by Maia Starr
I walked back out to the fire and saw Ariella and Caridan were the only ones left, huddled together and talking. I watched his features, still unreadable, but softer and more disappointed than they were a while ago.
Two shifters emerged from the shadows, both purple Weredragons, hiding near the shabby huts that the scientists had made their homes.
The male looked like Caridan, dark hair and purple scutes and scales. The girl, though, was white in color. She had natural blonde, curly hair, like her mother. The kind of hair that was so blonde it was almost white, her brows disappearing into her deeply tanned skin.
It was almost jarring to see a female Weredragon. I’d never heard of one before. But maybe the legend was true. Maybe she was ready to come and save Udora… or save the Rebels.
Both looked around 20 or so, somewhere around my age. The boy seemed shy and reserved, held back. He didn’t know the competitive nature of Udora, didn’t know the arrogance and strength he should have been parading around. I stared deeply at him and then thought on Sigisvult.
Maybe it was better this way.
Maybe Caridan was right and bringing his children back to Udora would breed nothing but contempt.
But then, I looked at the girl.
She was regal and ethereal as she took long strides over to her father. The silver of her scales reflected against the firelight, and she knelt down in front of Caridan on both knees, taking her hand into hers.
They exchanged a look, her slender wings never retracting even as she sat, allowing half of their mass to lay on the strange, crumbling ground beneath us.
She craned her neck to look at me. “What happens if we don’t come?” she asked in a deeper voice than I was expecting.
“Fhalanae,” Caridan scolded firmly, the anger building in his countenance.
“I, uh,” I stammered, suddenly confused as to how I became the person to ask such things. “I guess they die. The alliance with Earth will be severed and…” I shrugged helplessly. “Maybe they go back to taking women from Earth and slaughtering our men.”
“Maybe?”
“Most likely,” I nodded. “That means women like your mother won’t have a choice. They’ll just be taken and used.”
The young shifter stared at me direly for a moment and then looked back up to her father.
“My life” he paused and looked over at me, “has come down to a series of moments.”
Ariella watched the purple shifter as he nervously wrung his hands. He looked at me, bewildered and suddenly lost in thought.
The minutes dragged on in a comfortable silence before he continued, “Moments of regret, anger, hurt,” he explained casually, counting his fingers as he did so, “Moments where I’ve changed everything, where I’ve ruined everything, where I’ve saved everything. We’re all made up of moments. You want to make sure they’re good ones.”
Fhalanae nodded at his statement and smiled weakly as she said, “We can change everything.”
Caridan brushed his hand against his daughter’s shoulder. “And this is what you want me to change?”
Fhalanae didn’t relent. Her hands were pale, and her breath ghosted in the air. “It’s the only thing worth changing.”
Caridan’s face turned to a pained expression, and he blinked hard. “Some would say that love is stronger than war.” He trailed off. “That to keep your family alive, safe, content. That is what is worth doing.”
“It isn’t,” I piped up. “It isn’t the only thing worth doing.”
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes; the outcome of my actions ended lives and forced others to live with the scars.”
I nodded, but he didn’t know me. I was the kind of girl who had her mind set on something and would never relent. If I didn’t want to do something I didn’t do it, regardless of the consequences, and if I had her mind bent on a course or action there was no changing it.
Ariella leaned over to Caridan, their faces just inches apart as she whispered to him, secrets that I wasn’t allowed to hear.
“Look,” he said, searching for a more convincing tone, “I just, I’ve done this already… Just let someone come with me without thinking about anything else. How am I supposed to make my children do the same?”
“Don’t you want them to know Udora?” I asked.
“They know Chavatov,” he said. “And that’s enough.”
I watched them for a moment and wrung my hands several times before addressing Caridan for the last time. “Caridan, I’m asking for your help, but I will do this without it.”
He stared at me intensely, rubbing his thumb across his knuckles carelessly.
“We need you,” I reiterated. “You don’t have to stay if you want to continue your work here,” I shrugged. “But, give us one day… one day to make up for everything you are torturing yourself over. One day to save your people. I promise you won’t regret it.”
“I’ll go,” Fhalanae said firmly, standing up in front of her father, her white dress pristine and billowing behind her like some sort of hero. I stared at her in awe and nodded my head.
Caridan grabbed her arm, but she jerked it away.
I liked her already.
“It feels right,” she said just as firmly to her father. “I can feel it.”
With that statement, the twin child walked up, looking at me curiously and then at his sister.
“Then I’m going as well,” he stated.
Caridan let out a frustrated sigh and stared at his daughter, then looked over at me. “This wasn’t what I was expecting when I woke up today,” he said with a defeated sigh.
“What can I say?” Ariella smiled. “They’re just like their father.”
I gave a cordial nod, and within a few more minutes I entered Sigisvult’s tent. We’d argued so strongly before at his lack of etiquette that I didn’t even bother making conversation. I slept on the strange, hard ground all night and he never picked me up or even woke me up.
The next day was spent briefly traversing the landscape of Chavatov before making out way back to Udora. Caridan, his daughter Fhalanae, and his son Bozaldras all met us at the shuttle station, and by nightfall, we were already gone. Ariella, of course, joined us.
