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IN THE COURTYARD OF the star-shaped harem, a life-size statue belched flames and perfumed the air with the fragrance of sulfur. T’mar strode around it, hoping no one had seen him walk in through the servants’ arm.
Maybe this time will be different.
As he entered A’riel’s private space, she sprang to her feet. The surprise and pleasure on her face needled him with guilt. He’d neglected her. All of them.
“May I serve you, Your Highness? Would you care for a drink?” His first and favorite concubine smiled, happy to be of service, and hurried to a bar. In demiforma, she moved the way she flew, gracefully, her shortened tail swishing. Beneath the transparent orange drape she wore, grayish-green scales shimmered. The intelligent, ochre eyes of a hunter glowed in a beautiful face framed by a spiked neck frill and a horned forehead.
One of the most attractive and sexually accomplished dragonesses in all of Draco was ready and willing to service him, and he felt...nothing. If anything, a greater numbness spread through him. The failure to arouse his desire wasn’t her fault. None of the others could stir him, either. It had been this way for months. Months amounted to a mere blink in time, but for a randy prince accustomed to daily carnal calisthenics—often multiple times a day—it was disturbing.
The problem went deeper than a lack of desire. An unshakeable ennui gripped him, resulting in a loss of interest in pursuits he’d once enjoyed, like hunting, flying, treasure-seeking, and fire sports.
A’riel handed him a drink, and he took a sip, letting the spicy liquid slide down his throat. What do I want? He asked himself that question often. The answer never came to him.
There was no lack of matters of import to keep him occupied. Draco’s molten core was dying, and soon the entire population would be forced to relocate to Elementa. As King K’rah’s eldest son, he’d been tasked to lead the transition and oust the human squatters. Why his father had backed off just exterminating the pestilence, he couldn’t be sure, but he had a hunch it could be traced to the human his younger brother Prince K’ev had taken as his mate.
He couldn’t imagine anything worse than sexual congress with a human. His brother appeared happy with the creature, but he knew the king accepted her only on sufferance and rued the day he’d suggested Earth officials dispatch a consort to Draco to demonstrate their goodwill. It was incomprehensible his father would entertain such a proposition. No one despised humans more than the king.
Although T’mar placed a close second. He hated to wish misfortune upon his brother, but he thanked the sacred fyre K’ev had been the one ordered to take the human and not him.
Once mated, a couple bonded for life, but beforehand, dragons could acquire many concubines. Of eight siblings born to the king and queen, only he and K’ev had remained unmated, but T’mar was the oldest. It could have been me. He shuddered. Instead, his youngest sibling had taken the hit—and ended up mated to the human. How was that possible? Humans had no fyre.
“You seem distracted, Your Highness.” A’riel peered at him with concern. “Is everything all right?”
Once A’riel had been his confidant, but about the time the ennui had gripped him, he’d found himself loath to share his thoughts with her. Besides, although he couldn’t fathom what had prompted the king’s irrational decision or K’ev’s reaction to it, he would not speak ill of them in front of a concubine regardless of how long or well she’d served him.
“I met with our volcanologists.” He offered a serious but safe explanation for his distraction. “The core of Draco is cooling faster than projected. We’re going to have to move up the timetable of the relocation.” The once-mighty Lavos had been reduced to a sliver of a river, its lava stream thinning and cooling. Craggy black rock now replaced the lava flows. Eruptions decreased every year as volcanoes went extinct. Fewer fumaroles spewed volcanic gases, eliminating the atmospheric vog that once had created glorious star sets. Colors had become faded.
His planet looked the way he felt. Muted.
He sank onto a gilded marble bench. Curling her tail around her, Ariel sat at his feet. “How soon?” she asked.
“Within decades,” he said grimly.
“I thought we had many millennia left,” she gasped.
“So did I. And perhaps we might have a few centuries, but that’s still not much time to establish cities and a new temple for the Eternal Fyre and relocate our entire population.” He scratched a horn on his forehead. “It’s a logistical nightmare. The process can’t begin too soon.”
“Why isn’t Prince K’ev handling it?”
“I had expected him to be the king’s choice to lead the transition since he has visited Elementa the most. However, since mating with Princess Rhianna he has been preoccupied.” Referring to a human as princess left a nasty taste in his mouth, but he had to maintain the façade of acceptance—another incomprehensible edict. Whenever the king spoke of Rhianna, he exuded the reek of disapproval. It made no sense he would order that no one criticize her.
