by Maia Starr
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 play 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.
Fenris stood, and the rest of the council stayed seated. He knew the room was largely against him after he’d taken a human lover, but he set his palms on the table in front of him as though he would vault forward at any second and said evenly, “Yes. And if they say there is another shuttle coming, there is another shuttle coming.” Then he turned to me sharply and whispered, “If that’s what they say.”
It was clear he didn’t believe me, but he wasn’t willing to bring my father in on it. He didn’t want the Dendren to turn against the human alliance.
I swallowed hard and looked back up at our father who had begun coughing harshly: the deep scratch of his throat was heard every time he tried to breathe in. At one-point Illox, who was standing next to Pash, moved toward him and put gentle hands on his shoulders to make sure he was alright.
My father waved him off, still heaving blood-laced spit into his palms as he coughed.
“Find me their diplomat,” my father wheezed between coughs before finally settling down. “We should have met before they were sent into the fields.”
I nodded, still kneeling before him. “Of course.”
“Let’s hear this out as soon as possible. We have a crisis on our hands,” my father said.
I swallowed and made brief, uncomfortable eye-contact with Fenris.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, only to be waved off by my father.
“Go find the rest of them and get me their scientists!” he shouted, obviously embarrassed. “Amlodesh is hurt. We need them to look into her!”
My heart sank, and I rose to my feet. “What happened?”
“By what else?” he said in a hurried explanation before bursting back into his horrible cough.
The silence that followed was deafening. The plague. Whatever was doing away with our females had gotten hold of her too.
“Will she live?” I asked, and the whole room went silent.
My father didn’t give another word before he was helped out of the council chambers. I looked up at the vast, glass windows behind his raised council seat and watched as our three suns started to fall into night, filling the room with warm, amber hues.
I stood there, lifeless, thinking about Amlodesh and how little I knew about the state of her. I had just seen her two days ago.
The room cleared out as I stood by the bench, the area for those wishing to approach my father. It was just Pash, Fenris, and me left in the room.
“What’s going on?” I asked desperately as Pash walked up to me.
I wanted so badly to wrap her up in my arms and hold her, but I couldn’t. Not with Fenris here.
“He’s worried,” Pash said, explaining my father’s sudden absence.
“He’s sick,” Fenris snapped at her.
I looked to Pash, and she didn’t deny it. My anxiety spiked again, and I said, “With what?”
“They don’t know,” Fenris said, leaning against the council seating with one knee bent, foot against the wall. He crossed his arms and explained, “I suspect that’s the real reason why he made the deal for the doctors to come.”
The knot I’d felt in my stomach was growing bigger and bigger now: swirling around like a darkne
ss that was taking over my body. What would life be without Amlodesh?
“Where are the breeders, Scashra?” Fenris said, arms cross and head tilted up to look at me.
I met his eyes and set my jaw. “I don’t know,” I enunciated.
He came at me, whipping his body forward with immense speed as he tackled me. Within seconds I was on the ground, gripping his arms as hard as I could as he beat his fists into my face.
With a jolt of my hips I whipped him off me and began to shift, feeling the bones of my wings emerging with immense pain.
Fenris began to follow suit until we were both half men, half dragon: raging wings coming out of human bodies.
He flew toward me again, grabbing me by my neck and squeezing.
This was his way of saying he didn’t believe me.
“Fenris!” Pash screamed and held up a hand to him. Fenris was stupid, but he knew better than to attack her.
He snarled at me and took several steps back, whipping his arms down and breathing heavily through his nose.
“Go tend to your father,” Pash scolded, pointing toward the door.
Like a child, Fenris obeyed, watching me all the way out the council door as if to say: we’re not done here.
I looked to Pash with confusion and rubbed my hand over my swollen face, rubbing my forehead.
“Now what?” I said to her, and she looked at me curiously.
“Now… nothing?”
“Pash,” I whispered and turned to face her. “My sister is dying.”
She swallowed and gave a curt nod. “And we will find a way to fix her. Go! Get the scientists off the mainland.”
“Alright,” I said with haste, unsure what they could do even if I brought them to her.
“Are they…?” she began, wringing her hands together nervously as she walked up to me.
“Dead?” I finished, and she nodded.
I hadn’t intended on lying to her, but I couldn’t bear to displease her, either. Our deal hinged upon it, after all. I took her long fingers into my hand and said, “Of course.”
“And you’ll tell your father they broke their word?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“Then,” she said, pulling me close to her body but never moving to kiss me. “Everything is going to work out.”
Chapter Five
Chloe
“Welcome back,” I said as Scashra entered into the complex me and the other girls had been staying in.
For being captives, it sure didn’t feel like we were about to be under attack. In fact, if nothing else, it seemed like Scashra had taken something of an interest in me.
An unreturned interest, of course. I hated him: his arrogance and the fact that he was keeping us here without explanation. Were we prisoners? Were we bait? Was he being honest and we would be returned to the science expedition any day now?
All I knew was that I couldn’t afford to argue with him anymore. If he was planning something underhanded, it was only because of his strange interest in me that was keeping us safe.
Or maybe I was just flattering myself.
Either way, I couldn’t take the risk.
“I need your help,” he said without any pretense. He splayed the door to my room open wide and waved me over.
I sat on my bed, immovable.
Looking up at him I cracked a smile and said, “Wait, seriously?”
“Yes,” he said, and I could see the panic rising over his body. His square face was white as a ghost: sharp jaw set and nervous. “Come on.”