The four stayed to themselves mostly, though I watched Fhalanae make her elegant and graceful way over to Sigisvult.
We still weren’t speaking, not since the fire.
“Hello,” she said slowly as she took a seat across from the deep blue shifter.
“Glad you decided to join us,” Sigisvult said casually, extending a drink her way, eyeing the room slowly to see if Caridan was nearby.
Fhalanae declined the gesture and took a deep, nervous breath.
“You ever used your power before?” he asked.
She nodded. “Father has us train, just in case.”
“In case Ravayarus emerges from the water?” he said with an unmistakable flirtation in his eyes. I watched the gesture in horror and widened my eyes, listening on.
“Something like that,” the girl laughed. She tapped her hand along the sleek countertop and curved one leg over the other, leaning in to Sigisvult. “So, what’s it like?”
“What?” he chuckled lowly. “Seeing a female shifter or Udora?”
Fhalanae thought on it, tapping her fingers seductively against her mouth as she glanced at my chosen. She looked him over and offered a devious smile as she said, “Both.”
“Udora is beautiful,” he said easily, throwing back another sip of his drink before eyeing the girl with a drunken lust. “Mountains and spires, mossy grounds, blue skies. Nothing like Chavatov.”
“It has its good sides, too,” the girl defended lightly, spinning in her stool.
“We have beautiful waters that shimmer and sparkle. And hey, no monsters in sight,” he quipped.
The girl flashed her teeth to him at the comment and said, “I can’t wait to see it. Where I come from.”
“You’ll love it,” he assured and then leaned back to get a b
etter look at her. “I can… show you, if you like.”
“I think I would like that very much.” The two locked eyes and I grit my teeth hard together. Sigisvult set his hands flat on the counter unsurely before reaching over and grabbing hers.
My heart sank.
“And what about me?” the white Weredragon asked, her wings fluttering at the question in the same way a girl might play with her hair to get a man’s attention. It made me feel sick.
“Beautiful, too,” he said with absolute wonderment. “I’ve never seen anything like it. You are something otherworldly.”
Her face flushed and she looked down as she smiled bashfully.
“But I’m not,” she corrected. “I’m from your world.”
“And we can’t wait to have you back.”
My heart raced as the pair continued their shameless flirtation and I stormed into the corridors below, pointedly ignoring Vordamm and Ikar on the way down. Vordamm went to chase me, but as his eyes caught sight of his friend, he stopped cold in his tracks.
“Celeste!” he called, and I stopped but never turned to face him. “He’s just… an idiot,” he said uncomfortably.
I turned around and smiled as if it was no big deal, but that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.
Chapter Twelve
Sigisvult
Celeste Walsh, back for round two.
I was already drunk when she strode into our shared room in the shuttle. We were just days off from Udora and our final battle. She hadn’t come to me this whole time, and I was starting to get concerned.
Every time I tried to talk to her she would pull away and brush me off, find a reason to go be with Caridan or Ikar, hellbent on mending their relationship.
This was the first time we’d really spoken, in earnest, since the sinking ship on Chavatov.
She shivered in the hallway, bundled up in a tight plaid jacket with faux fur running from the inside cuffs out into a woolen hood. Her hair was a mess of unkempt red strands that were clearly not styled the way she intended them to be. She gave me an impatient, cold expression before she stepped into the bedroom.
“You look surprised,” she said evenly.
“As I recall the last time we spoke you weren’t too happy with me.”
“I’m fine.” She scoffed and pushed passed me into the quarters, regarding my empty bed harshly before turning back to me. “I just don’t like your girlfriend.”
I swung the door closed and bit my lip, unsure whether or not I should indulge her. This was the exact reason getting involved with women was a giant pain in my ass.
“Who? Fhalanae?” I said with some surprise. “Not my girlfriend.”
“Oh yeah?” she raised her brows wryly. “Didn’t look that way to me. But I guess you probably couldn’t tell, what with her boobs in your way.”
I laughed and approached the redhead.
“She’s awful.” She frowned. “And could probably kill us all, you know? Especially if you make her mad, which, let’s face it, you would because… you’re… you!”
“You are seriously getting upset about this? She wasn’t flirting with me.”
“Oh yeah? Then she should win an award for her stellar portrayal.” She rolled her eyes and thumbed a knick-knack on a shelf. “I just don’t know what you see in her.”
I laughed defensively and watched her lean up against the pale white wall behind her, her skirt crawling up her leg as she bent her knee and set her foot against the stone.
I raised a victorious finger in her direction, cocking a brow. “I don’t see anything in her.”
“That’s not what it looked like to me.” She stared at me for a long time and looked sharply hurt before carelessly tossing her hands into the air in defeat. “Okay, I give!” she shook her head and closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose as she did so. “I’m not even just talking about her, either. I’m officially removing the ‘you with all other girls’ topic of conversation from our pre-approved list.”
“Funny, I never got a copy of that list. Let me see it when we get back. It might help sort out our communication issues.”
“You know,” she snapped, “you hated that I spent all that time with Ikar.”
“Yes, but I never said anything about it.”
