gentle light.
She cared for me when I was wounded, and it’s clear she did a good job. The new wounds will heal much better than my old ones. My brethren found and cared for me the best they could but none of them are skilled in the arts of medicine.
She is. A medicine woman, I could call her. A healer. When her eyes meet mine, oh so briefly, warmth floods through my chest, suffusing my scales until they itch with the desire to touch her. It takes all my will not to move to her, take her in my arms, and profess my feelings.
I’m sure that as a healer, she treats everyone the same. I am not special in her eyes. Her nature is caring, delicate, considerate of those around her. The ache in my soul throbs, but there is nothing I can do to balm it.
“You sure about this?” Angota asks, looking at Rakstan and me. “It’s the height of the storm.”
“I’m not positive,” I say. “It will be hard, but we’re too close to the coast. This place will flood and probably stay flooded for days—at least. I do not know of any other shelter close to here.”
Rakstan shrugs. “We don’t have many choices.”
Angota looks around the room at the aliens. Aliens. My dragon laying a claim on one on sight has kept my thoughts away from the simple fact that I’m surrounded by strange beings that aren’t native to this planet. Somehow, I’m not surprised. Very dimly I recall that at one point in time, many aliens visited Tajss. A time before the Devastation.
Were those aliens like these? I don’t think so, but I have no clear memory to look at. A feeling, an idea, a nebulous concept is all I can muster. It makes sense, but still there’s something surreal when I look at them.
They’re all soft without scales, no strongly defined muscle, and no tails or wings either. I don’t think they’d survive on the rest of the planet. All of the planet except this small southernmost continent is desert. Moving across the desert with their build would be difficult, if not impossible.
“Urukol,”