In the Hours of Darkness

The twin suns were sitting low on the horizon, burning away the last remnants of daylight and rapidly letting in the swell of darkness. Most of the inhabitants of Deadwood Gulch had already finished up their business and retired indoors for the evening, save for a scarce few who lingered for various reasons. One of those few was Charles F. Colcord, Sheriff of Deadwood Gulch, and affectionately known as Charlie by those under his protection.

Not a small man by any means, Charlie's massive frame was dwarfed completely by the twenty-five foot dragon standing patiently by his side, watching what was going on with an intensity almost enough to match Charlie's. It had scales in an odd, metallic, silvery-indigo color that had garnered some interest when Charlie had first tamed him, but most of that interest had since waned due to the dragon's snarly, unpredictable nature.

Charlie didn't mind. He usually found it rather amusing. After all, it wasn't like Zorevan ever snapped at him. The dragon just snapped at people he didn't like.

Which was, Charlie was forced to admit ruefully, pretty much everyone else Zorevan had ever met.

"Ho, Sheriff!"

Charlie turned toward the voice, watching as Frank Eaton, his deputy, rode up. "Evenin' Frank," Charlie greeted.

"Evenin' Charlie. Just finished riding the perimeter. Everything looks quiet. Soon as that brat of Jasper's gets in we can power up the fence and turn in for the night," Frank reported.

At Charlie's side, Zorevan snorted. Charlie just rolled his eyes. Jeremey Jasper was a nine year old hellion who had spent more nights in lock-up than most adults five times his age. His hobbies included spooking the fleep herd, snitching Mayor Burke's pies, and trying to make Charlie go prematurely gray. So far he was two for three; despite Mayor Burke taking a paddle to his ass more than once and getting not-so-nicely thrown in the brig, Charlie's hair remained a vivid, violent red with not a trace of gray in sight. Yet.

"One of these days that little miscreant is going to find himself on the wrong end of a caraca's teeth and solve our problem for us," Charlie drawled, shaking his head. "But in the meantime, one of us had better go retrieve the hellion."

"I went yesterday," Frank pointed out, sliding down off his dragon and stalking over toward Charlie, keeping a wary eye on Zorevan. "Kinda like to not freeze my ass off for one night. Getting damn cold out there."

"Yeah," Charlie agreed, idly running one hand over Zorevan's flank as the dragon's head swung around to eye Frank with a particularly malicious gleam. From the day they'd met the animosity had been mutual, despite Charlie's best efforts. "Winter's coming fast. Air's got a bite in it." He shook his head. "Early this year."

Frank swore colorfully. "That means the rachyas will be getting more active, and we're down two riders after that rockslide in snake valley. Plus Bill's still recovering from that fight with the caraca. Not a good year for an early winter."

Charlie grunted in agreement. In the four generations since the colony ship Oliver Loving had landed on S-278-9X, known locally as "No Man's Land" or, more casually, just "Noman," the settlers had had to overcome serious setbacks and were only just now beginning to recover and flourish. An early winter meant an early end to the summer rains and a longer dry spell than usual. While the fleep herds could practically graze on dust, humans couldn't live on meat alone. He made a mental note to speak with Mayor Burke in the morning.

Besides the food problems, an early winter meant that the rachyas - big, mean, vicious predators that could tear a man in two in the time it took him to swear in surprise - would be stirring from their summer slumber deep in the cool of the mountains and venturing down into the plains and valleys in search of food. Unfortunately for Deadwood Gulch, that most often meant either men, or the fleep herds that fed the settlement.

Out of the corner of his eye Charlie saw a brief flicker of movement, too quick to do more than begin a startled oath. A moment later Zorevan's tail - fortunately the flat underside and not the dangerously-spiked topside - connected with the small of Frank's back, sending the deputy face first into the dirt. As Frank swore profusely and scrambled to his feet, a deep rumble sounded in Zorevan's chest.

"Fucking dragon!" Frank spat, glaring death at Zorevan. "Damn it Charlie! Why the fuck don't you get rid of that nightmare and get something a little less ornery? Whole fucking town would thank you."

Charlie shrugged and grabbed hold of one of Zorevan's horns before the dragon could take it into his head to snap - or worse. "Zorevan's just a smartass. It's not like he's really malicious. If you didn't swear at him all the time, he probably wouldn't find it nearly so funny to make you eat dirt."

