“My prince is a poet.”
“If I am so, it is only because of you, the part of you that I now hold inside of me.”
He moved toward her and pressed his lips softly over hers. She felt his warm breath on her face and basked in the afterglow of their love. Cora knew now more than ever that she had made the right decision in leaving Earth, and following Magmus as he fought against the Mulgor. She could die happy now, having been with him just this one time. Her connection to Magmus made everything that had happened in her life worth it.
9
Day after day, Magmus and the Galatonian armada hunted down the Mulgor’s dwindling fleet. Day after day, they knocked off another branch of the Mulgor threat.
He knew they were approaching the Mulgor home world. His bride grew heavy with child and he worried continuously for her safety. They had made the decision months ago to stay together and follow the Mulgor to their planet.
Cora was a brave woman, but sometimes he felt foolish for taking her, and the heir she carried inside her, into a war zone. But none of that could be helped now, even if he’d wanted to.
He relished her presence and had gratitude in his heart every day that she was near. If they all went down in a fiery ball of glory, at least they would be together.
He’d been receiving intermittent messages from the other princes of Galaton, who’d been left to the defense of the Earth Lands. It had taken every ounce of strength the princes had to quell the uprising in his home. They had nearly lost the Stone Fortress, but they were finally able to beat back the enraged aristocrats.
Magmus implored the princes to open the mating lottery to the other males, but the princes said it was not safe with the Mulgor invasion still ongoing.
When he eventually returned to Galaton, triumphant from battle, he intended to demand the mating lottery be opened to the rest of the planet. The fighting among themselves had to end. He also had some other ideas for how they would deal with the female problem in the future. Magmus, for one, was sick of depending on Draconia for everything. It was time for his people to fend for themselves.
But those thoughts were for the future. Right now, he had to deal with what was in front of him. In the distance, the planet Mulgor hung brown and green as it orbited its sun.
The Mulgor were an ancient relative of the Draconians. The lizard men had evolved separately on a colony that had once been much like Galaton. But through genetic changes and interbreeding with other races, the Mulgor had become a race of their own, and they no longer were able to shift into dragons. They were bipedal lizard men now, with reptilian faces and long, forked tongs.
They had long been the biggest threats to the Draconians. The Mulgor’s ancient hatred for dragons hadn’t dissipated at all over the vast millennia. But baseless hatred had a heavy price. The Mulgor had used all their resources to interfere with the Galatonian trade routes and now they would pay.
Magmus instructed his armada to move in. They approached the planet Mulgor, heavily fortified with orbiting warships.
Even though Magmus’s armada had been in space for several months, his fleet was still fresh and had taken little damage fighting the Mulgor. Prince Shay had already dealt heavy damage to their fleets, but Magmus was going to bring it to its final conclusion. This would be the end of the Mulgor.
Galaton and all Draconians alike would live in peace throughout the systems from now on if he had anything to do with it. He would not allow another day to go by when his woman or his world were in danger from these lizard creatures who cared so little for their own lives that they had to spend their resources harassing the dragons across the universe.
He stood on the command deck of the mothership Super Nova, facing the Mulgor fleet. Cora was safely stowed away in the safest place in the ship which happened to be the captain’s quarters. He’d made sure that she was prepared for the fight. Her time for birthing was coming soon and he wanted this battle to be done before it happened. His son would come into a world without war and destruction.
He gave the command to open fire on the closest Mulgor ships. There was no point in subterfuge. He intended to take them head-on, straightaway, without hesitation. He unleashed the full force of his laser volley at the Mulgor fleet. He then gave the command to send out the fighter jets.
Hundreds of small jets flew out from the cargo ships of his armada. The swarms spread out toward the Mulgor fleet, shooting them full of holes. The few fighter jets left to the Mulgor were blown to bits as his own jets overtook the larger Mulgor ships.
He recalled his fighters after they took out the last of the Mulgor jets, and then he moved the armada in. Magmus gave the command to engage the fleet while his fighters flew into the planet Mulgor’s atmosphere. He intended to lay waste to their home world entirely. If they were so much more concerned about starting wars than they were about their own people, he couldn’t be bothered to care about them either.
He gave the command to unleash one of their biggest weapons on the closest Mulgor mothership. The atomic laser shot across the distance and connected with the mothership, exploding it in a fiery blast. The breaking parts of the large ship smashed into other ships as they tried to maneuver away. With one blast, Magmus had been able to damage five ships beyond repair.
He quickly moved in on the damaged vessels and shot them with a laser volley. He thought that his armada was home free, but an unimaginably huge ship uncloaked just then in the orbit around Mulgor. It readied a beam and then quickly blasted at his ship with its own atomic laser weapon.
Magmus had raised the shields just in time, but it still shook the entire Super Nova. He thought instantly of Cora and quickly checked on her through his wrist holocom.
“Are you okay?” he said into the communication device on his wrist.
“I’m okay. Keep fighting.”
He gave the command to fire on the Mulgor mothership. They blasted the ship, but its own shields were activated. His weapon did little damage.
“Open laser volley. Recall the fighters from the planet.”
