Evex_Warriors Of Ition

by Maia Starr

  “Likewise,” Scashra nodded regally.

  The crew descended from the ship, each meeting up with a Parduss greeter. After some pleasantries were exchanged, we were given a brief tour of the lands and were told about the different tiers of the plenks.

  Eventually, the breeders were asked to separate into a group so the Parduss could begin splitting us up, assigning the breeders to whomever they deemed special enough to screw a human.

  “The breeders will stay here with us before being taken back to Renden, where my father lives,” Scashra said, walking ahead with Warren.

  “And us?” Warren asked, turning back to me briefly.

  “You’ll go meet the king today,” he said. “He will give you an assignment, and you’ll convene with the rest of your group in a few days’ time when they return to Renden.”

  “But you’ll be holding them back?” Warren asked hesitantly. “The breeders?”

  “That’s right,” Scashra said confidently.

  I could tell Warren didn’t like the idea, mostly because I didn’t like the idea and we were usually on the same page about things like this. We had brought a security crew specifically to take care of the girls assigned to breed, and now he wanted to separate us?

  Then Warren suddenly turned to me with concern. I hadn’t heard what they were saying, but quickly caught on when Warren turned back to the deep navy-scaled Parduss and said, “Sir, she’s part of the science expedition, not a breeder.”

  “What class?” Scashra asked.

  “Biology,” Warren said, scratching the side of his eye unsurely.

  “We’d prefer if she stayed,” the Parduss said firmly. “This way we’ll have someone besides a breeder to confer with.”

  “I could stay,” Warren said, likely wanting to tell the man that as the diplomat, it was actually his job to stay. Not mine. “If you like.”

  Scashra looked at me and drew out a long finger in my direction. “Her.”

  Warren exhaled unsurely and gave a nod. I walked up next to him as the Parduss joined the rest of his men and began to speak another language to them. I bit my lip, and Warren leaned in close to my face.

  “Might be good to stay and keep an eye on the girls,” he offered with a shrug. Then he looked down at one of the communication devices he had on his belt and quickly hooked it to mine. “Now you’ll be able to get in touch in case anything bad happens.”

  I nodded. “Alright,” I said. “I’ll oversee the girls until we reconvene.”

  “You’re okay with that?” he asked, setting a thick, calloused hand on my shoulder.

  I nodded.

  Our crew met with the Parduss and his associates: tall men with broad shoulders, all with highly angular faces and deep, intense eyes. Scales lined the sides of their arms, but beyond the scarce scales that dotted their jawlines, there was no trace of them being otherworldly.

  Harper made her way up to me and grabbed my hand, squeezing it.

  “I’m not really fond of this,” she said, hurrying her words as we could both tell from the atmosphere that they were getting ready to separate us.

  I swallowed hard and tried to force a smile.

  “Boss’ orders,” I shrugged.

  “They’re leaving the girls alone,” she whispered quickly and then pressed her finger into my chest. “Correction, they’re taking the girls and a member of the science team and separating the rest.”

  “Geez, I thought I was suspicious,” I teased.

  Her thin brows cupped into a U shape and she looked back over at the group of our people, huddling together with the Parduss and slowly saying their goodbyes.

  Our resident cyborg, Adrius, had wandered up to us. He had a shaved head and a clean, smooth face. His eyes were round and vacant, despite how large they were. “To be fair, they are not rushing you off, ma’am. They are trying to get the process moving along, and it is you, in fact, who is holding them up,” he rattled off.

  Harper laughed and pulled her blonde hair up into a ponytail: the heat already affecting us. “Whose side are you on, anyway?” she jeered, nudging him.

  “It’s fine, okay?” I said. “I can handle it. I’ve got my gun, my transmitter. I’m good.”

  Harper rolled her eyes and started marching with me up to the rest of the crowd. “Suddenly she’s good,” she said incredulously to Adrius.

  “We’ll see each other in a few days,” I reassured her.

  She looked at me seriously, tensely, and then threw her arms around me. “Okay,” she said, squeezing me before pulling out of the embrace. “Be safe. I’ll see you in a few days, alright?”

  I nodded.

  “And Chloe?”

  My brows perked at her request, and she said, “Give ‘em shit.”

  I laughed. “You got it.”

  With that, myself and the breeders watched as the girls were flown up to the next plenk, an even bigger landmass than ours.

  The navy-scaled shifter walked alongside me as we made our way to the far side of the island to where we would be staying.

  Massive waterfalls gathered at the sides of the cliffs and spilled over the edge into the mysterious below. I didn’t know where the water was coming from, but it was absolutely beautiful.

  “How does that work?” I asked, and the navy shifter slowed his pace, falling back as the rest of his associates kept walking with the girls.

  The man cocked a brow and followed the direction of my finger to the gushing waterfalls.

  “There’s no lakes above us and no landmasses around. We’re floating in mid-air. Where does the water come from?”

  The man smirked and pointed skyward to the island above us. “The plenk above us,” he explained. “We’re on the lowest plenk: all the water spills from one to the other.”

  “Ah,” I said, shielding my eyes from the hot sun as I looked up. Now that he said it, I could see the streams of water falling from one island to the opposite side of this one. “What supplies the plenk at the top?”