"Funny." Frank glared. "You're cracked, Charlie. That dragon doesn't think I'm funny, he thinks I'd make a nice snack. I'm serious, ditch him and find a nice, compliant dragon like my Sundown." He patted his own reddish-tan dragon on the nose.

Charlie shrugged again. "Zorevan and I get along. I'd rather have him with me when I'm facing a lycodo pack than some other dragon. You'll just have to deal with the fact that when I say he won't actually hurt you, he won't."

Frank grimaced, fully wanting to argue further, but subsiding. "Whatever. You're the Sheriff. Just keep that fucking monster away from me."

"He's not a monster," Charlie refuted automatically, releasing Zorevan's head and grabbing hold of his saddle instead, swinging up astride the dragon. "We'll go fetch Jeremey Troublemaker, and you can owe me a whiskey at Miss Belle's place later," he said, ignoring Frank's protests in favor of urging Zorevan into motion, his great wings spreading and kicking up dust everywhere as he made a few leaping bounds, fierce wingbeats keeping him aloft longer than he'd otherwise be able to stay.

It wasn't all that many leaps before the fence came into view. Taller than a dragon could leap, or anything else for that matter, and specially wired to give a nasty shock to anything that came in contact with it. During the day it was kept powered down while the sun collectors soaked up and stored energy for it, then at night it was switched on to keep out the nastier denizens of planet Noman. Not in the settlement's original design, it had been improvised by those first colonists as a matter of necessity.

A few buttons pressed on the remote on his wrist slid the primary gates open, allowing Charlie and Zorevan through. Those same buttons in reverse closed the gates again once they were past, leaving dragon and rider alone in the deepening twilight. Most riders rode in pairs for safety, especially as night began to fall, though Charlie had ever preferred to ride solo. And not just because Zorevan liked to pick a fight with whomever his riding partner was, though that was a good part of it.

"Can see better from the air, I reckon," Charlie mused aloud, nudging Zorevan toward a short bluff. This late in the day, with the winter season swiftly approaching, there wasn't much in the way of thermals to keep a dragon aloft. The bluff would give Zorevan a bit of height, enough to get him into the air, though he wouldn't be able to stay there too long. Short flights were more what dragons were constructed for.

Though usually a short flight was all it took to locate Jeremey Jasper. The kid's middle name might as well be trouble, but he wasn't stupid enough to wander too far from the settlement. Tonight looked to be no different, and one of Noman's three moons was already rising high enough to cast a silvery light upon the plains below. More than enough to pick out one lone boy and his herd of fleep.

Charlie frowned, leaning forward over Zorevan's neck, nudging the dragon slightly to the right and feeling a low, displeased rumble ripple through the sleek body. Dragon sight being sharper than his own, Zorevan must have confirmed what Charlie had feared. Those moving specks up ahead were the fleep herd, but they weren't alone.

Lycodo pack, most likely. Sleek nocturnal hunters that looked like someone had crossed a serpent with a hairless wolf, complete with the serpent's poison-filled bite. One alone wasn't much of a problem, but lycodo preferred to hunt in packs.

Swearing beneath his breath, Charlie checked the charge on his blaster - still full, though that wouldn't last against an entire lycodo pack - and felt to make certain his knives and shock-lasso were all still in place. Trust Jeremey to find a whole pack of trouble...

Beneath his thighs Charlie felt Zorevan go into hunt-mode, gliding almost silently through the night air. He braced himself for the abrupt dive, one hand on his blaster and the other holding tight to the pommel of his saddle, holding on for all he was worth when the impact of Zorevan's landing jarred him to the bone. There was an eerie howl - Zorevan's claws must have found their mark - then Charlie was scrambling off Zorevan's back and there was no time for any thought other than that of survival.

His blaster scorched the air as he fired off shot after shot, most drawing yelps and howls of pain, others missing entirely as the quick lycodo dodged out of the way. All too few, however, were death cries. He was no amateur marksman, but even the best sharpshooter on the planet would be hard-pressed to get in a kill-shot given the speeds at which lycodo moved.

Still, a wounded lycodo was a wounded lycodo, and easier prey for Zorevan's claws. If Charlie could slow them down, Zorevan could finish them off.

