Scales Like Stars (Dragons...in...SPACE! Book 1) Read online

  Merton blinked slightly.

  Relix waved her hand. “Never fear. It is normal for people to have concubines. Why, I had twelve rather strapping orcs until recently,” she said, turning away from him, her tail lashing from side to side as she spoke.

  “What happened to them?” Julia asked, her brow furrowing.

  “Oh, they died,” Relix said, sounding distracted. “I need to make some arrangements.”

  And with that, she was off.

  “Did she mean to imply she killed them, or is she just really good at sounding evil by accident?” Julia asked.

  Merton sagged against the wall. “Honestly, at this point, either answer wouldn’t shock me.” He closed his eyes, groaning. “What the fuck else can go weird today?” He sighed again – then smiled as Julia nuzzled against him, hugging and licking him again.

  Okay. Maybe he could handle this.

  ***

  “You idiot !” Gimtesh snarled at Bex as the immense red dragon coiled on his pile of golden coins. Bex had, after the dinner party, murdered several of his more annoying house slaves to try and take the edge off his temper. It hadn’t worked. And so, now, he was sitting on a pile of gold, in his largest, most draconic form possible, and was sulking. Well. Gimtesh wasn’t about to let him just sulk . She stood before him, her hands on her hips, her eyes flashing as she continued her invective. “What were you thinking ?”

  “I was thinking that I was dealing with a mage-blind backwoods fool,” Bex snarled, his voice a bass rumble that buzzed through the entire room – it even set the coins to rattling. “And your intelligence operatives said that he would know nothing . And yet, when faced with a challenge, he singled out the only thing that could reveal the plot and have us all up before the Prismatic Thrones on charges of treason . I couldn’t say anything about lest I give a hint that that damn Thuwit might use to have us impaled for !”

  His voice had lifted to a roar then. His body started to move upwards. When a dragon – thirty foot from nose to tail – stood, it was a ponderous thing. Coins cascaded from his back and pattered between his claws like rain. His tail swept to the left and sent more coins scattering across the vast chamber’s floor. His eyes – each nearly as big as Gimtesh’s humanoid form – narrowed as he swung his head to the side, bringing his teeth and snout in-line with Gimtesh. It was meant to be intimidating.

  It was intimidating. Gimtesh forced herself to not gulp.

  “And I think that the old adage of the Black Dragons remains true: Garbage In. Garbage Out . I cannot spin victory out of lies and mud and dung and that was what your spy in the Castrovel household fed me...” Bex growled. “A general needs good information. And if you cannot provide good information, then why shouldn’t I…” his mouth opened. His teeth were very long.

  And very sharp.

  Gimtesh lifted her hands. “Well. Then. I suppose, since you cannot withdraw the egg...then you must simply win.”

  “But I don’t wanna be withdrawn!”

  The plaintive, youthful voice came from the egg itself. It had been wheeled into the room, to rest near the immense magical-focusing apertures that it required to maintain its special properties. Those apertures were normally hidden. Any dragon, any magos, who saw them would start to put the puzzle pieces together and start asking questions. Questions the Thresh household needed to keep buried, as deep as a voidsman corpse in a black hole.

  “ SILENCE !” Bex roared at the egg. A quiet whimper came from within the egg, which shivered and started to roll slightly away from the immense red. Bex swung his head back to face Gimtesh. “I shall win at this Dungeons and Dragons game. I will rip that meddling human’s throat out...” he looked at the egg. “And our little egg will hatch when I say it will...”

  The egg quivered in fear.

  Bex grinned. “And when it does, I shall be the one to take the throne.”

  ***

  Merton rubbed his temples as Lisa, Carlos, Trevor, and his parents all looked at him. Lisa looked pissed. Carlos looked scared. Trevor looked argumentative. Mom and Dad both looked genuinely concerned. He’d be watching Julia, but she felt like she’d need a crowbar to get her off his back, where she was cuddling against him. And since being held by her felt like the only good thing going for him right now, Merton was okay with this.

  “Let me get this straight,” Mom said, slowly. “If you don’t win this game against this...dragon...we’re all at his mercy?”

  “Basically,” Merton said.

  “Did anyone tell him you can’t win D&D? It has no win condition!” Lisa exclaimed.

  “Oh, that’s very clever!” Dad said, chuckling.

  “No it’s not!” Lisa snarled. “Listen, this guy sounds like an authoritarian dickhead. Do you know what authoritarian dickheads don’t do? Follow the letter of the law when a wily trickster tricks them. No! That’s when the rectal feeding tubes and rubber truncheons come out!”

  “I know, Lisa,” Merton said, rubbing his temples harder. “That’s why we’re not going to play D&D.”

  “What are you going to play, Apocalypse World?” Trevor asked, his voice snide. “Oh! I know! Traveller! Get him killed during chargen, that’ll work.”

  Carlos snickered. “Okay, I know you’re just joking, Trevor, but I am totally down for AW. Or Monsterhearts. Or Broken World! Or Spirit of 77!”

  “Those are all the same fucking game !” Trevor’s voice nearly became a shriek at the last word.