“Right, not until we were in the middle of having sex,” she scoffed.
I blinked in surprise at the sudden serious tone she possessed. My eyes traced her body, and I watched with curiosity as she swayed her leg back and forth, her foot still firmly planted on the wall behind her.
“You could tell me to stop. To be your little wife, your good little girl.”
The offer hung there, and we both knew exactly how fictitious the sentiment was. Her eyes gunned me down with some sort of challenge, and she shook her head in frustration.
“Why the hell would I do that?” I asked.
“Because…” her expression said she desperately wanted to continue talking but her lips wouldn’t cooperate. She pressed her lips thin, and I felt a sudden aching in my stomach.
“Celeste,” I reasoned. “Have I mentioned that I’m with you and not Fhalanae?”
She watched me carefully, and her legs both found their way to the cold floor as she waited for further confirmation. Finally, she gave a long sigh and said, “Every night I am left wondering if we are alright, how you feel about me, what you’re thinking, and every time that I try to bring it up you make me feel like an idiot for caring about you.”
“What do you want me to say, Celeste? That we’re friends? Lovers? Parents?” I blanched at the thought.
She blinked, suddenly infuriated. “We are not friends!”
“Okay then…” I said with a stunned exhale. “We’re not friends.”
Even despite my thoughts, the sentence still hurt, as did all meaning behind it. If we weren’t at least friends then… I exhaled sharply and stared at the floor, my arms extending as I said, “So why don’t you just ask me what you clearly stormed over here to ask and then we can get this unpleasantness over with?”
She swallowed hard and stared right into my soul.
I felt my heart sink and watched her study me with no readability. Her eyes were just hard, like stone, a blank wall of emotion that I couldn’t get through. Was she hurt, sad, relieved?
“What is this?” I asked, my eyes narrowing to a confused frown as Celeste made her way back towards the door. She was so insistent on being hard, hard-headed, hard-hearted, and hard to deal with.
Aggression fueled my last thought, and I moved closer to her unrelenting eyes. “Celeste.”
Her eyes didn’t soften, only proving to further infuriate me.
I felt a well of emotion rise up in me out of nowhere, and I stared at the fiery redhead in front of me with absolute surety.
“Either talk to me or leave,” I demanded.
She stared at me for a moment, furious, and the rolled her eyes. “With pleasure!” she shouted. If there were a real door to slam behind her, I was sure it would have been loud. Instead, the door slid shut automatically.
I scoffed and sat down on the edge of the bed. If she was so unwilling to communicate, then there was no way we were getting anywhere. I’d been through conversations like this with her before, and they went absolutely nowhere.
And yet, my stomach quickly shot up in sickness as I heard her footsteps draw further away from the doorway. She just wanted a reason to be mad. Maybe it made it easier for her; I had no idea. I set my jaw and stared forward and then, out of nowhere, I exhaled and raced out the door to find her just at the bottom of my stoop.
She exhaled loudly, relief washing over her features. “And in under a minute he caves. Your willpower disappoints me.”
I didn’t smile. “Please come back.”
We stared at one another for some time before she slowly made her way back up the stairs, ignoring my extended helping hand as she re-entered the makeshift home. She shrugged helplessly in the hallway, standing close
to me and trying to soften the situation with her pouting.
“I’m sorry.” Another shrug.
I closed the door and took an easy breath before approaching the girl, running my hands down her shoulders. She pulled away from the motion, pressing her eyes shut and moving her hand over her stomach. “It just makes me sick.” She clarified, “You and her.”
I moved closer to her face, just staring. “Why?”
“You kissed my heart,” she said with a quiver in her chin.
I exhaled, taken aback, her statement somehow erasing all of my anger with a single recollection. She took a steadying breath, her tone on the cusp on whining. “That was our thing. I don’t want… I can’t think that you’ll do that with her.”
“Then I won’t,” I said quietly, nearing her body in the entranceway, my hand resting on her lower back. She raised her brows skeptically and I extended his right hand and pledged, “I promise.”
She stared a while longer. “You probably couldn’t find it anyway,” she said of Fhalanae’s heart.
“You know… you were the one who recruited her, right?”
“Don’t remind me.”
I laughed and pressed up against her body, rested my head against hers until our noses touched. “Stay with me tonight?”
Her eyes cornered the wall behind me, thinking, stubborn.
“Please?”
I ran my thumb across her cheek and kissed her lips, waiting for her reciprocation. She exhaled loudly and relented to my movements, tongue skimming across mine in small flicks.
“Okay.”
“Celeste,” I said firmly.
“What?”
“It’s just you and me now.” I stood corrected, staring down at her small protruding belly and grazed my hand along the bump. “The three of us, I should say.”
The sentiment changed her countenance entirely. She seemed more relaxed then, and even the way she looked at me seemed different. She grabbed my fingers in her small hand and blinked tiredly as she led me to the small bed. I lay down, and she crawled in next to me, cuddling into my chest and caressing my collarbone with her hand.
“Promise you weren’t going to sleep with her?”
I held her in my arms and stared down at her in sudden wonder. I brushed her hair with my hand and kissed her flat on the forehead. “I promise,” I whispered. It was true.