They were down to four lycodo left when the charge ran out on Charlie's blaster. He swore colorfully and holstered the useless thing, switching instead to his shock-lasso, long knife still gripped tightly in his other hand. Now came the dangerous part.

The lasso hummed faintly in his hand, the power in it feeding back upon itself in an unending loop - until it came into contact with something not protected by the special gloves that Charlie wore. His chosen lycodo howled in pain as the loop fell across its back, writhing and jerking as it attempted to escape. With its attention on the lasso and not on Zorevan, it was almost no effort at all for the dragon to end the creature's life.

One down, three to go.

The second round, the lycodo were more wary. They weren't stupid, and they'd already seen what Charlie's shock-lasso could do. All three of them dodged away, leaving the loop of the lasso to fall harmlessly upon the ground, but with their attention on Charlie and his weapon they'd neglected to remember that Charlie wasn't alone.

Two more fell to Zorevan's claws. The last one made one final charge at Charlie, poison fangs flashing, and he only barely managed to dodge out of the way in time. A flash of pain in one leg meant the creature's talons had connected; those, at least, weren't poisoned.

Before Charlie could do much more than register the pain there was a quiet whoosh of air, followed closely by a thud and a yelp as Zorevan's tail impacted with the final lycodo's body. One flexing of claws later and it went as still as the rest of its pack.

Grimacing, Charlie carefully looked around for any more stragglers before examining the gash in his leg. Shallow, from the looks of it, though it was bleeding profusely enough to soak his pants leg. He swore quietly. Best to get everything wrapped up quickly then, before more night predators came to investigate the smell of blood and death.

The huddle of terrified fleep scrambled out of his way as he stalked through them, finally coming to stand before a small, defiant figure.

"Can you not go one day without finding trouble?" Charlie asked in exasperation.

"Wasn't my fault," Jeremey said defiantly.

"Is it ever?" Charlie asked wryly, shaking his head. "Back to town with you boy, before you manage to cause more trouble. Zorevan and I will follow behind."

Jeremey's head came up and he shot a quick look at the dragon before nodding compliantly to Charlie. While Jeremey seemed to go out of his way to piss off everyone else, he seemed to share the common wariness exhibited by the townsfolk when around Charlie's dragon. It would have made him laugh if it wasn't so useful, especially in Jeremey's case. All dragons were dangerous. Just because Zorevan's antics made him seem less 'tame' than most... Charlie snorted. As if a word like tame could ever really be applied to dragons.

He swung back up into the saddle on Zorevan's back, trying not to roll his eyes. Four generations ago his great-great-granddaddy Daniel Sullivan had figured out the secret to 'taming' Noman's native dragons (so named by those first settlers for their close resemblance to the mythological creatures of legend) and taught that secret to others, thus forming the core of riders that protected Deadwood Gulch and the other Noman settlements from the dangerous beasts that had been found to inhabit the planet. Only Daniel and certain of his direct descendants, however, knew the true secret behind the taming of dragons.

Charlie wasn't actually the chosen descendant for this generation. That honor belonged to his cousin Jack over in Fair Valley, who hadn't been too pleased that his position of honor had been compromised by the then-thirteen-year-old Charlie, despite Charlie's repeated attempts at explaining that it was entirely Zorevan's fault.

Which it was, though he never had been able to convince Jack of that.

Charlie was snapped out of his thoughts by the sight of the fence gates and punched in the code to open them. He and Zorevan followed Jeremey and his flock in, closing the gates behind them and activating the fence for the night. That would keep the town safe from anything that couldn't fly, and of those the only truly dangerous ones preferred to sleep at night.

That didn't mean that Charlie didn't have three riders stationed on night watch just in case. He believed in taking extra precautions, with good reason. Deadwood Gulch had shown the lowest fatality rate of all Noman settlements since Charlie had been made Sheriff.

He elected to skip the lecture to Jeremey's parents this time - it didn't really do any good - in favor of heading home to deal with the shallow gash on his leg and the dried blood encrusting it. Just one more scar amongst many, once it healed, though none of them as bad as the jagged one that ran down Zorevan's hind leg. He still felt bad about that one, as it had been his fault Zorevan had gotten injured.

