Page 14 of Fated to the Dragon Warlord

“Is it a problem?” he asks. “It seems we have not only found your friend, but she has found hers too.”

“What do you mean?”

Darax holds out the square to me. I take it, knowing I know nothing about alien tech but I’m supposed to be pretending I do. It turns out the top of the box is a screen, and it’s showing something which looks like terrain in a 3-D form.

As I turn it one way and the other, the terrain changes, but the four blinking green dots in a cluster do not.

“I don’t understand.” I shove the box back at Darax.

“It means there are more than one hoo-man,” he says. “There are four.”

It feels like time slows down, contracting in on me as I process this new information.

“Four?”

“And they’re all in my sector,” Darax says. “Warriors!”

What was a shuffling mass of scales suddenly becomes a fighting force in the blink of an eye. Darax looks down at me.

“Are you ready, little snack? It’s time to go get your friends.”

DARAX

Dalox is not going to like the fact the escape pod came down in his sector and the contents are in mine, even if it seems there is more of Kerra’s species than she thought.

The hoo-mans belong to me. Although I can’t imagine any of them will be as scented as Kerra. Given her presence alone stopped me from tearing off the limbs of my warriors.

I need those warriors. Anything which keeps them intact and a fighting force is a good thing.

Save for the fact my hips are twitching once more in her presence and the one thing I’ve been attempting to deny about my reaction to her, my need to shed more than ever, my desire to dance. The mere fact she wears my clothing. My reaction is unmistakable.

I rut for her.

Which is the last thing I need, now or in the future. Kerra will be my demise.

“You!” I point at the three warriors who haven’t bothered to reclothe after their earlier flight. “Go check out the area where the hoo-mans are.”

The three race ahead, out of the airlock into the heat of Vorostor.

We follow, Kerra at my side. The suns of Vorostor warm my scales and make them itch even more. I scratch at my neck, hating the need to shed.

“What…are those?” She gasps, pointing into the sky where my three warriors are undertaking several slow sweeps of the area around where the DNA signatures were located. “They look like…dragons.”

“Dragons?”

“Dragons.”

“They are my warriors in their Sarkarnii form.” I look at her with interest.

“Sarkarnii form? I thought you were Sarkarnii.” Kerra is a strange color, her eyes still on the warriors in the sky.

“Sarkarnii have two forms,” I reply. “The one you presently see in me, and the one my warriors have taken.”

“Youchange into dragons?” she whispers.

“I’m not sure what a dragon is.”

Kerra points a trembling finger in the air. “That. That is what a dragon is. Up there. Three dragons.” Her voice rises exponentially.

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