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

  Relix hurled the light crystal against the wall hard enough to shatter it. Her snarl came soft and deadly.

  “Never. Again.” She closed her eyes. Her heart hardened. In the Five Talon Empire…

  Her hand touched her breast. Her memory shifted, slowly, back to the only time she had ever shown something close to affection. She could still remember the squealing groan as the airlock began to peel open. The cries of her harem. The feeling of Kellen pushing her to safety moments before the bulkhead slammed shut.

  She gritted her teeth, banishing the memory. Her hand tightened on her chest. The heart was for pumping blood .

  Nothing more.

  Chapter Three: Roll that Sense Motive Check

  The door to Merton’s room closed and, for the first time in what felt like several months, he could take a breath. He walked away from the door, let his shins hit the edge of the hovering bed that made up the center of the room, and flopped face first into the bed. He didn’t bend or fold. He just plopped there and remained perfectly still, his nose mashed against silken fabric.

  “So, uh...nice room,” Julia said, her voice shy and nervous.

  Merton rolled around onto his back and sat up. His hand went to his hair and brushed his fingers through, shoving his bangs back until he felt his scalp tug against his palm. He looked at Julia and pursed his lips.

  “We need to...” He shook his head. “Okay, no, we don’t need to talk.”

  “We don’t?” Julia asked.

  “Well, yes, we do,” Merton said. “But the phrase ‘we need to talk’ always sounds so fucking final.”

  Julia giggled. “We could, uh, say that we need to nose-nuzzle. But we’ll do it with our mouth-sounds!” She thrust her finger into the air. “Genius!”

  Merton snorted, quietly. “You’re being absurd to try and cheer me up. And damn you, it’s working.” He shook his fist at her.

  “I learned it by watching you!” she exclaimed, as if she was revealing a shocking truth. She flung herself onto the bed next to Merton. The hover-spells that kept it suspended in the air whirred underneath her impact and Merton reached down to pet her sprawl of blue hair. Her hair felt so silky. He wondered what it would have been like to pet Julia when Julia had been a Jules. He wondered if he could have pet her. He wasn’t gay. Well, okay, he was pretty sure he wasn’t gay. Or bisexual. But he loved Julia so much. Would that have let him override his physical feelings? He had no idea.

  The cat leaped onto the bed. But Merton wanted to focus on Julia right now. He shook his foot, hissing. The cat looked like he had been personally offended. With haughty condescension, he leaped off the bed, then walked out of the room. Didn’t run.

  Merton shook his head, slightly, then looked back to his girlfriend. “How do you like the new bod?”

  “Is there a word for orgasmic chocolate?” Julia mumbled into the bed, her head lifting slightly – just enough to press her scalp against Merton’s hand. “Cause this new body is like, ten times better than that.” She went quiet for a bit, her knees drawing up underneath her as she rolled onto her side. She was a tiny fetal position of adorable...and deep thoughts. Her expression looked like she was looking at something light years away.

  Merton remained quiet.

  “Do you know how many trans people are murdered every week?” she asked.

  “Too many,” Merton said.

  “And too many are killed by people they...well, they’re going out with,” she said, quietly.

  “I’d never -”

  Julia sat up, looking at him. “Yes.” She put her finger to her temple. “This knows it. This knows it.” She touched her chest, then, her finger pressing to her heart. “But, uh, Merton. You’re white. You’re rich. You don’t know how you learn stuff here .” She put her palm on her belly. “Do you know how many times I wrote out a full confession, late at night.” she looked down, her shoulders slumping. “B-But...”

  Merton nodded, slowly.

  “B-But you loved me and you thought I was pretty and for a few hours every day, when we were chatting, I could pretend that it was true...” Julia whispered, drawing her legs up against her chest as she leaned her chin against her knees. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I’m so fucking sorry, Merton. I-”

  Merton leaned down and kissed her. It was an awkward kiss – he had to put his finger on his chin and tilt her head backwards. Also, he had to be okay with tasting the warm salt of her tears. His tongue slipped into her mouth and felt the dainty sleekness of her own tongue. She didn’t kiss him back. At first. Instead, she simply sat there, her body buzzing like a tuning fork that had been struck a glancing blow by a railgun. Then she was kissing back, desperation and lust and something more exploding deep inside of her. Merton could feel it as his palms caressed along her shoulders, down the small of her back, dragging her onto his lap. Her limber legs closed around his back and she ground herself against him, the thin, filmy shorts that she wore feeling like less than nothing. He could feel her moistness. Her eagerness.

  She broke the kiss with a quiet gasp. “Holy crap, you are hung!”

  “I told you I measured it!” Merton said, grinning slightly.

  Julia leaned down and kissed him with a hunger that matched her previous fire and then exceeded it. Her hands grabbed at his shoulders and started to push desperately at his shirt, trying to peel it away. The smart clothes stubbornly refused to move – it felt like she was pressing against solid steel, save that it moved perfectly fine with Merton’s movements. He knew this because he was able to grab her butt and squeeze it without being constrained by his shirt.

  And good thing too.