  “The mainlands,” he said, as though I had any idea what that meant.

  I blinked and offered him a smile. “I didn’t know there were mainlands,” I said.

  He shrugged. “We only go there to hunt. It’s too dangerous otherwise.”

  A thick swallow went down my throat as I thought about what that sentence truly meant. Here we were, dealing with half dragon people, and there was something bad enough for them to be afraid of in the mainlands?

  In truth, I wasn’t sure if the thought made me shiver or want to laugh. Clearly, we had no idea what we’d gotten ourselves into here.

  I must have been making a face because the shifter smiled at me and let out a stifled laugh.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Just… if there’s something a giant Parduss would deem dangerous, then I should probably be scared. What the hell could possibly be out there that’s bigger than you?”

  He shrugged. “You don’t have to be large to be dangerous.”

  “Oh yeah?” My interest was piqued. “Then what’s out there?”

  “That’s…” he said and then stalled. The shifter brushed the black strands from his face and grinned at me: a toothy smile that was as handsome as it was teasing.

  My face flushed as I caught myself staring at him and I immediately became annoyed.

  “That’s what you’ll be studying,” he finally finished with a laugh.

  “Right,” I said with a tense nod. “Feeding us to the monsters, already. Here I thought we’d at least last a week before we started turning on each other.”

  He smiled at my comment, watching me carefully, almost transfixed, but said nothing.

  We were brought to a large, square building that looked like an ancient dungeon made high-tech. There were transportation pods instead of elevators and wide, ominous double doors, and sky walkways leading from one spire to another in the steel-looking building.

  We were hurried into the building, one by one in single file and we all made our wa
y into the dungeon-type rooms.

  I waited with bated breath as I watched the girls depart from me, waiting to be chosen or sold off by the Parduss to start the breeding process.

  As we walked, I began to wonder what that must have felt like for them. To know that soon they would not only be sleeping with a stranger, but a completely different species. I wondered if they could possibly get any pleasure from it, if they would be taken out to dinner or some such thing first or if it was more of an obligatory duty for both of the participants.

  “This is looking more and more ominous,” I said to Scashra.

  “Yep,” he said, walking steadily ahead of me down the echoing halls.

  “Oh,” I said, unimpressed. “That’s it?” I laughed. “No comfort. Just, yep?”

  The shifter led me down a hall that had a row of three bedrooms on either side. I peered into one of the larger ones and stepped in. It was literally just a bed and a pod that I was told was to remove dirt and disease, kind of like a shower without the water.

  Scashra closed the door behind him, stepping into my room with me and clicking the lock over.

  I swallowed and spun on my heel, looking at him nervously.

  “I’m not a breeder,” I warned.

  “I know,” he said and gave me a strange stare that made my heart speed up.

  “And I have a coms,” I said, clutching the communication device in my hand.

  The shifter looked down at my hand and then met my eyes again, a daring smile darkening across his lips. Before I had time to click the panic alarm on the device, he was vaulting toward me, throwing me against the wall and scraping my hand with his sharp nails until I dropped the coms to the ground.

  With a single step he crushed the device under his thick boot and used his free hand to hold me against the cold wall.

  “Oops,” he said with a child’s shrug.

  My heart was racing now: my body and hand buzzing from the sudden attack.

  “This isn’t a visitor’s center, is it?” I managed to say.

  His hand was pressed fully against my chest, holding me firmly against the wall. He shook his head once and in a high-pitch tone he corrected, “No, it is.” Then his voice returned to his low gravel as he finished, “Not that you’ll benefit from it.”

  “We’re…prisoners?” I guessed.

  “Just segregated,” he said. “For now, like I said. You’ll meet them again.”

  “Then why am I getting the distinct feeling we just became prisoners?”

  He laughed. “Because you’re wildly paranoid. But, that’s alright, Chloe,” he breathed my name out. “I don’t trust you either.”

  “Clearly,” I looked down at my broken coms and grit my teeth at him. “And the science team?”

  His words were betraying his actions. We were never told of any segregation happening. My gut was telling me something was way off here, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. Was he going to kill them and keep the breeders?

  “They’ll be fine,” he confirmed. “We just need to keep an eye on you for now.”

  “In cells?” I snapped.

  “Whatever keeps you under our watch,” he said.

  I shook my head. “Bullshit. We were never told about any of this. We’re supposed to be with each other, under our own security watch!” My body pleaded with me not to say anything else, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I needed to know what would happen to them.

  “And what about the girls? Are they going to be taken advantage of?” I asked.

  The shifter narrowed his brows and his head pushed forward as though he were processing my question. Then he looked over at me, seeming offended. “What?” he asked.

  “Used!” I shouted, pushing his hand off of me. “Against their will! Raped!”

  He looked disgusted.

  “What?” he exclaimed. “No!”

  Oh, that he finds appalling.

  So… was he going to kill us all? What other reason did he have to keep us? He took a breath to speak, but I quickly announced, “Are you going to use us as some kind of ransom? Well, guess what! I’d rather hang myself than be ransomed off to the SAEW!”