  Merton leaned back into Julia. She nuzzled his neck and whispered in his ear. “I give you permission to take credit for my idea.” She sounded amused. Her teeth gently nipped at his earlobe and Merton felt the many, complicated, confusing feelings that Julia kicked off in him roil around. On the one hand, he loved her. He had loved her since they had met online. But on the other hand, he wasn’t sure how to take the fact that, even after almost two years, she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him that she was trans.

  “I’m going to send him 4 th edition,” Merton said.

  “Are you insane ?” Lisa said. “4 th edition is like playing with fucking kid gloves! Babies can run in 4E and not get killed! Your Mom could play 4E and I once saw her lose a game of Life !”

  Mom sniffed, looking somewhat insulted.

  Merton grinned, slowly as he sprawled back into the comfortableness that was a snuggle from his girlfriend. “I never said it was 4 th edition D&D,” he said. “I’m going to send him the PDFs for the 4 th edition of Hackmaster .”

  Dead silence from his nerd friends. Pure confusion from his parents. And the tabby cat that had been ported up with them walked over to start nosing at his thigh, clearly wanting some kind of pets or treats or tummy rubs. Merton picked the cat up and started to pet his belly.

  “That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” Trevor said.

  “Merton, you’re a genius,” Lisa said.

  “Let's meet halfway,” Carlos suggested, his finger thrust into the air. “Idiot savant!”

  Merton lifted his hand, ticking the points off on the fingers. “Firstly, Hackmaster was written as a joke about how killer game-masters see the players as the enemy. It even explicitly makes fun of other game systems saying that roleplaying games aren’t competitive. It states that, to win, players get loads of gold and level up, while the GM wins by killing them. Secondly, Hackmaster is hugely complicated and written in the most obtuse manner possible – again, as a joke . It’ll take Bex the Bastard, what, two weeks just to get it translated, and a week after that to learn it, and a day to make a character. Thirdly, I can run it perfectly fairly and still end up killing his character with a goblin carrying a rusty pitchfork.”

  Lisa bit her lip.

  “Okay, I’ve never played Hackmaster,” Carlos said. “Why is it so complicated?”

  “The roll to determine how effective a critical hit is is an exploding one-dee-eight plus to hit armor class fifteen times negative one plus your base attack bonus plus the enemy AC, cross referenced on one of thre
e one to ten thousand result tables,” Julia said, casually. “And don’t even get me started on Charlatans.”

  “More like Best-a-tans,” Merton murmured, holding out his hand for a high five.

  “Damn straight.” Julia slapped his palm.

  Lisa rubbed her hands against her face, blowing out a slow sigh. “Hell of a gamble you’re running, Miles.”

  Merton sighed. “It’s either that or try and learn null-gravity fencing in a week and then beat a guy who can bend steel girders with his bare hands,” he said, sitting up slightly.

  Carlos nodded.

  “Trevor? What do you think of my plan?” Merton asked, looking at his third friend. Trevor was looking down at his hands. Then, slowly, he sighed.

  “Well,” he said. “It could be worse. You could be trying Starfinder.”

  “Oh come on!” Carlos exclaimed. “It’s not that bad, you sourpuss!”

  Trevor looked mulish and stubborn. But Carlos was ready to have none of it: “Its got magic, its got spaceships, its got a cool ass setting, its got sexy bug ladies, what more do you fucking want, you goddamn un-fun having realism stickler douche canoe.”

  The door to their palatial chambers opened before the debate could get into full swing and Thuwit entered, flanked by two heavily armed and armored humanoids. Their races were concealed by face covering helmets, and they had heavy swords and rifles and pistols and knives and other tools of destruction strapped everywhere on their bodies. Behind them was yet another figure. This one was red robed, with a conical hood that concealed most of his face, save for the insectoid mandibles that thrust from underneath the cowl. His eyes were compounded and bulged out past the eye-holes on the cone-hood. He wore a large, hissing backpack, with tubes running into his arms and wrists, which themselves were covered with thick leather and metal armor.

  In short, he looked like a space KKK bug-man.

  “Presenting Xa’cock, the seneschal to House Thresh,” Thuwit said. “Here to take the rules and regulations for the Dungeons and the Dragons.”

  “Of course,” Merton said, standing up. He snapped his fingers. Julia, playing the part of good concubine, hurried over and grabbed his laptop from his backpack, which had been yoinked to space with the rest of him. He held the laptop aloft. “Do you know how to transfer files from this? I’ve labeled them very specifically.”

  Xa’cock hissed. “How difficult can it be?” He sounded snide.

  Merton grinned slowly. “Of course.” He held the laptop out – and felt a twinge of fear. But he could live without a laptop. He could get a new one if they survived this.

  Xa’cock and Thuwit left.

  “Merton,” Julia asked, her voice dreamy. “Did you ever update from Vista?”

  “Never got around to it,” Merton murmured.

  This time Julia was the one who held her hand down-low for a high five.

  ***

  Relix bit down on her pillow and tried to imagine anyone but Merton’s handsome face as her tail slithered into her own sex. Her claws dug into the bed as her hips lifted and rocked with every motion. Her eyes closed tightly, and her tail-tip spread her cunt wide as the ridges along the upper edge of her tail bumped against her clit with every inch that slid into her. Her wings fanned outwards as she rolled her head back, gasping quietly. Her tongue lolled from her muzzle.

