Page 6 of Fated to the Dragon Warlord

I become acutely aware of how the shrimp alien ended up as barbecue. Somehow, and I’m not sure I want to know how, this creature can make fire and smoke within him.

I feel my spine creep, but I can’t back down now. If I challenge him, I challenge him, and if I end up like the shrimp, so be it.

He pushes away from the wall, and in a lightening move I wasn’t expecting from a male as large as he is, Darax has my wrist in one hand and has clipped a glowing chain around it.

“What the fuck?” I grab at the chain and pull.

It doesn’t budge.

“I told you, you belong to me,” Darax says, somewhat smugly. “And the spoils are always mine.”

He gives the chain a shake, causing my arm to jerk.

“Then you’re an arsehole,” I retort.

Darax cocks his head on one side, his long hair parting enough I get to see some of his face. He has a strong jaw, high, prominent cheekbones, and a set of fangs set into a grimace as he contemplates my response.

“I am not justanarsehole. I amthearsehole,” he says. “As all the pirates, particularly this group of Bloar, can attest.”

He leans into me again, so close I can smell the smoke on his breath and see the white tips of his teeth, pointed and dangerous.

“They attempted to cross the Sarkarnii. We own this galaxy, and no one betters us,” he snarls. “They will pay for their transgression.”

He pauses, as if listening to an inner voice, before turning away from me to look at the gaggle of other Sarkarnii.

“It’s time to leave. Dante says this place is rigged to blow.” He taps at his ear, a small silver clip on it blinks slightly. “Nev him.”

I don’t get to say anything else as I’m dragged down the passage and to the airlock, which is open, into another ship. Darax pays little attention to me as he tows me on board what I assume is his ship, theSilver Star.

“We need to leave, now!” Darax roars at the rest of his crew. “Back to Vorostor. I have a fight to pick with a certain Sarkarnii warlord, and it isn’t going to be pretty.”

He drags me down a wide corridor, clean, almost clinical looking compared to the space scum bucket ’ve been used to, before a door slides open, and I’m shoved inside.

“Make yourself comfortable in my quarters, little snack.” He grins at me, hooking the chain onto a glowing point on the wall. “I’ll be back to deal with you later.”

“Wait,” I call out as he turns with a flick of his long tail.

He looks back over his shoulder.

“My friend…she accidentally fired herself out of the ship in an escape pod. She’s not going to end up toast, is she?”

He lifts his shoulders, then drops them. “Unknown. If she has any luck at all, it’ll have taken her to the nearest habitable planet.”

“Which is?”

“Vorostor, our home base.” He growls.

Something tells me Rosalie isn’t going to be any safer there than I am.

DARAX

Breathing is difficult. Not only because my accelerant sacs are full but because something akin to lava is filling my veins.

It makes my hips want to twitch. It sets my skin on fire, making my hide, already itchy from the need to shed, feel like I want to rip it from my body.

Yet, the scent of the strange, scaleless female becalms me. She might be attempting to hide what she is under a layer of filth and clothing which should be consigned to the waste chute, but she is most definitely female.

And she smells like she’s been sent by the ancestors.

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