  The four armed purple chick had done an amazing job on turning a middle-aged fat black dude into a slinky eighteen year old asian chick.

  Julia drew her mouth back and Merton panted quietly. “Okay, I think you could have lied about way more...” he murmured.

  “I’m not actually a succubus,” Julia said, grinning.

  “Dang!” Merton snapped his fingers.

  His hands went down to her shirt. Julia put her hands on his wrists, stopping him for a moment.

  “Just to check, you are okay if I nibble on your soul slightly?” she asked. “I mean, I’m asking for academic reasons. I’m not a succ-”

  Merton snapped his teeth at her playfully and Julia squeaked – but before he could literally rip her clothes off her and do in real life what he had lovingly described over IMs for the past few years, the door to his room irised open and the four armed purple chick dressed in the dominatrix outfit walked in. Her arms were crossed over her breasts and along her belly, and her expression was somewhere between focused and monomaniac. Julia looked at her. Merton looked at her. Then Merton looked at Julia.

  Julia shrugged, spreading her hands.

  “Why the heck are you here?” Merton asked – and mentally kicked himself for not asking her name.

  “I have been sent by the Princess Relix,” the purple skinned four armed chick said.

  “Why?” Julia asked.

  “I have been instructed, as the primer student of draconic biology and the headmistress of the biomorphic engine and the rest of the ship’s magitech systems, to perform several tasks that the Princess believes will be required for your continued cohabitation.” The purple-skinned woman snapped her upper left hand. “Remove yourself from his lap, Concubine Julia.”

  Julia pursed her lips, but shifted herself to the side. She thumped her butt into the bed, then grinned at Merton. “ Concubine Julia?”

  Merton chuckled, nervously. “I’m just glad that, uh, my wife is so understanding.”

  “Remove pants,” the purple skinned girl said, in a tone almost exactly like the Omicronian who wanted to cut Fry’s dick off in that episode of Futurama where it turned out human noses were used as an alien aphrodisiac and holy shit that was a bit of a fucking reach, Merton. But Merton couldn’t help it. She sounded exactly like that!

  “Well, I was gonna !” Merton said. Then, reme
mbering that the four armed purple skinned chick had control over his suit of magitech smart clothes (and he did not), he coughed and added: “How?”

  The four armed purple skinned chick sighed and rolled her eyes. “Right. Mage-Blind. I have programmed several command phrases in low draconic for your clothes. You simply need to say ruk’ghegh brantorash trikonan vorent va va lakresh maorkenintet k’grug-” she gnashed her teeth in a loud crashing sound, twice. That seemed to be the end of the sentence. Merton blinked at her.

  “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “Translated approximately into galactic common, it means: I wish to remove my clothing in an expedient means because I either desire the touch of a willing male or female or other, or I seek to clean myself, or I desire to use the restroom to relieve my aching bowels, or perhaps, I long to feel the wind on my scales, for nudity is pleasant.”

  Merton blinked again. “Dragons, uh, they kinda like covering all the bases, don’t they?”

  “It is considered rude to come to the point too quickly in Low Draconic. This is why most conversations use High Draconic or Galactic Common.” The four armed purple skinned chick gestured her lower-right hand. “Now. Come on. Remove pants.”

  Julia, meanwhile, had somehow managed to slip off the bed, get to a niche in the wall, figure out it was a food replicator, and got it to reproduce popcorn. She was chewing happily as she watched Merton with a slightly gleeful expression.

  Merton sighed, then said: “Can you reprogram it to follow my commands? Using my words?”

  The four armed purple skinned chick sighed a long, suffering sigh. “ Fine .” She tapped at her wrist – revealing a tiny gemstone that had been set in the skin. The gemstone flared and glowing magic arced outwards, stabbing into Merton’s temples. Merton’s eyes bugged and he felt like a pair of snakes had chomped down on his nuts and were dangling from between his legs. One leg kicked and his back knotted as he felt those snakes wriggle and start to set his balls swaying. Then he noticed the ice-knives digging into his brain.

  Through the haze of pain and discomfort, he felt the knives touching the bits of his brain that understood language, cause, effect. He focused as hard as he could – like he was trying to scream through a gag made of spikes. And to his shock, he felt the knives grow... curious . It was like they were waiting for just such a scream. And so, he started to program in code words. He wondered how far he could go.

  So…

  Merton went a bit nuts.

  Then the magic withdrew from his head and the four armed purple skinned chick nodded. “There. Does that function?” She asked, looking at him with a pursing of her lips.

  “Let me see...” Merton paused, then said. “Naked.”

  His clothes melted away like fog, leaving him completely bare. His cock, which had softened in the mental vice, twitched slightly. Then it started to harden as the purple skinned girl closed her fingers around it, her palm cupping the base as she started to stroke his member. Her hand pumped up and down and soon, Merton was hard as a rock. His eyes half closed as he tried to keep himself from moaning. But the four armed purple skinned chick had a way with her hands. She pursed her lips again, then scoffed.

  “Mediocre,” she said.

  “What!?” Merton squeaked. “It...he...what?”