“Yes, the human.” A’riel’s sneer and sour exudation, a direct disobedience to the king’s command, required correction, but there was no one to hear her slight, and T’mar shared her opinion. He caressed the frill framing her face, with fondness but no heat.
She purred against his hand, reminding him again that months had passed since he’d availed himself of her or his other two concubines. Did each assume he visited one of the others when he wasn’t with her? The concubines could become quite jealous of each other, and once they’d suffered burns when an argument ended in a fireball-spitting match.
That’s why he’d had the harem constructed in a star shape. Five wings extended off a pentagon courtyard, giving each female private space. His three concubines occupied three of the arms, a fourth arm awaited the addition of another female, and the fifth was used by servants.
A’riel peered up at him, hope and desire glinting in her eyes. The spicy scent of her arousal wafted to his nose, but once again, it failed to stir him in the slightest. What is wrong with me? There isn’t a male on Draco who wouldn’t trade places to enjoy the favors of the three most beautiful, sexually adept females on the planet.
He needed to leave before an awkward situation turned humiliating.
“Begging your pardon, Your Highness.” A royal page stood poised outside the open chamber. He bowed. “His Majesty King K’rah Qatin requires your presence in the Great Hall.”
“Now?” The speed with which he disengaged from A’riel testified to the seriousness of his affliction. One dreaded a summons from the mercurial firebrand king. One did not leap up with alacrity.
“Yes, Your Highness.” The page thumped his chest, bowed again, and departed.
“I’m sorry, A’riel. Don’t wait for me. This could take a long while.” Unlikely since his father’s temper and concentration ran short, but T’mar wouldn’t be back.
She stood. “It’s me, isn’t it? I fail to please you.” A bloody tear trickled from her eye down her cheek.
“No, don’t do that. Don’t cry.” He wiped away the drop before it could singe her skin. When a dragon cried, the blood-tears scarred. “I’m sorry, A’riel.” I’m sorry I can’t be what you need. What I was.
She shook her head. “Perhaps you have met another. Your mate.”
“No.” More than ever, he despaired of finding that one dragoness who would dance with his fyre. His parents and seven siblings had all mated before they turned three hundred. He was 435. K’ev, the youngest at 215, was mated but to a human, so maybe he didn’t count.
“Perhaps you prefer to dispatch me from service?”
“Not unless you desire to be released.”
“Is that what you wish?”
“No. I am giving you the option.” The numbness would have to wear off, wouldn’t it? And then he would want her.
“Then I opt to remain in the harem.”
“I’m glad.” A sickly sweet odor of a falsehood seeped from his pores, and he could smell his own lie. He had the oddest compunction to dispatch all his concubines. He stepped out of range before she could smell it.
“I have to go. I must not keep the king waiting.” It didn’t matter if you were his offspring; the monarch wouldn’t hesitate to singe your scales. A year of his youth had been spent in the dungeon after a prank had ignited the king’s pique.
Attempting to reassure him, she said, “It’s a short flight. You have plenty of time.”
Except—he couldn’t fly. He couldn’t shift. His dragon had stopped speaking to him.
He exited his chamber, realizing he should have released her from service. It would have been kinder in the long run.
* * * *
A THIN VOG TINTED THE morning sky a pale pink as T’mar sprinted toward the king’s palace. Away from the harem, the summons seemed less like a reprieve and more like an imperilment. Only two individuals dealt with the mercurial monarch with any sanguinity—the queen, for whom the king had a soft spot, and the priestess of the Temple of the Eternal Fyre, the oldest and most powerful dragon in existence.
He would be late. He could have flown in a tenth of the time it took to arrive on foot. It couldn’t be a coincidence his talkative dragon had fallen silent at the same time the ennui had crept upon him. By now, the creature should have been desperate to be released from confinement. Because dragons occupied a lot of space, over the eons they had evolved to shift into demiforma. The half-dragon, half-biped state enabled space travel, the construction of palaces, temples and other buildings, and the formation of alliances with the galactic community—although the quick deterioration of the treaty with Earth had demonstrated the potential pitfalls of the latter.
However, one could remain in demiforma only so long. The dragon eventually needed to be freed and would force a shift if necessary. So, why wouldn’t the dragon shift?
