Evex_Warriors Of Ition

by Maia Starr

  I was the middle child of three. Fenris, my brother, myself, and then my young sister Amlodesh. She looked at me from across the council rooms circular seating and rolled her eyes playfully. She knew I hated the idea of the humans coming to Cadir.

  Pash did, too, and it was just like her to use this as an opportunity to get under my skin.

  “Yes,” my father nodded dismissively, as though he had thought of it himself. “We will send Scashra!”

  A group of us, the privy council, stood in a large glass room nestled in a massive cliffside. The room mumbled in agreement, and just like that, the decision was made.

  Funny, I didn’t even agree to it.

  With that, the meeting was over, and everyone rose from their spots. I waited by the door, watching as my brother Fenris walked by me. We exchanged a furious glare until my sister approached.

  I watched Fenris leave through the double-doors and with a sigh I turned to my sister.

  “Still fighting?” she asked, brows rising.

  “As always,” I said. Fenris and I had taken a hiatus from out brotherhood for the last few years, it seemed, though the reasons had become hazy with time.

  “So!” Amlodesh cheered scornfully. “I suppose you’re the new Illox,” she said with a charming laugh.

  My sister was beloved. By me, by Fenris, by my father, and by our people. Since my mother died, she was the only one who brought our family together.

  She and my brother looked like my mother: fair hair and dark eyes. So similar looking they nearly seemed like twins, save for the fact that eniwan, Parduss females, were always white, whereas Fenris was a black dragon.

  Amlodesh was sweet and, unlike most of the eniwan, she actually showed kindness to the humans that had been brought back to Cadir in the L7 war.

  Which was a good thing, since she was the one who would be accompanying the humans out to the mainlands for their research.

  “Don’t say that,” I shivered. “I’d much rather go back to being a spy.”

  “Right,” she rolled dark her eyes. “Doing nothing under the guise of collecting intel does seem to suit you.”

  “Shut up,” I laughed and watched from afar as Pash stood from her chair.

  Amlodesh stared at me before waving her hand in front of my eyes, knowing exactly how I felt about Pash.

  As the room began to clear out and my father grew busy in other matters, Pash made her way over to me and briefly slipped her hand into mine before leading me into the expansive halls of my father’s immense glass castle.

  “You catch all that, about the peace treaty?” she asked as we strode down the long hallway.

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Well, one can’t be sure when one comes in late,” she teased in a harsh tone.

  I laughed and offered her a shrug, brushing my hand up my arm nervously.

  Amlodesh rolled her eyes at me and slapped me hard on the shoulder. “I’m leaving,” she said, and I barely paid her any notice. “Have fun with your humans!” she mocked, drawing out her vowels on the word humans.

  “Ahara,” I said absent-mindedly, our native goodbye.

  Pash approached me, and my heart began to speed up. She was ethereal: beautiful. She had long, silver-white hair and a long, leggy body to match. I had been in love with her for as long as I could remember. But Pash wasn’t something to be touched or explored. She was my father’s council. That meant she wasn’t meant for anyone.

  “I don’t have to complain about it.”

  “No, all I had to do was look at your face when the Dendren said it,” I laughed.

  Her nearly invisible top lip curved into a slight smirk and I felt proud of my comment. It took a lot to get Pash to emote. That’s why her expression at the council spoke volumes about how she felt about the humans coming to Cadir.

  Awful.

  “Pash is unhappy,” I teased, and she narrowed her eyes at me.

  “Look what happened to Fenris,” she said of my brother.

  I raised my brows dismissively. “He’s happier than ever.”

  “Oh stop, you can’t stand him either,” she said smoothly. “Plus, once he got involved with one of those stolen humans, your father completely disregarded him. Think he ever gets sent out on missions? He’s barely even a warrior anymore!”

  “Don’t let him hear you say that,” I laughed.

  It was true, though. Years ago, back when we invaded the Earth, we’d come home with a prize of human females. A bundle of them.

  Apparently, Fenris had made one fall in love with him—somehow.

  After that, my father wanted nothing to do with him. With his precious eldest child. Fenris was in line to be Dendren, and yet my father did nothing anymore to teach or train him.

  In fact, I had been the one called into council meetings since then. Fenris showed up, of course, but he was no longer taken into account by my father.

  Which was strange, considering my father was the one who wanted the human females to come here in the first place. To help us with our procreation problems.

  “I won’t have them come,” Pash said finally, stopping in the middle of the hall.

  “The humans?”

  She nodded and then it occurred to me. Pash was trying to ask me for a favor. I’d never seen Pash ask anyone for anything before, yet here she was, trying to bat her long lashes at me and hoping I could do something to fix her problems.

  “If you’re expecting me to change my father’s mind then you seem to have forgotten who I am,” I smirked. “You have more sway with him than I do.”

  She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, not enough,” she said, and then the conversation was dropped.

  Pash dismissed herself, and I made my way back to my father to get the details of my meeting with the humans worked out.

  I didn’t see Pash for the rest of the day. Not until I was already asleep in my bed.

  The sound of her feet hitting the smooth floor sent perked my ears, and I sat up, still feeling half-asleep.