  “He was scanning the horizon!” Julia shouted from the sidelines.

  “You will need to undergo rudimentary augmentation to please Princess Relix,” the purple skinned four arm chick said, pulling out a tablet from either her ass or some kind of dimensional pocket. She tapped at it with two of her hands, holding it with a third, her fourth still pumping Merton’s cock. “At least twice the length, a quarter the girth. Ridges. Possibly a mana-secreting glans keyed to proper lust-drugs. How do you feel about it being psi-selectable?” She paused. “Wait, damn, mage-blind.”

  Merton, whose cheeks were flaring with embarrassment and arousal, asked: “If me being mage-blind is such a handicap, why don’t you fix it?”

  The four armed purple skinned chick scoffed. “Fix it?” She shook her head, tucking her tablet away as she also let go of his cock – leaving Merton feeling tingly and anxious and irritable all at once. “Break every convention in the FTE? Mage-Blind races are made to be servants. The greatest of you can maybe, maybe , work hard enough that your children will be modded to have the mage genomics. If you die heroically.” She shook her head.

  “Then why did Relix marry me?” Merton snapped.

  “To keep the suitors off her ta-”

  “Like the suitors will give a damn if they know I-” Merton blinked. “No one else knows humans are mage-blind, do they?”

  The four armed purple skinned chick shook her head. “Oddly, there is a draconic fleet staged in your system’s Oort Cloud, despite the fact that your planetary data isn’t even logged. Humans are an unknown to all save the Manifold Caretakers, your nearest neighbors.” She shook her head slightly, looking thoughtful. “It’s almost as if humans dealt an embarrassing setback to the FTE and the Prismatic Emperor had it wiped from the records. Almost.”

  “Y-Yeah. Almost.” Merton coughed. His cock wilted slightly.

  Julia slowly set her popcorn down, her face growing more serious. “I think you need to make him non-mage blind, then,” she said.

  Merton looked at her, his cheeks flushing.

  “And be broken upon a singularity for it?” the four armed purple skinned chick asked, scoffing.

  “Then...then...” Julia blinked. “Well, I mean, obviously, no one can blame you for what a sneaky human does while you’re re-calibrating the duterium intake pipes.”

  “I do not know what you’re talking about,” the four armed purple skinned chick said, her brow furrowing.

  Julia put her hands over her face, then sighed. “Well, I mean, obviously , you’re not at fault if you put my biffer into the biomorphic modification tube thing, and then went to do your other super important jobs, and a sneaky human who definitely shouldn’t have been there messed with the program. They would be the one who broke the law, not you. You’d have loads of alibis. Why, I bet you could even have evidence putting the blame on anyone but yourself, since you control the security cameras.” She grinned. “Not that you’d do that , cause you’d hate to break a stupid law just because breaking it would vastly improve your Princess’ chances at getting through the next few months without getting married to a psychopathic red dragon who treats his underlings like cattle.”

  The purple skinned four arm chick looked thoughtful. “I believe that the...duterium intake pipes do need seeing too. Once I’ve set up the biomorphic engine, of course.”

  Julia grinned, then winked at Merton.

  Merton fought back the urge to pump his fist and shout: That’s my girlfriend!

  As the four armed purple skinned chick walked away, Merton took a moment to reach out, tug Julia close to him, and then kiss her. Hard. His tongue and hers met and played and he caressed her back. When he drew back for air, he felt light headed. “Julia, have I mentioned I love you and I need to get a What Would Julia Do wrist band?” he whispered between pants.

  “Yes, but you can stand to say it more often,” Julia said, grinning.

  “Any other way I can thank you?” Merton asked.

  “You could get me sick rad magic powers too. Duh-doy,” Julia whispered back.

  Merton bit his lip. A sudden worry flared in his belly. “I…” he paused. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I don’t...want to…”

  “Want to what?” Julia asked, narrowing her eyes in a kittenish kind of way.

  “I don’t want to stop being human ,” Merton admitted - the worries crystalizing into a single flash. He saw himself as some kind of immortal mage-god, ruling over mage blind humans, sneering at them as they groveled at his feet, desperate for his approval.

  “Oh, and humanity is defined entirely by weakness and sucking?” Julia rolled her eyes. “Being human is being Merton Miles . And if some magic and a stupidly hug
e genetically engineered dick suddenly makes you not Merton, then I don’t think Merton was all that special to begin with.” She smacked his butt. “Now go! Follow the dominatrix tech-priest slash Dabbler from Grrl Power combo! Immorality awaits!”

  “Wait, don’t you mean im mortal ity, not -”

  But then Julia was shoving him out the door.

  ***

  Carlos tossed the ball to the ground. It hit the floor, bounced up, hit the wall, rebounded, thumped into his palm. He sighed, then looked to the left. There was Merton’s Mom and Dad, chatting quietly about something rocket based. He looked to the right. There was Lisa, pacing back and forth, her face growing increasingly pissed off. And Lisa had resting ‘pissed off’ face that could melt steel. He looked backwards and saw Trevor laying on his back on the floor, looking up at the ceiling.