Page 22 of Captured By the Dragon Warlord (Fated Mates of the Sarkarnii Warlords #2)

D exx’s purr is like some sort of drug. I can’t keep my eyes open. Admittedly he’s just put me through my sexual paces and done things with my body which probably shouldn’t be possible.

Even so, I can’t believe how much his purr makes me want to close my eyes and drift off in this warm water with an even warmer, muscular body underneath me, holding me up like a precious parcel. All of this is a far cry from the growly warlord I first met.

I doubt very much I have tamed Dexx. I wouldn’t want to. All I wanted was for him to see me for what I am. Not a chattel to be passed around, not a way to fix his crew, but for me.

I don’t know if it has worked, but I can’t believe the Dexx of yesterday would be purring for me in a bath today.

Turns out sex solves most things.

I ache, both inside and out. His removal of my coil was most definitely a surprise, although it hadn’t even occurred to me he might find it up there until I saw the T shape on his tongue.

It’s certainly not up there anymore.

As we stay in the water, my body eases and Dexx’s purring helps considerably. Plus, my skin feels silky smooth, not weird and wrinkly.

“Do you put anything in the bath water?” I ask, ignoring the slurring of my words due to all the pleasure I’m feeling right now. “It feels good.”

“It has additional minerals for our scales,” Dexx says. “We have to spend much of our time shifted and in a dirty environment. A good warrior keeps his scales clean,” he says, almost as if repeating something he’s heard time and again.

“It’s different to the water…on the other ship.” I avoid using Darax’s name.

“Ours is better,” Dexx growls.

Back to normal then.

“We have many by-products of the mining we do for the gygement, the star fuel, and these minerals which dissolve in our aquium are one of them,” Dexx says. “It helps with our shed too.”

“Shed?”

“Our skin. Since the wormhole, we need to shed more often.”

I finally get what he’s talking about. He needs to shed his skin like a lizard. I am not entirely sure how I feel about it either.

“Do you…shed in your current form or your Sarkarnii form?” I ask tentatively.

Dexx barks out a laugh. It’s so unexpected I lift up from his body to look at him.

“You have seen a Sarkarnii,” he says, a lopsided smile on his face. “Can you imagine having to deal with a shed from multiple Sarkarnii? We’d never recycle it all.” He rumbles something which might be a chuckle.

Dexx is having a laugh at my expense.

It warms my heart in a way I didn’t think was possible. My huge, dark, dangerous dragon finds something funny. He finds me funny.

“I’m pleased about that. I didn’t want to imagine what a shed skin from a Sarkarnii looked like.”

Dexx dips his head into my neck and nibbles at my skin, sending heat running through me.

“When my time comes, will you help me with my shed?” he asks.

I guess shedding your skin is probably a pretty intimate thing to do, something you don’t always share. It is part of him letting me in, letting me have some control.

I appreciate it, even if I’m not entirely sure about it.

“Yes, Dexx, I will help you.”

The purr returns with a vengeance, and I let it wash over me, like the water, like everything which has happened to me. I let the moment do what it must do.

And when I wake, I find I’m alone again, covered in a blanket in the bottom of the pit. There is no Dexx and no more purr. But I don’t feel lonely.

I feel like everything is right, for the first time in a long time, possibly even before I was abducted from Earth. I am centered. I might not know what the future holds but it has potential.

I crawl out of the pit and find my comm device. There’s a whole load of messages waiting for me, mostly trying to get a response. Some of them are lewd, the ones from Maggie anyway. Not a surprise.

I send a quick reply saying I’m okay and I’m going to ask Dexx about coming to visit soon before I use the bathroom and come back in to get dressed.

My shredded clothes are where Dexx left them, and I find myself smiling and my cheeks warming as I pick them up, shoving the ruined fabric into one of the many hidden drawers.

I don’t have a watch anymore (because: alien abduction) and I’ve found I don’t miss it, but if Dexx has to spend twelve hours in his Sarkarnii form, I would like to know when that is. After all, he’s currently missing from here, so I won’t bother going looking for him if he’s in the mines.

Otherwise, I will most definitely go looking for him. I’m dying to explore another Sarkarnii ship again, especially as this one is different to Darax’s and somewhere there is an opening into the bowels of Vorostor.

What can I say, I’m nosy!

I approach the doors to Dexx’s quarters and get a small fright as they snap open at my approach. I guess it must mean Dexx trusts me not to run.

Perhaps the rules go both ways.