Page 19 of The Pleasure Contract

Monstrously big.

There’s a horrifyingly eerie clicking sound – like someone said ‘give me echolocation, but make it the soundtrack to my nightmares’.

“C’mon ladies, I’ve got someone special to introduce you to,” Az calls out, both hands cupped around his mouth to project the sound to the far walls of this… strange place.

The water in the lagoon ripples and the trees shudder as something large moves behind them.

I step closer, and ever so slightly behind Az. “You didn’t happen to extract the DNA of an ancient mosquito trapped in amber, did you?” I ask, my mind whirring. How did they survive that movie, again?

Az throws me a quizzical look, but my attention is firmly on the two enormous reptile-looking things emerging from the jungle vegetation. Gasping, I grip Az’s forearm with both hands.

As I watch, the creatures step forward; except where I’m expecting two separate bodies to go along with the two-horned heads and scaly necks, only one steps out from the trees. The thing is a dark blue in color, but there’s a pattern on the scales – kind of like a tiger’s stripes, except these stripes are rippling with hints of so many other colors, some in shades of blood-red, others in sunset orange.

“There’s my girls,” Az coos like a proud parent. “C’mon, get over here.”

Az’s ‘girls’ make a trilling noise, like the greeting of a pussycat, except this pussycat is easily twenty feet tall plus tax.

And has two mother-freaking heads!

“Is that… is that your drak?” I ask. But my voice draws attention from the huge beast, and suddenly, I find myself under scrutiny from two sets of reptilian eyes.

“Yeah,” Az replies excitedly. “Lois, meet Lady and Puff,” he then steps aside and, with two large hands on my upper arms, nudges me forward, “Lady and Puff, meet my Lois.”

He sounds almost comically proud, but I can’t concentrate on that or the fact he called me ‘my Lois’ because a huge, two-headed alien dragon is stalking forward like I’m its next meal.

“Az?” I ask, looking back at him, unsure as he holds me fast.

He ducks his head and whispers close to my ear, “They’re gonna love you.”

I only manage to get out, “Like as an appetizer or-” when my words are cut off by a squeak as a huge, T-rex-like snout pushes right into my belly and almost sniffs my clothes off. “Oh, my God,” I whisper. “Oh, my God, oh my, God! Az, help me!”

He lets go of me and shoves at the gigantic dragon head. “Puff, I know you’re curious, girl, but that’s no way to get Lois to like you,” he says, positioning himself in front of me now. He turns back with a grin. “Trust me, if I thought it would work, I would’ve tried it already.”

In my shaky state, I let slip a weak chuckle that only makes Az grin wider.

One of the dragon heads growls.

“Ah!” Az snaps back, stepping forward and pointing up at the head on the left, which must be ‘Lady’ if the other one who nuzzle-sniffed me is ‘Puff’. Incredibly, the colossal beast takes a couple of steps back as Az advances confidently, its growl cutting off completely. “Now, I know you don’t normally take to new people, Lady, but she’s special,” he says, pointing behind himself – pointing to me.

I try really fucking hard not to let my mind latch onto those words.

“Now, if you don’t treat her kindly, then you and I are gonna have problems.”

Lady blinks down at him… and then to me.

“Az…” I whisper, not really sure what I want to say. My pulse is throbbing behind my ears. One wrong move and that thing could swallow me whole.

The head called ‘Puff’ starts leaning in toward me again, only to be snapped at by her twin. Puff rears with a screech, two huge wings flaring, their webbing an orangey-pink color in stark contrast against the dark blue of the scales that frame them. I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed the wings before, too wrapped up in the fact that this creature has two freaking heads.

Lady… or Puff… whichever one is controlling the wings settles them back down on their back when Az steps forward again, a calming hand held out to settle them. “Hey, now! Be polite, or Lois and I aren’t taking you girls for a spin tonight.”

“…WHAT?”

10

Az

“You’re insane,” Lois mutters behind me as I fit my girls’ saddle and bridles.