Free Alien Dragon's Mate: Braxan (Science Fiction Alien/BBW Romance) by Juno Wells, Luna Cassini Page A

up for her, and then Braxan followed, letting the vegetation snap back to its original state, creating a natural wall against the pursuers. The trees shook with heavy thuds as more and more Pirgks came down the side of the crater and hit the edge of the forest. But they would struggle with getting into it.
    “I hope it gets less dense further in,” Amelia said as he held another few branches away so she could pass under them. “Because I can't imagine continuing like this for too long. And I'm not even the one clearing the way.”
    “I hope so too,” Braxan said. “But we'll do what we have to.”
    “All right. I suggest going counterclockwise around the crater until we're about halfway around, and then I'll see if the coast is clear to walk back up and home to the base. We'll be inside the jungle all the way. That sound like a plan?”
    He nodded, then broke a branch off a tree and used it to prod an almost invisible green creature that had coiled up on the ground right in front of them. It reared up with its six heads and hissed at him from mouths that were nothing but fangs.
    Amelia yelped at the sight and grabbed Braxan's arm, hiding behind him, but the creature crawled off hurriedly on hundreds of little feet and disappeared in among the trees
    “The direction doesn't matter much to me,” Braxan said and brushed a camouflaged centipede with long spikes off a branch he intended to lift so that he and Amelia could pass. “All that matters right now is that we put some distance between ourselves and those Pirgks.”
    Amelia squealed again as he casually reached out and grabbed an enormous, black flying insect out of the air from right above her head and threw it in between the trees. It hit the ground with a thud. He reached up casually and picked a pointy, ten-winged stinging insect out of the air and tossed it in between the trees.
    “Now I'm thinking maybe I'd like to face the Pirgks instead of these things,” Amelia said behind him, her voice small and scared.
    He turned and looked around quickly. What had she seen? “What things?”
    She gestured to the insect that was now crawling away on the ground, its pride probably hurt worse than its hard body. “All these ... creepy-crawlies. It's like the Amazon in here.”
    “Ah,” he said, continuing to clear a path for them and making a mental note to be more discreet in how he'd clear her path of creatures. “They're just curious. I think they're just checking to see if we're prey or predator.”
    She drew closer to him, and he liked it. “And which one are we? For the record?”
    He kicked at what looked like a crawling, red rock, and it responded by exploding into a ball of very sharp and very thin spikes. If he didn't have dragon scales under his skin, they would have pierced his foot in a hundred places. “We're only tourists for now. At some point we will probably have to become predators, though. Because excellent as these pants are, I don't think they contain a hidden stash of food.”
    His dragon instincts easily detected all the various life forms around them, and he only poked or chased away those that were directly in their way. The dragon could have eaten any of them and used whatever nutrition they offered.
    And, of course, in his dragon form he wouldn't need too eat any of these things, but could simply fly back to his ship, taking her with him.
    But he couldn't Change. He was stuck in human form, and he would have to be much more picky about what he consumed. His human body was so woefully sensitive to everything. And she was pure human. She was probably even more sensitive.
    They had come about a mile into the forest, and it had taken them at least a thirtieth of a day.
    He held up another giant branch so she could duck under it, having first removed a nest of spider-like things from it. She walked with short, careful steps, and she kept stumbling on roots and vines and uneven ground. She was looking around all the time, cringing at the