The barn door was still open as Charlie hadn't bothered to close it when leaving that morning, and Zorevan ambled calmly in, going immediately to the far back where there was water and relatively fresh bedding. He stood patiently while Charlie slipped off, stumbling a bit as he came down too hard on the wounded leg, and making a pleased sound as Charlie stripped off the saddle and tack. Charlie carefully hung everything up, barely finished setting the saddle pad on its shelf when he was firmly shoved up against the wall and held there while long fingers investigated the tear in his pants and the wound beneath.

"That should not have happened."

The words were heavily accented, the emphasis oddly placed, though the voice had long ago ceased to sound strange to him.

"I didn't dodge quite fast enough. It happens," Charlie said with a shrug.

"It should not have happened at all. I should not have let it get that close to you." Dark eyes blazed in anger, though it wasn't directed at him. No, the expressions meant for Charlie were something else entirely.

"You can't protect me from everything, idiot dragon!" Charlie exclaimed in frustration, trying to shove the hand away from his wound and only managing to get even more firmly pinned to the wall for his troubles.

"I claimed you," Zorevan growled lowly, the intensity of his inhuman gaze both strange and familiar. "It is my duty to keep you safe."

Charlie sighed and quit fighting. For all his size, the dragon had always been able to easily overpower him, regardless of which form Zorevan was currently in. "I'm Sheriff, Zorevan. I'm always going to be putting my life on the line, and you know it. So quit giving me shit about one stupid scratch and let me go inside so I can bandage it."

Zorevan snorted and backed off, following protectively behind Charlie as they left the barn and entered the house. Charlie pulled out his medkit and set it on the table before stripping bare and taking a better look at the lycodo slash. Fairly neat, really. It shouldn't take too long to heal, once he got it properly washed and bandaged.

He yelped as he was suddenly lifted into the air and set down on top of the kitchen table, glaring at Zorevan and swearing when the dragon calmly ignored him in favor of inspecting the injury under proper lighting.

"It's fine," he ground out. "Quit fucking babying me."

"No," Zorevan said curtly, those long, long fingers with their faint hint of claws tracing over the crusted blood with far more care and gentleness than anyone who had met the dragon in his natural form would ever believe possible. After a moment he stood swiftly, uttering a clipped "Stay" to Charlie before turning to wet a sponge and soft cloth to better clean Charlie's leg.

Sometimes it irritated Charlie that no one else had to deal with overprotective dragons, as there were only two of them - himself and Jack - who even knew that their deadly steeds could take on this strange dragon-human hybrid form. And Jack's Putere didn't baby Jack. He thought it was funny when Jack got injured due to his own stupidity.

But once he managed to shrug off the sleight to his masculine dignity, Charlie had to admit it was kind of nice to have someone who cared so much about him. After his mother had been killed by a caraca when he'd been just barely twenty, crafty bird-cat things that were one of the few creatures on Noman who'd been known to take on a dragon and win, it had been Zorevan who had been there for him. Zorevan who had always been there, since the day he'd so neatly turned Charlie's world upside-down.

To anyone else, Zorevan probably looked bizarre. Although he currently walked on two legs and spoke real words, there was no question of what Zorevan really was. He still had a fine dusting of indigo-silver scales over thick, dark skin, his body proportions weren't quite human, he still had his wings and tail, albeit smaller and less prone to causing damage, and his face still held a hint of the long muzzle he possessed in his true shape. Very obviously alien, and yet Zorevan knew him better than his own race did. In many ways.

Slowly, mindful of the intent way Zorevan was carefully bandaging his leg, Charlie slid his hands up across Zorevan's shoulders to either side of his face, running his thumbs across the webbed, sharply pointed ears beneath a highly-untidy fall of indigo hair. Zorevan had been so proud of himself when he'd managed hair. It had taken him nearly fifteen years to figure it out, but he was, to Charlie's knowledge, still the only dragon who had managed the feat. So much effort for something that was really rather pointless.

Still, he'd done it for Charlie, and so Charlie made sure to appreciate the result as often as possible. Now was a good time, because while Zorevan had his hands full he couldn't do much to escape the hands threading through his hair, stroking and caressing, knowing full well exactly where the dragon was most sensitive.

Though the motions of his hands never changed in their gentle treatment of the wound, a low rumbling vibrated through Zorevan's chest, the pleased kind of growling that Charlie liked to refer to as purring when Zorevan was well out of reach. Although he'd never seen an earth cat, those having been wiped out along with most of the imported animals in the first generation, from descriptions it sure sounded like they'd been something akin to small, furry dragons.

