Air Dragon's Baby Read online

  Air Dragon’s Baby

  Scarlett Grove

  Juno Wells

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  About the Author

  Also by Scarlett Grove

  Copyright © 2016 by Scarlett Grove

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  1

  Sophia Castillo gripped the steering wheel of her transport vessel and squinted through her old Earth-style aviator sunglasses. The prairies swept out for miles in every direction. Herds of bison ran over the grassy flatlands beneath her.

  Becoming a transport vessel pilot wasn’t the absolute worst thing that could've happened to Sophia, but it definitely wasn't the best. All her life, Sophia had wanted to be a space pilot. She'd spent years honing her skills through her primary education and when it had come to be time to apply for the Space Academy, she was the best pilot she knew.

  Just thinking about the Space Academy made her grit her teeth with frustration as she flicked her finger across the holographic dashboard of her vessel, accelerating the ship to inadvisable speeds.

  She grinned as she zoomed past the galloping herds of buffalo and antelope. Then she pulled the wheel and twisted, turning her transport vessel into a spinning bullet that screamed through the sky.

  Her vessel approached the edge of the Rocky Mountains, and she slammed on the brakes, whipping upward at a ninety-degree angle into the noonday sky.

  Sophia let out a whoop of excitement as she accelerated towards space. Her transport vessel would only allow her to gain so much elevation before she had to level out. Coming up to the edge of the atmosphere would burn her and her vessel to ashes.

  She slowly descended across the mountains and was soon on the West Coast, where she landed her vessel in the massive docking bay of the freight supply company she worked for.

  She brought her vessel in for a landing and cut the engines before unstrapping herself from the pilot’s seat and stepping out of the exit hatch. The sunshine brought a smile to her face as she unzipped the neck of her flight jumpsuit, exposing her caramel tan skin.

  “What the fuck are you doing out there, Sophia?” one of the transport managers yelled as he looked into her cargo bay.

  Sophia stepped down the exit ramp with a swagger and smiled at the transport manager.

  “Just doing my job,” she said.

  “This freight is a mess!” the manager growled.

  “This stuff is sealed in unbreakable boxes. And it was strapped in.”

  “We've got hundreds of holocoms falling apart back here.”

  Sophia glanced around the side of the transport vessel into the cargo and saw the holocoms scattered across the floor. Didn't look that bad to her; she'd seen worse catastrophes in cargo bays. What was this guy complaining about?

  “If any of these are broken, we're docking your pay,” he grumbled. “You're lucky I don’t fire your insubordinate ass.”

  “I’m your best pilot,” she said, shrugging. “And you like my ass too much to fire me.”

  He grumbled and she chuckled as she walked away. Transport vessel jobs were a dime a dozen and she could easily get another one. But doing what she really wanted in life, that was another story. The Space Academy had called her “combative,” and had assessed that her personality simply did not meet their minimum requirements.

  Sophia left the transport company's docking bay, and got the first hover bus downtown. She didn't have a scheduled trip back to the East Coast until the day after tomorrow, so she figured she might as well enjoy herself while she was here. She walked into the nearest pub and took a seat at the bar, rapping her knuckles on the antique wood.

  “What can I get you today, Sophia?” asked the bartender, a middle-aged human with a receding hairline and a growing paunch.

  Sophia pulled her sunglasses off of her face and hooked them into the neck of her jumpsuit.

  “I'll take your best bourbon,” she said. “Straight up.”

  The bartender pulled the bottle of bourbon off the top shelf and poured her a shot. Sophia picked up the shot glass and swirled the brown liquid inside before raising it to her lips. She threw it back in one quick drink and then slammed the glass back down onto the bar. “Another.”

  The bartender poured her another shot and she threw it back as quickly as the first one. After that, and two more, she was feeling pretty damn good.

  It was a day to celebrate. She had reapplied to the Space Academy. This time she knew that her work history as a transport pilot would have a big influence on the Academy's decision. She was expecting word from them at any moment.

  Sophia was convinced that they would let her in this time. She had an excellent track record, until today, at least. She just hadn’t been able to resist pushing her vessel to the max. Why build these birds if you couldn't use them to fly? That's what Sophia always asked herself. She didn't understand why all the other pilots would deny themselves that fun, either.

  She pushed away from the bar and sauntered through the pub, listening to old world music on an ancient jukebox. It sounded like shit but was also kind of charming in a retro way. There were some burly humans playing pool at a holographic pool table. Nobody used actual old-world pool tables anymore. She went up to the guys and asked them if she could play the winner.

  The six-foot-two human males looked down at her and grinned at her five-foot-two petite frame, thinking that they could easily beat a tiny little woman like her. One of them had slicked back, black hair and held a cold cigar between his teeth. The other had short dreadlocks and a gap between his teeth.

