Page 3 of Possessed by the Dragon Alien (Zarux Dragon Brides #6)
TWO
Madrian always watched his planet as if he expected it to betray him.
He had long ago abandoned the notion of home, yet Madrian’s chest still gave a twitch—something like nostalgia, something like dread—when Central came into view.
It was a stone in the ocean of black space.
The glassy flash of the city’s dome, with its intricate web of defenses, was welcoming to no one, not even those who’d created it.
Even from high orbit, the glinting veins of the Tower District splayed outward like a monarch’s crown, every inch a monument to precision, order, and ultimate authority.
The shuttle’s crystal viewport was pitted with ion scars, but his silver gaze dismissed them as the world came into focus: a chained blue orb with a corona of city lights, ringed by the Axis defense satellites like bright, indifferent stones.
Past the towers lay the gardens, which came into view as his vessel approached the landing bay.
There had to be a million genetically altered trees and plants orchestrated into curving lanes and fractal groves.
Not for pleasure, of course, but for ceremonial function—so the air was always optimal, so the ground-level delegates always had somewhere photogenic to pace while calculating their next betrayal.
Madrian observed it all without affect. He knew the names of every species from the manifest, but only walked the paths when he had to engage in a private conversation or think through a problem with no obvious solution.
Never for pleasure. He didn’t even understand what pleasure was, exactly.
His gaze traced the spirals of the irrigation paths, the shifting shimmer of the central fountain, and noted what arborists had neglected in his absence and which patterns had been altered to reflect current political winds.
The gardens were a living document, revised with every coup or alliance.
Each specimen was a prize taken from one conquered world or another.
He found them, at least, honest in that way.
“Estimated touchdown in two piks , High Chancellor,” the pilot’s voice said over the comm.
“Proceed,” Madrian replied, each syllable distilled to maximum economy.
He kept his wings furled, spine rigid, hands clasped behind his back.
Even in private, Madrian did not permit himself the luxuries of comfort.
Beyond the glass, the docking bay’s mag clamps aligned with the ship’s undercarriage.
The shuttle shuddered as it docked and the interior lit up with a pale white light that slid across Madrian’s blue-scaled hands and the black fabric of his uniform.
He grimaced thinking about what would be waiting for him as the hatch opened. The council’s senior aides would be clustered at the foot of the boarding ramp, bowing with the grace of dancers and the menace of saboteurs.
He imagined bypassing them all and letting his wings get some much-needed exercise—he was, after all, built for flight—but the protocols of the Axis were as smothering and inescapable as the gravity that bound him here.
The hatch opened and sure enough, a gathering of aides stood waiting.
They were from a variety of species and worlds, but they were all the same in some regards—all of them were ruthless, cruel, and consumed by greed.
Just as Madrian was. Well, not the greed part.
He required almost nothing and the things he did acquire failed to bring him any joy.
He did not wait for the hatch to finish dilating. He slipped through with a serpentine grace that hard training had earned him, his coat sweeping behind him. He dismissed the aides with a flick of his hand. “Go. I require seclusion for the remainder of the cycle.”
The aides scattered, and for a moment Madrian enjoyed the silence. One presence remained—his flight aide, a pale, slithery creature called Velec, who trailed behind with the devotion of a shadow.
“High Chancellor,” Velec murmured, head bowed. “The morning’s transmissions and updates. Shall I report now?”
Madrian glanced at the data tab clutched in Velec’s spindly hands. “Route all critical summaries to my quarters. Delegate the rest. If any new messages are marked ‘urgent’ by the Twelve, you may disturb me. Once. Not twice.”
“Yes, Chancellor.” Velec pivoted like a frightened eel and vanished down the corridor.
Velec had served him for over two hundred cycles, but they were not friends. Madrian did not have friends. The last one had died—by his order, he reminded himself. But then again, one who was plotting to kill him for his position on the council was hardly a friend at all.
The walk to his private level was precisely five point three piks .
At the entrance to his quarters, the biometric reader chirped, scanned his scales, and opened the door to admit him.
Inside, the air was held at optimal Zaruxian body temperature.