Then Zorevan must have finished with the bandage because quite suddenly Charlie was flat on his back on the table with a very demanding dragon straddling him and doing his best to kiss Charlie senseless, a hard heat pressing against his lower abdomen as long fingers slid up and down his sides. When Zorevan shifted lower, brushing against his groin, Charlie broke the kiss with a quiet groan.

"We are not doing this here," he protested. "Get off." Attempting to move Zorevan himself was impossible. The dragon might be lighter now than he was naturally, but he was still incredibly heavy for all of his sleek build.

Zorevan sat up a little, scowling. "No table, no barn, you're no fun," he complained, leaning in close again to nibble along Charlie's jaw before sucking on his ear.

"You could always... pick someone else... stupid lizard," Charlie managed, fighting an embarrassingly breathy moan, yelping when Zorevan bit down painfully on his shoulder for a moment before easing up.

"No," Zorevan declared firmly, sitting up to more properly glare at Charlie. "You're mine. I get to keep you."

Charlie leveled a glare of his own at the pushy dragon. "Then get off me so we can go somewhere you can fuck me," he shot back.

This time he was expecting it, and so didn't yelp when Zorevan slid off of him and scooped him up, stalking across the kitchen to the main hall and, more importantly, the stairs to the second level. Though it was still awkward, being carried. A habit he could never manage to break Zorevan from, despite repeated attempts. Six-foot-five men were not made to be carried, even by smartass dragons. Zorevan might be only an inch shorter than him, but he had perhaps half Charlie's bulk and it had to look utterly ridiculous.

Fortunately, there was never anyone around to see.

Though that didn't really do much to alleviate Charlie's embarrassment.

Embarrassment which was quickly losing out to other, far more pleasant feelings as Zorevan set him down carefully on his bed, particularly mindful of Charlie's bandaged leg, then crawled back over him and resumed the kiss from the kitchen. Or rather, an even better kiss, since the surface beneath him was soft instead of hard and Zorevan was mostly lying on him, his heated body pressing and sliding and rubbing against Charlie's as he sought to devour Charlie's mouth with teeth and tongue and devious lips.

For someone whose entire 'human' experience had been limited to just Charlie for a few hours at night, Zorevan was far too good at what he did. Not that Charlie was complaining. Far from it. But the dragon was entirely too good at picking up new skills. Nay, perfecting them.

Zorevan's mouth slid from his, tracing damp kisses across Charlie's face and jaw, down his throat, alternately sucking and lapping at the skin. Charlie hissed when one of Zorevan's hands slid between them to tweak a nipple, bucking up involuntarily against the dragon.

"Fuck! Zor-"

Charlie cut off as Zorevan slid down him, the slow friction making him groan and arch, the soft slide of scales across sensitive skin absolutely maddening. Then Zorevan licked his erection slowly from base to tip and Charlie's head fell back against the pillows as he moaned.

Making a quiet sound that anyone other than Charlie probably would have mistaken for a growl, Zorevan painstakingly licked up and down Charlie's entire length, bathing his cock with that devious tongue, teasing and toying and making Charlie grip the bedsheets so hard it was a miracle they didn't tear. Then, when Charlie was incapable of doing anything more than pant and utter the occasional swear word, Zorevan lowered his head to swallow Charlie whole.

A hoarse shout emerged as Charlie jerked, thrusting up hard into Zorevan's mouth, feeling a tremor ripple around the head of his cock as the dragon laughed and sucked harder. The dull tips of Zorevan's claws traced up and down the inside of his thighs teasingly, scratching just underneath his balls and making him buck again.

"Zorevan!" Charlie swore, feeling the fabric of his sheets give way as his hands jerked, a sharp tearing sound filling the air. "Fuck." There were only so many times he could mend his sheets, and if he kept having to have new ones made people were going to wonder what he was doing that was so hard on his bedding. He could hardly explain that his dragon had an absolutely wicked tongue and no compunctions about using it.

Zorevan rumbled again, sending delicious tremors right through his cock and Charlie nearly lost it right there. It was only the firm pressure of Zorevan's fingers around the base of his cock and the fact that he pulled back almost immediately that prevented it, and Charlie simply lay there breathing shallowly for a moment before he could summon up enough focus to glare.