  Sophia knew that they were in for a rude awakening. Her stature fooled guys like this every time, so that they never saw it coming when she took their money.

  Once the two men were done with their game, Sophia pulled her pool cue off the holographic rack and extended it into its full size with the flick of a button. Her competitor racked up the balls on the tabletop and offered her the break, so she positioned herself around the front of the holographic table, took aim at the white ball, and shot.

  The balls all ping-ponged across the table, and of her chosen balls - the stripes - three sank into three different holes. After a moment, a fourth striped ball slowly dropped into a fourth hole. The men looked down at her like she was the second coming of Jesus Christ himself.

  “All right, lucky shot,” she said.

  The guys crossed their arms and her competitor gritted his teeth as he glared at her.

  “You're a shark,” he demanded.

  “I've never played this game before in my life.”

  “Sure you haven’t, honey,” he said, slapping her on the back as he walked behind her.

  She bent over to take her next shot, and sunk her next striped ball without a problem. Her competitor continued to glare at her, as did his friend.

  She walked around the other side of the table and bent over. She wanted to take this guy’s money but she didn't want them to be pissed at her the entire time. Might as well let him have a turn. When she pulled back on her pool cue and shot, she purposefully made herself miss the striped ball she was a
iming at. It bounced off the side of the table and rolled into the center, where it clacked against a few other holographic balls.

  “Oh, how nice. She's letting me have a turn,” her competitor said dryly.

  “I told you, I’ve never played this game before.”

  He rolled his eyes and bent to take a shot, sinking a purple solid ball with ease. As he walked around the table and sank two more balls in just as many shots, she realized that her competitor was no slouch himself. He'd better miss soon, or she could lose this game.

  “I think you're the shark,” she said.

  “Maybe I am.”

  He continued shooting until he finally missed, and growled at himself. His friend slapped him on the back and called him a demeaning name.

  Sophia smiled at them and took her cue to the table. This time she wasn't going to hold back. She sank one striped ball after another until she finally hit the black ball into the corner pocket and won the game.

  “I believe we wagered twenty credits on this,” she reminded him.

  Her competitor shoved the credits at her and she took them with a smile. Some people just couldn't take losing. Especially to a woman. That just showed what douchebags they were. She congratulated herself as she approached the bar. She had twenty more dollars to spend on bourbon tonight.

  She rapped her knuckles on the bar again and the bartender poured her another shot.

  “Are you taking advantage of my customers again, Sophia?” the bartender asked.

  “Who? Those guys? I couldn't take advantage of them if I tried. They see a girl like me and all they think is I’m an easy mark all around. I'm doing a favor for every woman in the universe by kicking their asses.”

  “Maybe you are. You hear from the Academy yet?”

  “Not yet,” she said, right as her wrist holocom buzzed.

  She tapped the bracelet and it came to life across the fabric of her jumpsuit. She flicked on the screen to open the message she’d just received.

  “Dear Ms. Castillo, we regret to inform you that your application to the Space Academy has been denied. Previous applications for the Space Academy were taken into consideration and the board has determined that they will continue to uphold their previous assessments. Sincerely, Space Academy.”

  “Goddamnit,” Sophia growled, slamming her fist on the bar.

  “You didn't get in?” the bartender asked.

  “No,” she growled, hopping off the bar stool.

  She walked through the pub, listening to the old world music and feeling like she wanted to punch someone. The two dudes at the holographic pool table had moved on to playing some other sucker, and as she passed them she bumped her shoulder into the one she had played. He laughed at her, not taking it as the aggressive gesture that actually was. She sauntered to the other end of the room and plopped down in front of a TV screen playing the latest game of Draconian basketball.

  Thirty years ago the ancient race of Dragon shifter aliens had come to the planet Earth in search of brides. Because of a genetic abnormality, the Dragon shifters needed to replenish their X chromosome every five thousand years or females were slowly bred out of their population. The Earth was on a mating rotation, but the Draconians had arrived to find the culture of the planet vastly more advanced than they had expected it to be.

  That created a whole lot of problems for humans and Draconians. Those issues eventually led to the attack from their ancient enemy: the Mulgor, a race of lizard men. After the attack, the Draconians had helped to rebuild the planet.

  Now Draconians and humans had something of a symbiotic relationship, and most of the integrity of the planet had already been restored. Socially, life was pretty good for most humans. Including Sophia if she really thought about it.

  But she couldn't have what she really wanted: to go to space. Normal human civilians didn't get to go on trips through the wormhole to Draconia. And try as she might, the Space Academy would not take her on as a pilot. All she'd ever wanted was to pilot a spaceship and go on adventures around the universe. But she had been completely denied her dream.

  The show went to commercial break and an advertisement for the Draconian Mating Lottery came on the screen.

  “Find your fated mate today. Your trip to the stars is just a holocom click away,” the friendly female voice said as she smiled out from the TV screen.