No sound, no scent but the distant, metallic tang of nutrient gels.
Every surface in the suite was gleaming, uncluttered, and ordered in degrees of shade.
He sat at his desk, the single chair facing a dark screen wall was customized to accommodate his massive wings.
The screen winked to life, casting a pale glow across his features.
His gaze moved over the reports as he took in a review of the cycle’s transmissions.
A civilian rebellion on the mining colony in sector eight.
Cargo manifests altered by five decimal points on station twelve.
Two high-level Axis officials requesting— demanding —an audience with him.
He frowned as he took in what he already knew—Axis forces were stretched too thin, over too large of an area.
They were maintaining control by hiding this fact.
By using propaganda and stamping out dissent where it was easiest, then broadcasting those as “victories.” By amassing ships and mechs in places where they’d be seen by many, to give the impression of overwhelming force, but it was an illusion.
Uprisings weren’t decreasing, there were more of them every cycle. It was as if systems could somehow sense that underneath the big show, the Axis was weak, fractured, rife with infighting.
He would handle the current demands on him as he always did, with cold efficiency and expediency. That was all that was expected of him.
An aide’s voice came through his comm, tinny and deferential. “Your meal, Chancellor.”
“Leave it,” Madrian said. The tray would be deposited in his dining space through the servant entrance without further interaction.
He scrolled further through the reports, scanning and synthesizing. He did not pause, not even when one of the requests pinged red. Flagged urgent, Axis Authority, Level 2. He tabbed it open, his eyes narrowing while his other hand flicked authorization codes for the routine transmissions.
“High Chancellor Madrian,” the message began, the voice scraped and battered by distance.
“We have concluded pacification of Orbitary Station 14. The last of the resistance has been… processed. Remaining provisions are insufficient to sustain the survivors through the next ration cycle. Requesting guidance.”
He flicked the voice channel open. “Begin minimum ration protocol. Schedule transfer of personnel to maintenance assignments at closest Axis manufacturing node. If they resist, cull by ten percent.”
“Understood, Chancellor.”
He closed the line. Something in his jaw twitched, the smallest of betrayals, quickly set right.
He reviewed the feed again to ensure no detail escaped him, then, satisfied, rose from his desk and crossed to his spacious dining area.
A large table sat near the wall of windows with a single, backless chair.
He absently ran his fingers along the table’s edge, then disengaged the lid of the large tray that sat before the chair.
The chefs had created a dramatic arrangement: raw strips of gakafish , exactly forty-six grams, arranged with geometric precision beside a mound of salted starch bulbs and a delicate coil of blue-green vine, hydro-grown and hand-picked by the best geneticists Axis credits could buy.
But there was more. A compact sphere of protein gel, delicately piped with edible gold, and three obsidian-colored wafers of something meant to approximate the Zaruxian predatory diet, though no true predator would have tolerated such foolishness.
Each element was balanced, the plate itself a vibrant white that made the colors—violet flesh, blood-bright sauce—pop garishly.
He breathed in the scents of the food but touched none of it.
He left the tray on the table, his wings twitching in irritation. Behind the glass partition of his dining area, the manufactured gardens trembled under a wind current.
Madrian pressed his palm to the cool surface.
His reflection looked back. Silver-eyed, severe, untouchable.
“Decadence,” he whispered, the word a dry splinter in his mouth.
He thought of Orbitary Station 14, the battered, conquered station he’d just left.
Its inhabitants would be gnawing on irradiation-soaked root paste, while here, a meal that could feed fifty would sit untouched.
He could hear, in his mind, the riot of a thousand hungry voices, and it did not trouble him.
That was just the way of things, the way of the Axis—the only way he’d ever known.
What troubled him was how the trappings of power—this meal, this view—were supposed to inspire awe, yet he felt only a faint, persistent ache.
Perhaps it was hunger, but not the sort any chef could remedy.
The thought repelled him. He wiped his hands, replaced the lid, and turned away from the table.
His comm vibrated. Another message—insistent, urgent. He recognized the sender: Prime Watcher Rien, one of few officials whose opinions he respected. He accepted.