Are you there? Speak to me. He tried to coax a response.
Silence.
Don’t you want to fly? Throw a fireball?
Silence.
Why are you acting like this? Why won’t you speak? Why won’t you shift? Talk to me!
He and the dragon were two minds, one fyre. Disconnection from his other self left him feeling half alive. Why had he gone quiet?
I want our mate. You are keeping me from her. The growled accusation reverberated through T’mar, and he tripped over his own feet. Relief washed over him; however, so did resentment at the silent treatment. He kept a grip on his anger to discover what had been bothering the dragon.
You mean A’riel? he guessed.
Not her!
One of the others?
Silence.
Who? Where is she? Could he have failed to recognize his mate? He hadn’t felt so much as a flicker to signal that any of the dragonesses he’d encountered was their mate.
When you find her, I will know her.
So, we haven’t met her yet.
She is coming. I feel it. But you will not accept her.
I would never repudiate our mate.
I will scare her. You will reject her, and she will never be ours. I am sad.
I won’t let that happen.
You cannot prevent it. We are what we are.
And what is that?
Dragon.
* * * *
THE KING’S CAPE FLARED as he paced the Great Hall. Flanking the vacant throne, two guards stood at the ready. As T’mar entered, puffs of smoke steamed from his father’s nostrils. Even in demiforma, the king appeared more dragon than man. “You’re late. Did you mistake my summons for a suggestion?”
He dropped to his knees and bowed his head. “No, Your Majesty. My apologies.”
“It should not have taken you so long to fly here.”
Letting his father assume he’d dallied could be hazardous. Admitting the truth could be worse. But the king could sniff out a lie a mile off, so T’mar chose truth.
“I walked.”
“Why?”
He’d told no one of his inability to shift, and no way could he share the shameful secret with his father of all people.
“Never mind!” the king snapped. “Stand up so I can talk to you.”
His father stood a head shorter than him, but he was muscular, powerfully built—and had a killer instinct. Had he not inherited the kingdom, he would have been a formidable warrior. K’rah circled him, giving him the once-over. “I command you to shift.”
To confess he’d lost control of his dragon would render him weak in the eyes of the king, and there would be no redemption. “Your Majesty, I, uh—there isn’t enough room in the hall...”
“Into a man.”
“Excuse me?”
“Show me your man form.”
Before he could formulate a response, his bones cracked and reshaped. His horns and frill receded, his snout shortened into a flat face, and his tail retracted. Scales sloughed off leaving smooth, vulnerable epidermis. His gray intelligent jumpsuit retrofitted around his new body shape. T’mar flexed fingers now tipped by short nails rather than claws.
He hated this form.
Still, he was grateful he hadn’t had to confess his secret, but why had the dragon so readily complied? Because everyone obeyed the king, he realized—even his stubborn dragon.
I am not stubborn!
Sourness oozed off the king as he conducted an inspection. The hairs on T’mar’s now-vulnerable nape stood up as his father strode out of sight behind him. One had to see a fireball to dodge it.
Finally, the king stood in front of him. His nostrils flared, emitting smoke and flame. “Sacred fyre, you’re ugly.”
We are not ugly!
Quiet. He might hear you. It was rare to hear another’s dragon, with the exception of one’s mate. But who knew what powers the king commanded?
“I’m betting the human won’t think so,” the king said.
“The...human?” Dread pervaded his bones.
“Your new concubine.”
“Father, no—”
The king’s eyes flashed a dangerous red, but T’mar couldn’t let this go. “Your Majesty, with all due respect, I cannot take a human consort.” The idea horrified him. “Prince K’ev—”
“Has made it work—unfortunately well, as it turns out.” The entire hall reeked with the sour odor emanating from the monarch.
“Then, isn’t that enough?” he argued. Why would his father order this? It was obvious he didn’t want another son to take a human concubine.
“You would dare to question your king? I rule Draco, no one else. A ship leaves at star rise for Elementa. Be on it.” He spun around and stalked from the Great Hall. His guards followed. The heavy door to the inner sanctum slammed shut.
T’mar couldn’t have been more stunned. It wasn’t until he squeezed his hands into fists that he realized he’d shifted back to demiforma.
Well, have you nothing to say about this? he asked.
But the dragon had retreated into silence again.