  The shifter blinked, taken aback by my sudden yelling, and then he laughed into his hand.

  Shaking his head, he said, “You have quite the mouth on you.”

  He was so calm that I started shaking. They’d planned this all along. I was right not to trust these sons of bitches, and now here I was, just like Alecia. Captured. Helpless.

  I was furious with myself for ever doing this. I could feel my whole body shaking.

  The shifter went to leave and then suddenly stopped, turning on his heel to look at me in the same fascinated way he had since we first met. “You would really rather die?”

  I gritted my teeth but didn’t respond. He waited there for what felt like forever for my response, but I was done trying to reason with these monsters. I pressed my back against the wall and slid down until I was on my butt, knees up.

  “What, you’re done talking now?” he asked with a bemused annoyance.

  I stayed silent, wrapping my arms around my legs and resting my chin stubbornly on my knees. I could tell it was killing him that I wouldn’t answer.

  With a sigh, he said, “We’re not killing you guys, and we’re not taking advantage of you. We’re just holding you here for a while.”

  Silence.

  “You really don’t want to know why?” he asked, irritated with me.

  Finally, I answered. My lips parted with an audible sound of saliva, and I snapped, “I can’t think of any reason that would matter.” I paused. “We came here to help you.”

  He tilted his chin up. “You came here to take our minerals.”

  I shook my head. “Piss off then.”

  The shifter looked down at me and then knelt down on one knee in front of me. “I have to do something back on Renden. Then we’ll talk about your release.”

  I watched his eyes as he spoke to me and felt strangely at peace with his words, suddenly. Perhaps this wasn’t an ambush like I thought, but whatever it was, it wasn’t part of our deal.

  He turned to leave, and I said, “Scashra?”

  “What?”

  “Can you not tell the girls?” I asked, meekly now. “The science team, I mean?” I set my jaw, and he looked down at me, perplexed. “I just don’t want them to be afraid,” I said.

  “Let me get this straight.” He lowered his brows. “You come in here and wildly overreact, believing that you are my prisoner, and now you’re asking me for a favor?”

  “It’s beyond the least you could do,” I snapped.

  He thought on my request and then gave a nod. “Alright.”

  Scashra went toward the door again, but once again I piped up, “Scashra?”

  He turned his profile to me with a bemused annoyance and said, “Yes?”

  “I’m not a breeder,” I reiterated, pulling my legs closer to my midsection.

  “I know,” he said.

  “Then why did you… pick me to stay?” I swallowed nervously.

  He smiled then: that same endearing, toothy smile and said, “I like you.”

  Chapter Four

  Scashra

  I had developed an infatuation. Chloe Quinn, the scientist. I’d spend two days with the breeders at the Manaxula compound, reassuring them there was a slight hiccup in the plans and that they would be reunited with the science expedition soon.

  As for the scientists, I’d put them off as well. They hadn’t yet met my father but were instead assigned missions straight away and had been out in the mainland taking samples.

  But Chloe…

  She had captured my attention. Her long red hair was intoxicating. He resilience in the unsure situation I had put them in intrigued me. I couldn’t get her raw sex appeal out of my mind.

  I knew she was afraid of me, but she clearly didn’t want me to know it, always talking back and making demands.

  It was a game I was happy to pl
ay with her.

  But, Chloe wasn’t mine to have.

  Pash was.

  And today I would finally return to her.

  I was summoned to the council room and knelt down before my father. He’d heard that the scientists had been put to work, but there was still no sign of the breeders. I had only taken soldiers loyal to me to guard them—swore them to silence to ensure my secret was safe.

  I hadn’t told Pash that I’d kept them alive. I knew she wanted them dead, but as soon as I met them, I hesitated, and I never hesitate.

  It was enough for me to come up with a plan B and simply keep them hidden for now.

  “Where are they?” the Dendren demanded, brushing back his long salt-and-pepper hair. His voice echoed through the chamber, and all eyes of his council members were on me.

  “The breeders will arrive on a separate shuttle,” I lied, bowing my head to him. I would have to remain this way until he spoke to me again.

  “Then why did you let them into the field?” my father urged. “Have they double-crossed us?”

  I looked up at Pash: elegant in white, her pale eyes as she looked back down at me. My heart lilted as I thought of her in my bed and how tonight I would finally get to be with her.

  “They wouldn’t lie,” my brother Fenris snapped from across the circular seating of the council members.

  I turned my profile to him: black armor looking heavier than he could carry against his pale features and icy hair.

  Pash swallowed at that and snapped her attention to him. “You’re so sure of the humans now, are you?” she said, a powerful, throaty voice echoing through the room. “So sure that you’d question your Dendren? Your brother?”

  My father looked at her and seemed to become inflamed by her questions, now needing to hear Fenris’ answers for himself.

  Fenris looked over at me with his dark eyes and briefly closed his eyes. Shaking his head, he laughed out, “Forgive me. I just know when I’m being lied to, and right now it isn’t by the humans.”

  “Because you’ve laid with one, you trust them?” Pash pushed.

  My father looked over at Fenris, clearly displeased, but seemed to want answers. For once, he wanted to believe in the humans. After all, the breeders were the only hope we had for survival.