"I swear you get off on torturing me," he muttered.

Zorevan smirked, flashing slightly-sharper-than-human teeth. "Do I? Mmm, I think I prefer getting off in... other ways."

A long finger slid along the crack of his ass to tease his entrance and Charlie would have liked to have been miffed that he hadn't even noticed Zorevan fetching oil except that the slick finger was sliding inside and all he could do was squirm and try not to embarrass himself by spilling over one fucking finger. Not that Zorevan was making that very easy, finger crooking just right to send stars of pleasure shooting through his brain and completely making him miss the adding of the second finger until they started to move, coaxing him open.

Charlie groaned and gave up all pretense as he shamelessly rode those fingers, abandoning his once-again-ruined sheets in favor of burying his hands in Zorevan's hair, gripping tightly. The dragon rumbled in smug laughter, thrusting in sharply once more before withdrawing his hand and gripping Charlie's hips. Charlie started to dredge up enough ire to swear at him, stopping when he felt a hot, hard heat settle against him instead. He let his eyes fall closed and mouth fall open, breathing shallowly as Zorevan took his sweet time working his way in.

Whether he did it to torture Charlie or as part of his paranoid obsession with keeping Charlie from harm, Zorevan always took forever as he slid slowly inside, his hot, hard length splitting Charlie open in a way that was both maddening and delicious. Less than a finger's width at a time before he paused to move carefully back and forth, opening Charlie further before proceeding again.

"Fucking... dragon..." Charlie growled, yanking Zorevan down by his hair and crushing their lips together for a hard, all too brief kiss. "Fuck me, dragon," he hissed.

"Humans are so impatient," Zorevan reprimanded, sliding in just the tiniest bit further before pulling almost all the way out again, smirking as Charlie glared at him.

"Zorevan!"

The dragon's mouth curled up further. "I like it when you beg me."

Unable to move with the hands on his hips holding him down, Charlie could do little more than glare darkly at his tormenter. "Maybe Frank was right and I need a new fucking dragon," he ground out, gasping when Zorevan abruptly slammed all the way into him, the gasp cut off by the dragon's mouth crashing down upon his.

"Mine," Zorevan growled, biting hard enough that Charlie could taste blood.

"Then prove it!" Charlie gasped out, hanging on with all his strength as Zorevan finally began to move, drawing out and plunging back in far harder than he'd normally allow himself.

This was the side of Zorevan he liked best. The consuming possessiveness that drove him to leave marks, to utterly claim his chosen partner. All dragons had it to some degree, though few took it quite as far as Zorevan. Charlie knew without a doubt that if anyone else ever dared to touch him, they'd probably wind up dead.

It should have upset him, to have so little choice in things, but he couldn't see any better choice to be made even if Zorevan hadn't already staked his claim long ago. Compared with the striking, passionate dragon, who could ever compete?

No one. Which was just fine with Charlie.

Zorevan shifted his angle slightly and Charlie's thoughts fled entirely, leaving him unable to focus on anything other than that thick length pounding into him, the long fingers digging into his hips with enough force that he'd likely have bruises come morning, and the insistent demands of Zorevan's mouth as the dragon bent down to kiss him senseless.

He could do nothing but feel, lost in sensation, a great wave cresting through him, poised and waiting, hanging, unable to fall until-

Blunt claws scraped lightly up his straining erection, making him give a rough shout as he came hard, clamping down tightly around Zorevan's cock in his ass and feeling the hot pulse as the dragon came inside him. His ears rang as Zorevan keened his pleasure, the sound unlike anything that ever came from a human throat and meant as ever for him alone.

Zorevan claimed his lips for one more searing kiss before reluctantly sliding out of him, stretching out beside him in a motion that was eerily reminiscent of his actual shape before scooting closer to snuggle. It often made him want to laugh, that the big badass dragon could be so peaceful and cuddly after sex when all the rest of the time he did his best to ensure that everyone - human and dragon alike - were terrified of him. But these moments were also the only ones in which Zorevan dropped his guard, content to do nothing more than remain close to his chosen lover and bask in Charlie's presence.

In the morning he would have to pretend that Zorevan was nothing more than a particularly intelligent animal and go about his duties as Sheriff, but for the hours of darkness, at least, he could hold his dragon close and wish that the suns would never rise.