The laser volley from his armada opened on the Mulgor mothership, and his jets emerged from the Mulgor atmosphere.
“Direct all fire at that mothership,” he commanded.
The jets turned to the Mulgor mothership and opened fire. All of the smaller laser attacks on the mothership would weaken the shield eventually. Then he could blast it with his atomic laser weapon when it came back online. That was the plan anyway.
First, the Mulgor mothership hit him again with its own atomic laser. The shields on his own ship were weakening too. They wouldn’t be able to withstand another blow like that.
“Fire atomic lasers,” he commanded.
The atomic laser powered up and shot across the distance at the Mulgor mothership, chipping away at their shields.
“Captain,” Admiral Saka said. “We can’t take another hit. Our shields need time to reactivate. Should we cloak?”
“No,” Magmus said. “We aren’t hiding anymore. Open laser fire, all guns.”
The entire force of the Galatonian armada, including all fighter jets, opened fire on the giant Mulgor mothership as the atomic laser powered up. He knew that the Mulgor’s weapon was at least a minute ahead of his own atomic laser.
He could have been making the greatest mistake of his life, but Magmus was tired of fighting. He was tired of running. He wanted it all to end now. The smaller laser fire from all of his jets and all of his ships still focused on the mothership, and soon it finally blasted open the Mulgor shields.
“Fire the atomic laser!” Magmus shouted as soon as the weapon came back online.
Admiral Saka fired the weapon and it shot across space at the Mulgor mothership. Magmus could see the shields attempting to cover the Mulgor mothership, but it was too late. Magmus’s atomic laser blasted through, hitting their hull with full impact. It blew the mothership apart. Pieces of the craft went flying through space.
“Recall the jets,” Magmus comman
ded.
His own fighter jets turned and headed back towards home as the massive Mulgor mothership broke apart over the planet. Huge meteor-sized portions of the ship crashed into the planet below in a fiery blaze. It would devastate their population for generations to come. In that instant, Magmus knew that the Mulgor would not be a threat to them again.
As he watched the planet burn, he considered whether he should commit total genocide against his ancient foe. He still had the weapons to do it. With the Mulgor disarmed, there was nothing stopping him.
As much as they had hurt his people, Magmus would not stoop to their level and become a monster. He had his mate and his heir on the way. His thrall was finally sated. He had put down the Mulgor threat, but he refused to become a destroyer of worlds. He would leave the Mulgor to rebuild in whatever way they could. Next time, they would think twice about interfering with Galaton.
10
The Galatonian armada started back home, making warp jumps every twenty-four hours. Even with the warp drives, the trip back was slow. It would take another month for them to arrive. Every day, Cora was growing heavier and heavier with child. She could feel her baby’s advancing maturity with each kick and stretch inside her womb. She couldn’t wait for the day when her baby finally arrived. She’d been waiting so long for this. Not just the months she had spent on board the Morning Glory and the Super Nova, but for her entire life.
Cora hadn’t realized how very much she wanted a baby until she’d been impregnated with Magmus’s seed. She’d spent so many years on Earth growing entire greenhouses full of plants, distracted from the aching need inside her.
Now that she was so many light years away from her own planet, she herself was finally blooming. Cora stood beside the bank of windows looking out onto space as they passed an asteroid belt. She cupped her heavy stomach and sighed.
Magmus walked up behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder. They were nearly ready to make another warp jump into the next solar system, taking them one system closer to Galaton.
“You should sit for the jump,” Magmus said.
She turned away from the window and walked with him to the seating area that looked out onto space. They sat together on the couch and held hands as the armada jumped, one ship at a time, into the next solar system.
When the Super Nova finally jumped, Cora gripped Magmus’s hand. The rush of inertia that hit her every time they warp jumped sank into her belly as they jolted into existence at the other end of the jump. She had done it so many times now, it should have been nothing. But no matter how many times she jumped, she could never quite get used to it.
This time was worse than the last. As soon as the mothership settled into the next star system, pain shot through her belly and down her spine. She cried out, and Magmus gripped her hands gently in his, looking at her with concern in his brown eyes.
“Are you all right?”
“I think I’m having contractions,” she said, taking a sharp breath through her teeth.
He swiped his finger over his wrist holocom. “Send the medic to the captain’s chambers immediately.” Magmus turned back to Cora. “Everything is going to be fine.”
She shook her head vigorously and pressed her lips together, letting out a pained moan. She closed her eyes tightly at the shooting pain in her belly.
The medic arrived in the captain’s chambers immediately and swiped his medical wand over her ripe belly. He stood above her in his white coat and examined the results.
A moment later another contraction hit her with full force. She screamed and grabbed her belly as the pain gripped her tightly and wouldn’t let go.
“You are going to deliver,” he said, using his medical wand to shoot medication into Cora’s neck.
She panted heavily, trying to breathe through the pain.
“I’ve given you pain medication,” the medic said.
“Is the baby going to be okay?” Magmus asked, a worried expression on his face.
“The baby’s vitals are fine,” the medic said. “It is time to deliver.”