  Sophia drunkenly pressed the button on her holocom bracelet to bring up the screen. She typed Draconian Mating Lottery into her browser and brought up the website.

  She quickly entered her information, feeling gleefully defiant. If she couldn't go to space as a pilot, maybe she could get some male Draconian to mate with her. She knew that those guys could pull strings, and maybe someday she would actually be able to pilot a ship like she wanted.

  Women had been getting men to do things for them since the beginning of time; why not let her Draconian mate do the same? She giggled to herself, coming up with her drunken plan. Finally, the mating lottery website asked for a sample of her DNA. Luckily she was able to give the global cloud system a sample through her holocom bracelet just by touching her fingertip to the button. It extracted the sample from her skin and sent the basic information to the global cloud system. It quickly analyzed her genetics and spit back out her perfect match.

  “Wow,” she said, not quite sure what she’d just done. “That was fast.”

  “You've been matched. Please report to your closest Draconian Consulate at your earliest convenience,” said the message that came up on her holocom screen.

  She hadn't expected to actually find a match so quickly. It had just been a silly drunken whim. She opened the link to her perfect match and read his profile.

  Elait Purr: Air Dragon Prince of Galaton.

  “Galaton?” she said under her breath.

  She had never heard of such a place so she did a little further investigation online and found that Galaton was an ancient Draconian colony in the Draconian galaxy. They had a very different culture from the Draconians that she and most other humans knew.

  She kept reading about her mate, learning more about who he was, and soon found out that Galaton was divided into four districts by the four different elements: fire, air, water, and earth. Each district was ruled by a dragon prince, and each prince represented an element.

  The dragons had terraformed the planet Galaton to conform to their elemental determination. Unlike the Draconians from Draconia, they were aristocratic and had a strictly upheld hierarchy. The four princes of Galaton had been part of the royal lineages for hundreds of thousands of years. Maybe even millions. Every time the lower level aristocrats tried to overthrow their leaders at the end of the female genetic era, the princes’ families had managed to rise back to the top, proving that they really were the royal blood of Galaton.

  “Holy shit, I nabbed me a prince,” she said drunkenly.

  “What?” the pool shark asked, walking over where she sat at the couch.

  “I just got matched up with a dragon prince from Galaton, boys!” she slurred. “How do you like that for lucky?”

  2

  When Elait, Air Prince of Galaton, finally received the message that his mate had been identified, he could barely contain his excitement.

  He strode out onto the balcony of his Crystal Palace and looked out at the Air Lands below. His castle was built on the highest mountain peak in all of Galaton. Below the tower of crystal that was his home, the snow-covered mountain descended into the void. Around him, the air was turning with an oncoming storm.

  Elait flicked the wrist of his tight-fitting blue uniform, bringing up his holocom. He clicked on the picture of his new mate. He saw a tiny, curvy human female with flowing brown hair and caramel skin. She had eyes that slanted up slightly at the corners, and a sly smile that melted his heart. He quickly read her profile, learning that she was a transport pilot on Earth and had dreams of traveling to space. The rest of the profile was largely unintelligible.

  Just looking
at her, he felt his heart swell and his inner dragon rumble. He flicked off his holocom screen and tried not to think about her. He could not afford to be infatuated with his bride just yet, or it would bring on his mating thrall.

  Since the last female had died several years ago, the male dragons of Galaton had been rising against their princes. It was a common thread on Galaton. Every five thousand years, when the X chromosome finally died off among their people, the lower level aristocrats tried to overthrow their princes.

  Elait had sent his semen sample to Earth many long months ago, along with the other Galatonian princes, in an effort to secure his bride without leaving their lands alone at such a turbulent time - but they also dared not risk the mating thrall.

  Since the Draconians had allowed Galaton into the mating lottery, the princes had devised a plan to safely bring the brides to Galaton. They’d send their semen on a faster than light-speed transport craft to Draconia and then through the wormhole to Earth. The tiny transport craft could fly faster than any living creature could with their technology.

  Elait was overjoyed that his beautiful mate had been located. The fates had brought them together, finally, after all these years alone. The girl was only twenty-six, but Elait was over a hundred and twenty.

  He had been waiting for her for decades, and now he had an image of her face. The tiny, petite human would come to him and bear his son: the heir to the Throne of Air.

  According to their plan, his mate would be artificially inseminated with his seed before leaving Earth, and she would then spend the next twelve months travelling to him, arriving with his baby in her arms.

  Yet, Elait knew that he had to put her out of his mind until then. Every thought of her, every impression of her, made his mating impulse begin to stir. If he left the impulse unchecked, it would eventually drive him mad.

  The princes discovered that if the bride was impregnated before leaving Earth, starting the mating bond, it would alleviate the sharpest edges of the thrall.