Page 72 of Caveman Alien's Terror

I do, holding on to him and bracing, clenching my eyes shut when I figure out what he’s planning. There’s a softwhooosh, and the green light is clearly visible through my eyelids. Searing heat washes over me.

That should do it.

Still seeing the outline of his fire in front of my eyes, I look behind me. The long, narrow ridge that traverses the canyon is glowing red hot, the sharp edge looking like molten lava. “Did you reallymeltthat thing?”

Just making sure it’s a little rounder and easier to walk on. It might take a while to cool down.

“Your fire is incredibly hot,” I marvel. “Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t give you the gold until it was almost too late. I nearly did. Several times.”

It was the best thing that could have happened. I don’t need gold anymore, by the way. The urge I feel for it has been taken over byyou. I don’t know how you did it, but now that you’re mine, I have a peace I’ve never experienced before.

Below, I see packs of raptors fleeing wildly when they sense the dragon overhead. A kronk crashes into a tree and knocks it over in its urge to flee. A curious dactyl rises to meet us, then turns tail and crashes back down into the jungle to get away from Praxigor.

“Where are we going?”

I assume you want to see your friends.

“I do.”

That reminds me. Wait.He sets down on top of a massive tree, talons gripping the branches. We’re surrounded by leaves and twigs.Hmm. This is not ideal.I cling to him as he slides down the tree’s trunk, talons gouging grooves in the wood, so deep I could hide kittens in them.

I climb off him on the ground and look down while he turns back to the semi-human Praxigor I know.

“You may look when I Change,” he rumbles in his beautiful voice as he adjusts his pants.

“It feels like a private act,” I tell him, looking him up and down. “I didn’t want to intrude.”

His yellow eyes are clearer than ever, his blue scales perfectly whole and unblemished, his hair a riot of gold and copper and platinum. “Itisprivate. And yet, you can’t intrude on me. Now, Astrid. I must ask you.”

As usual I can’t take my eyes off him as he towers over me. The old fear is still there as a memory, but now ninety-nine percent of it is just excitement. “What?”

Yellow eyes burn into me like blowtorches, piercing my soul but not harming it. “Will you marry me?”

25

- Praxigor-

Astrid looks up at me with those dark, bottomless eyes that I can never penetrate completely. What is she thinking? Is she disgusted about the weakness she has seen in me recently? If she says no, I don’t know what I’ll do with myself. Or with this planet. I’ll want to kill every living thing on it. But I also can’t, because she’s bound me with her requirement to not kill if I love her. Which I do.

I can’t believe this. Whoever heard of a hoard that had achoiceof whether or not it would belong to a dragon? Ridiculous! And yet, Astrid is alive. More than any gold trinket could ever be. She has a choice. Whether I give it to her or not. It is her choice.

I see my own reflection in the shiny crystal of her eyes. I’m blue and magnificent, of course. And I’m waiting! A dragon who waits? How am I putting up with this? And oh mygold, how long is this supposed totake?!

“Yes,” she finally says. “I will marry you, Praxigor. With the understanding that I’m not a hoard to be owned.”

My knees almost buckle with relief. “Oh thankgold!I thought you were going to say ‘no’. You are my hoard, Astrid. A hoard I don’t own the way I can own gold. You’re mine because youwantto be. It’s a frightening thought to be wanted, my love. To be loved by one’s hoard! Excuse me.” I lean on the trunk of the tree we just slid down. “It’s dizzying.”

“You own my heart,” she says easily as she takes my other hand. “Trust me on that. You absolutely own my heart, and you always will.”

“I will keep it always,” I assure her as I regain control of my knees. “That also reminds me. Do you have the stone I carved?”

She fights with her backpack and extracts the small, black sculpture. “It’s incredibly well done.”

I straighten. “Remember when we first met? I told you that you’d have to pay for the fruit I gave you.”

“I will never forget,” Astrid says. “Strangest day of my life. Well, actually… either this day or that one. No, I think today is weirder. And infinitely better. Sure, what about it?”

“It’s now time to pay. The payment isthat.” I point at the sculpture. “While I will still have you around me, I also want that to keep. To look at sometimes. The way one would at a picture of his one true love.”

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