  She wasn’t just soaked.

  She was so fucking horny that she was positively dripping . Her juices sizzled along her thighs, skittering against scales that had become the fierce, furnace hot of a real mating urge . At that moment, her body felt her soul’s desire, and an instinct as ancient as dragon kind was kicking on. Some dragons, when they first learned to shift, got lost in wallowing in pleasure. Every noble house had one or two of such ilk: Dribbling mounds of barely controlled muscle. Nervous systems suspended in an amorphous ooze of flesh that had a few mouths to breathe and eat and drink with, tended to by a few mute slaves. The rest of their bodies? Riddled with drug-glands, pumping their bodies with whatever narcotic joy they had grown addicted too.

  That was why Relix never shapeshifted save for cold, hard, tactical reasons and that one time when she wanted the entire dozen of her orcish harem to fit in her at once.

  But there were instincts deeper than training.

  Needs more intense than the simple pleasure of being rutted by a dozen incredibly well hung green boys.

  The heat between her thighs, surrounding her tail, ratcheted up a few scales, drawing a ragged, needy keen from her as her tail slipped from her sex. She couldn’t control it anymore. It was thrust into the air, arching desperately. Presenting her puffy, inflamed cunt-lips to any who might see her. Here she was, a Princess, a direct descendant of the Prismatic Emperor himself, and she was going into heat over a few flirtatious words from a mage-blind monkey . But as much as her logical mind tried to sneer herself into calmness…

  She needed this.

  She buried her face into the pillows, whining and rocking her hips against an invisible cock. Her arm snaked out and she grabbed onto the com-crystal that rested on her night-stand. The cold stone filled her palm and then warmed with magic. The urge to call Thuwit and to have him bring her husband to her was overpowering. It burned on her tongue.

  She turned her head against the pillows. No. No! NO ! The thought thundered through her and she roared in displeasure, hurling the crystal away from her. It skittered along the floor as she tried to force her tail back into doing what she needed it to do. But the heat was growing too intense. Her claws dug into the mattress underneath the silksteel sheets. Her nose pressed into the downy fabric and she whuffed out hot, humid breaths that were tinged with the natural lightning that was her breath weapon. The whole room was beginning to hum with static as she felt every single droplet of her eagerness pattering along her thighs, dripping onto the bed. Her tail, merciless in its instincts, thrust upwards and let the painfully cool air of the room caress her needing sex.

  The temptation to call Merton...to have his cock…

  To be bred by him…

  “No!” She growled again. “I...didn’t...get...that... mage blind...” She rocked her hips with every word, the slight motion enough to send cascading fireworks through her eyes as her brain sparked with that intense need. “Monkey ...to be an actual husband . I needed a tool !” She roared in frustration and lust at the same time. Her back arched and she grabbed onto her headboard. Then her eyes fell upon the light crystal that was set on the other night-stand. It was sleek. Straight. Phallic.

  Her clawed hand grabbed onto it, clenching tightly enough to make it creak, and barely managed to get it underneath her quivering, twitching thighs before her knees folded and she sat on the bed. The crystal plunged into her sex. If she had been a weakling, like an elf or an orc or a dwarf, she might have felt pain. But a dragon’s sex was made of sterner stuff. Her thighs started to rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall as she felt the faux-cock plunge into her sex. It wasn’t enough . But it was close. Her eyes half closed and she let her mind wallow in the idea of Merton taking her.

  His delightfully endothermic body.

  His warm, soft, supple lips. Closing around her nipple.

  “Oh Merton!” she moaned. “Yes! Yes, fuck my hot scaled pussy, yes! Oh yes! Oh yes !”

  Her hips drove up and down with a sound not unlike a drum being played by a drummer whose conductor had just taken a hit of cocaine. Her lust addled brain felt a real cock between her thighs. She could feel Merton’s balls slapping her rump as he fucked her from behind. Then suddenly, the mental image shifted and he was above her. She was on her back and his fingers were lacing through her. That voice that had told such arresting tales, such funny jokes, was whispering in her ear.

  Relix…

  Just her name. Filled with real...tenderness.

  Relix shuddered and her back arched, her breasts bouncing in a perfect circle, her gleaming nipples drawing arcs in the air as her sex clenched on the light-crystal. The crystal itself
started to glow, its magical generator kicked on by the raw lust pouring through her body. Her tail writhed behind her and her wings fanned outwards as Relix’s jaw opened wide. Her tongue lolled from the side of her mouth and she panted heavily, her eyes drooping as she looked sightlessly at the window that spread behind her bed.

  There, with the starry void as a backdrop, the window acted as a mirror. And she saw herself as her eyes slowly ticked into focus as the mind-shattering orgasm faded from her body.

  Cock-drunk on a mage-blind male who wasn’t even there, dripping with arousal, tingling and buzzing with the after-effects of going into heat. Going into heat , because of Merton Miles , a man who had – according to himself – had no titles. No nobility. No kills. Nothing.