I licked my lips and took a deep breath, knowing how I played out the rest of this conversation could have amazing, or dire, consequences.
“I know I’m not in a great position here but… really?” I scoffed, crossing my arms.
Scashra’s eyes went wide, and his black curls fell across his face. He brushed them away in a panic and walked over to me, grabbing my arm and pulling me to my feet.
“It’s not a request,” he seethed, pulling me so my face went close to his.
I raised my brows and tried to pull away. “Sounds like one to me,” I snapped.
“My sister is sick,” he enunciated with such precision it sent a shiver down my spine. Then his resolve cracked and I could feel his whole body shaking. “There’s something wrong with her. Whatever’s killing our eniwan has got to her, and I need you to help her, please.”
I swallowed and fought the urge to pull back or give in to him. I would need something from him.
“And you expect me to do this without making a bargain?” I said, feeling awful as the words bubbled from my mouth.
“Everybody wants something,” he said, letting go of my arm and pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. “Of course.”
“I want the breeders taken to the Dendren,” I said unsurely, scraping my thumbnail against the pad of my index finger: a nervous habit of mine.
He gritted his teeth and towered over me. “No,” he said quickly, but we both knew it wasn’t really a decline.
I raised my brows dismissively and flung the thick, red locks of hair behind my shoulders. “Then no,” I said, mimicking his tone.
“You would leave my sister to die?” he asked hotly, heaving his breaths.
“That’s up to you,” I said, throwing the onus back on his conscience. “Let my people do what they came here to do, and I’ll look at her.”
He licked his bottom lip and looked skyward, considering my offer and then with a deep sigh he said, “You’ll come now?”
I nodded.
Within an instant, he was sending out orders to get the girls to go meet the Parduss king. I felt a heavy burden lift off my shoulders, yet couldn’t stop thinking, if that was all it took to get him to release us… why was he hiding us in the first place? Had he gone rogue and kidnapped us to begin with?
I watched as the girls were flown up not ten minutes to where the king was: the shifters transforming in an instant into their massive, terrifying dragon forms.
Then I looked back to Scashra, suddenly nervous. I’d bargained with the devil, and now I would have to find someplace to please when, in truth, I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with these girls.
Nobody did.
He flew us to a remote station outside on one of the middle tier plenks. I held myself close to his body as we soared through the skies: the warm wind creating a cool breeze against my body. A momentary relief from Cadir’s heat.
When we landed, Scashra brought me into a teleportation pod, and in the blink of an eye, we were brought to the top of an immense building hidden in behind one of the waterfalls.
“We have actual doctors in our team,” I said, and Scashra nodded dismissively.
“They’ve already looked,” he said, hurrying me down the hall.
“Nice to know I was picked last,” I jeered.
He gave me an unimpressed look and searched the digital nameplates outside of each room.
“We have healers, too,” he said suddenly, as though it were a competition. “Nobody knows what’s wrong.”
I felt my chest fall a little as the thought that this girl would die and he would blame me.
“Then why ask me to come?” I said lowly.
“You’re a biologist. That’s… studying living organisms, right? Creatures.”
I nodded. “Right.”
“Then maybe she isn’t sick the way a doctor can cure,” he reasoned.
The purple lights from the outside of the building made the inside feel like it was glowing. We wandered through the many corridors until we found his sister’s room.
Amlodesh’s room.
I walked in nervously and saw a beautiful girl laying on a metal slab. Not quite a hospital bed.
Amlodesh had porcelain-white skin with just a hint of blue in the shimmering scales that went in a stripe across her eyes. I had yet to see a shifter with such a bold pattern.
Her dark eyes opened, and she looked up at me curiously.
“Another
one?” she coughed, looking up at Scashra with a sisterly scold.
He neared her bedside and brushed her hair back. “I came as soon as I could,” he said urgently before turning to regard me briefly. “Well, mostly as soon as I could.”
She laughed and looked over at me.
“Amlodesh,” she said, and I gave an awkward smile.
“Chloe,” I said, clearing my throat.
“Nanodats over there,” she said, pointing weakly to a large desk on the other side of the bed. “It has my records on it.”
I looked at Scashra curiously, and he shook his head. This prompted Amlodesh to laugh and exclaim, “Right! They don’t do that.”
“Do what?” I asked, but nobody answered.
“Go put into a reader then,” his sister said with a weak breath, and Scashra left the room.
I scraped my teeth against my bottom lip awkwardly, and the white Parduss looked at me, neither judgmental nor particularly interested. She had a kind smile and beaming eyes, despite their dark irises.
“I have to administer some tests, draw some samples for research,” I said, and she nodded, looking confident suddenly in my abilities.
“I’m not a doctor,” I admitted uncomfortably.
“Ah,” was all she said. “He was keeping you hidden, huh?” she said knowingly, closing her eyes. “I know my brother.”
“Mm…” I mumbled dismissively, reaching for one of the backpacks Scashra had handed me before we left. “Something like that.”
I drew two blood samples from her and set the vials into my kit before grabbing some swabs.
“I’ll need you to open your mouth,” I said, and she did. I ran the instrument along the side of her mouth before sealing it in a bag and setting it on the table beside me.
“Um,” I began nervously. “If I could get one from your…” I pointed back and forth between my eyes.
“Scales?” she laughed. “Go right ahead.”
Amlodesh closed her eyes, and I ran the swab along the shimmering scale, watching how it caught the beautiful light of the room.
Her room sat on the edge of the mountain highrise hospital. A corner room with high-tech machinery pumping Amlodesh’s body alive and a small oval window next to her bed.