  Such an occurrence had never happened before. I looked up and saw her there like a dream, standing in my room in a long white nightdress that was just sheer enough for me to see her curved breasts.

  “Pash?” I said: feeling disoriented at the sound of my own voice hitting the air. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want them here,” she reiterated, as though we were simply picking up our conversation from earlier.

  No mention of her sudden entrance into my space or how odd it was to be alone together.

  My room was dark, with only the starlight casting shadows into my space. The air was hot and muggy: shirt-stuck-to-you sweaty.

  “And you’ve… what?” I asked with a breath. “Come here in the middle of the night to complain about it without anyone hearing you?”

  Her eyes widened, and she ran a hand through her hair, pushing it back.

  The bedroom only had a nightstand and a bed in it, giving her plenty of space to wander before sitting down next to where I lay. I wasn’t even sure how she’d gotten this far into my house before it woke me up.

  She sat on the bed next to me and held out a small device about the size of a fingernail. A nanodat.

  Nanodats were small, dissolvable sheets created to store information you wanted kept private. She held it out on the tip of her finger, and I looked down at it in the darkness, only guessing what it might be.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked

  “Mind-meld with it,” Pash said sarcastically. Then she took the sheet and pressed the device into my tongue, allowing me to taste the information—tech specially designed for my father’s spies—which is what I had been back on the Earth.

  I looked down at her long, smooth legs and felt something stir in me. I forced myself to look back up into her dark blue eyes, and with drawn-out vowels I said, “Pash, no.”

  They were coordinates, mapping out a quick route from the landing zone where the humans would meet me right down to our du
ngeons.

  She wanted me to kill them.

  “Please,” she said, throwing her leg over my waist and aligning herself against me, grinding up against the growing hardness she found there. “Don’t let them come here.”

  “Pash,” I said, feeling lightheaded and breathless at the sight of her body writhing against me. “He doesn’t listen to me!” I reasoned again.

  She ran her warm middle up and down my clothed body, and I could feel her soft legs against my skin with alarming cold.

  “No?” she questioned. “And yet he’ll make you king?”

  I looked up at her, setting my hands on her hips and following her sweet eyes, glancing back and forth from their deep blue until what she said finally hit me.

  “…When he’s dead,” I said carefully, my brow twitching as the whispered words came out.

  Pash stopped her grinding and leaned down until her breasts grazed my chest. She bit her lip and met my eyes. Then, slowly, she whispered, “Right.”

  My mind was reeling. I had wanted her for years: watched her from afar until I had the nerve to befriend her. We’d been friends for so long… and that was fine. That would do. Because that’s all I was allowed to have.

  Receiving the smallest hint of a flirtation back from her was enough to give me life: renew my strength.

  But now she’d come in and let me feel her: pressed her body close to mine and expected me to… what? Kill my father? What was she asking me to do? What was the implication?

  She assumed my father would make me king over my elder brother?

  “Pash… I want you to think carefully about what you’re asking me,” I said cautiously.

  “I’m asking you to help me,” she whispered back.

  I swallowed. “By killing my father?”

  “What?” Pash sat up, her alluringly sexy expression suddenly turning back into my friend: humorous and scolding as she smacked me on the arm. “No, idiot. By attacking the ship!”

  I watched her laugh, a rare sight, but still felt unsettled.

  It was no secret that her relationship with the Dendren had become tense, and though she made light of my misunderstanding, I still wasn’t sure I believed her. A hard knot had formed in my stomach and seemed to settle there for the time being.

  “They rendezvous over the Manaxula district. It’s isolated there. Now that I’ve assigned you as the diplomat, you can meet them there,” she explained quickly, no longer concerned with using my body. “Then let the scientists come back here to Renden and kill the breeders.”

  “Just like that?” I said flatly. “Kill the breeders?”

  She cocked her head to the side and looked annoyed. “Problem?”

  “A little cold, even for you, Pash,” I said, hoping it sounded more like a tease than a scold.

  “Because you’ve been promised one of them?” she snipped.

  “Because we need to breed, or we die,” I said, brushing my hands along her hips once more. “And I’m not a fan of dying.”

  Pash looked at me, her calculating eyes flicking back and forth, oozing sexuality. She was studying me, but I couldn’t figure out why. She leaned forward so our faces we close enough that I could feel her breath ghosting over my lips.

  “Have you been promised one of the breeders?” she asked, softer this time.

  I watched her. “Would it make you jealous if I were?”

  “All the Dendren bloodlines have been promised breeders in the first round. I know that.”

  I offered her a wry grin and raised my hand up to her face, brushing a silver blonde strand out of her face. “That’s not what I asked.”

  She leaned in, pressing my hand against her cheek and nearly kissed me. Then she relented, “I would be jealous.”

  “I love you, Pash,” I said nervously.

  She smiled. “I know.”

  “You…do?” My heart sped up.

  “You’re not as mysterious as you like to think you are,” she said.

  I wrinkled my nose. “Ouch.”

  “Please,” she said, pleading again with me to murder the humans as though it were as simple as asking me to go for a swim.