Magmus used his holocom to call for a medical gurney to take Cora to the medical bay. The gurney arrived and the men helped her climb on the hovering platform. They escorted her through the ship and into the brightly lit medical bay. Magmus and the medic attended to her.
Her baby was a dragonkin and she was a human, but with the help of Magmus’s seed, her body could now naturally give birth to her son. The medic made her as comfortable as possible as the contractions opened her to deliver her baby.
Soon, with the help of medical science, she made one last push to help her child into the world. When Cora held her baby in her arms for the first time, it was like she had just delivered a miracle.
He was a pinkish green, a mixture of her and her husband’s skintones. His eyes were bright brown like his father’s. Cora could see the shape of Magmus’s strong jaw and the shape of her own nose in his face.
“He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Magmus said, standing beside her as she held her son.
“We did it, Magmus. After all the separation and war, we brought our child into the world.”
“With your help and bravery, we were able to defeat the Mulgor once and for all. This family is strong. This is a new day for Galaton, and we must all celebrate the arrival of the heir to the Earth Lands.”
“What should we name him?” Cora asked.
“We should name him Brighton, after his mother.”
“Brighton Murcul, heir to the Earth Lands,” Cora said proudly. ”That is a perfect name for our son.”
11
The day finally arrived when Magmus and Cora returned home to Galaton. Even with the fierceness of the Earth Land battles, the other princes of Galaton had been able to defend Magmus’s homeland.
The space pod from the Super Nova, carrying Magmus, Cora and Brighton descended through the atmosphere and slowly arched down to the landing pad outside the Stone Fortress. When the space pod landed softly on the ground, the exit hatch slid open and Magmus helped Cora out of her seat and towards the exit ramp to see her new home for the first time.
She held her baby in her arms as she looked up at the edifice of the Stone Fortress carved out of the side of the great Earth Land mountains.
Magmus watched Cora’s face as she took in the sights of her new world. His most trusted servants, who he had left as stewards of his home and fortress, greeted him and his new family as they descended the exit ramp. The nanny, who had been specifically trained for years on taking care of Draconian-human infants approached Cora and bowed deeply to his new princess.
“Princess Cora,” the nanny said. “It is my honor to offer my services to you in the care of our new Prince Brighton.”
The nanny showed Cora a hovering stroller for baby Brighton. Cora looked up at Magmus and he nodded at her to let her know that he approved of the nanny. Cora put baby Brighton into the stroller and the procession walked across the landing deck through the huge entrance of the Stone Fortress.
Smaller craft could fly all the way through the fortress. To save his bride from walking the whole way, they entered a small hover craft and rode through the entrance and hallways of the Stone Fortress. When they finally arrived at his inner palace’s chambers, Cora and Brighton were able to settle in to the rooms he’d had arranged for them, and he felt a wave of relief wash over him.
He had been on edge for so many years, and now he was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Today, he would speak with the other princes of Galaton and come to the final conclusion on how to proceed in the rule of their home planet.
He left Cora and baby Brighton in his chambers as he strode down the hallway to his private offices. He stepped inside and activated the holocom to call the princes. Their faces came up on the screen across the room. Prince Salvatt of the Fire Lands, with his ruddy red skin. Prince Elait of the Air Lands, with his light blue eyes. Prince Shay of the Water Lands with his blue-green skin
. They each appeared before him.
“I have brought down the Mulgor,” Magmus said. “Their home world is all but destroyed. I have produced an heir to the Earth Lands and have brought him and my bride home. It is time to put an end to the suffering of the males of our planet. We have each ensured the throne of our kingdoms and our own family lines. I implore you to open the mating lottery to the rest of the males of Galaton.”
The other princes were silent, considering his words. Finally, Prince Salvatt of the Fire Lands spoke, his black eyes shining in the fire light of his homeland.
“Your suggestion is a valid one,” Salvatt said. “I am in agreement with you now. What do the rest of you say?”
“I agree it is time,” said Prince Shay.
“I concur,” said Prince Elait.
“Then let us make the announcement to the men of all of our lands today in celebration of the arrival of my son and heir, Brighton Murcul.”
“Let it be done,” said the other princes.
Magmus watched the princes’ faces disappear from his screen. He smiled, knowing how much happiness he would bring to the men of his homeland. Magmus flicked his holocom, ready to make an announcement that would contact every dragon in the Earth Lands.
“Greetings, men of the Earth Lands, this is your Prince, Magmus Murcul. I have arrived home from my voyage in space. We have finally defeated the Mulgor. They will not be a threat to the great planet of Galaton any longer. Today my son and heir landed on the planet for the first time. In honor of his arrival, and of our defeat of the Mulgor, I am pleased to announce that the mating lottery will now be opened to all males on Galaton.”
Magmus gave instructions on how to join the lottery and then flicked off his holocom. He had never been more proud than he was right then. He sent Cora a message on his holocom and went out to his balcony. He jumped up on the ledge and shifted, spreading his green dragon wings.
He flew through the Stone Fortress and emerged outside. It was good to feel his dragon wings carry him again, now that he was home in his own lands. The snow had melted and greenery was growing out on the mountainside.