  “How many times do I have to say no?” I laughed. “I’m not happy about the truce, either. You think I want to share our resources with them? Believe me; I know how you feel—”

  “You don't know anything!” she interrupted abruptly, quickly removing herself from my body and brushing her dress down as she paced my bedroom floor. “How would you feel if I said we were getting new soldiers? That you weren't allowed to fight for the Dendren? That your honor meant nothing anymore? That's what this does to the Eniwan!”

  “Shh…” I hushed, partially because I didn’t like seeing her upset and also because I didn’t want anyone to hear her in my room.

  “We aren't top choice any longer because we are thought of as defective. We're not even tried!” She looked disgusted. “Now you want to share Cadir with a human?”

  “But that's not even your circumstance. Look at you, Pash! You are second to the king! His most trusted advisor! You have rank over everyone else here. H’sk, over me!” I swore.

  She stared at me, no longer looking like the strong warrior or sexual vision I had always imagined her as, but like a small girl. Afraid.

  “I could make you do it,” she dared.

  By sleeping with me, I wondered?

  “How?” I asked.

  She smiled. “I could cry.”

  The statement made me burst into a hard laugh. “That would do it.” I thought about it. She really could manipulate me, but I wouldn’t give in unless I was getting something in return. “Fine.”

  “Really?” she sprouted.

  “On one condition,” I said, getting up and walking over to her. I took her hands into mine. “I want you.”

  Her face was expressionless as she asked, deathly quiet, “Now?”

  “When I come back,” I said. “I want you to be mine.”

  She laughed and shook her head, pulling her hands away. “When you’re Dendren.”

  “No,” I warned. “When I come back.”

  “Your father won’t allow it,” she said with a shrug. “No.”

  “Then there’s no deal,” I said and then felt strangely hurt by her coldness: her willingness to say no. “Don’t you want me?”

  She raised a brow as though she’d never considered it before, which only made me feel even more furious.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Then… what?”

  “My position is…” she rolled her wrist. “Complicated. But when you’re Dendren, we can do what we like,” she tried to say, but I wasn’t convinced. Even if my father died, I would still have to wait for my brother Fenris to take the throne.

  Then suddenly she kissed me: our lips dancing together in the way I had always dreamed they would. She reached down and grabbed the hardness that was pressing and twitching against my nightclothes, warm under her palm.

  “Your father can’t know,” she said finally, pulling away from my mouth. “Do we have a deal?”

  “We have a deal,” I said.

  I smiled.

  My life was not all that impressive. I was a strong warrior, sure. I’d helped invade some of the most death-defying terrains. I had helped lead an expedition to new areas of Cadir: found a hidden offshoot of our people that helped us procreate when our species was dying off.

  But most of my nights were spent alone. My mother died, my father had no interest in me, and my relationship with Fenris was beyond uncongenial since he’d taken a lover.

  I was alone.

  Until now.

  Chapter Three

  Chloe

  We finally arrived in Cadir, our ship thudding against the green ground with a slight scrape. Harper loved making an entrance with her landing, never mind what it was doing to the integrity of our ship.

  I licked my dry lips and found a mirror, coming out of my deep sleep. I made a vain attempt to brush my dark red
curls and brushed my coated lashed up with my fingertips, trying desperately to look awake.

  I could already hear our diplomat being greeted by the foreign minister of the dragon shifter planet.

  With a deep sigh, I brushed down my spacesuit and made my way to the outside.

  There, a tall man with a square face and broad shoulders stood, shaking the hand of our diplomat: a gruff soldier named Warren.

  “This is the Manaxula district,” the shifter said.

  “You must be Illox,” Warren said.

  The man shook his head and corrected, “Actually, there was a slight change of plans, but I am here to greet you to Cadir. My name is Scashra, son of the Dendren.”

  “Then we are honored,” Warren said, stepping out further into the massive landscape.

  To my surprise, Cadir was intensely beautiful.

  There were islands in the sky, all vertical from one another like a caste system: some just floating there while others were held up by tiny stems that hardly seemed strong enough to withstand a gust of wind, let alone sustain a cityscape.

  The floating islands were called plenks, and there was a mass of glass buildings like mountains on each one.

  I looked over the shifter. He was built solid and had tight, dark charcoal armor coating his entire body. He had curly, dark brown hair. Nearly black. He brushed it behind his ears and looked up at me as soon as I emerged from the shuttle with a loud swallow.

  The look he was giving me made my stomach flip.

  “Welcome,” he said, looking up at me.

  I nodded and looked him over. There were dark scale marks that dotted down his temples and jawline, accentuating his masculine features.

  Though Warren spoke to him, Scashra moved past him and over to me, guiding my hand down the shuttle staircase onto the warm planet.

  “Wow,” I said, slipping my hand out from his and getting a better view of the landscape.

  “We are very proud of what we’ve created here on Cadir,” he said evenly, never taking his intense hazel eyes off of me. “We hope you are comfortable here.”

  “We are so thankful to meet you,” Warren rattled off. “The bonds we create here we hope will last a lifetime.”