by Maia Starr
Festival drums were beaten, and the Atherien bellowed out a series of differently pitched roars, creating the most beautiful sound.
Dancing lit up the city streets: a parade of colors blurring passed us as we were swept up in it.
“You know, I wanted you to kiss me,” Hazel said, and I blinked in surprise at her: my head snapping toward her as we moved our bodies to the rhythm of the music, bounding down the street in a line of shifters.
“When?” I laughed, clapping along to the song, disbelieving.
She shrugged and took a sip of the fermented berry drink that was being passed around. “At the rivers,” she said with an amused breath.
I stared at her and then pulled her out of the crowd, taking her over into a lit pathway, out of the celebration. We watched the shifters running past with glow lights: barely visible under the dark night.
“I’ll kiss you now,” I said, pulling her close to me and feeling my body pulse and twitch just thinking about it.
“No!” she laughed, batting me away.
“I’ll tell you something,” I said nervously. I took her drink from her and set it on a nearby pillar, then took her hand into mine.
“What?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.
“I like you,” I said and her face beamed. “You make me laugh.”
“I hope that’s a compliment,” she said flirtatiously, and I smiled. Her attitude toward me had changed in the last couple of days, but she still managed to surprise me.
“Of course,” I said with a smile.
It almost seemed like she was going to respond, but her eyes grew distracted as a band of young children marched by: maybe ten of them.
Little girls with golden hair, boys: dragonlings with pudgy faces, stout feet, and curled tails and vibrant scales marched by. Their giggles and cheers cut through the noise and Hazel’s eyes brimmed with tears as she looked over at me.
“You have kids?” she said, incensed.
My heart skipped, and I took a step toward her, tensing. She watched my reaction: waited for my response.
“Well, I don’t have children,” I said, trying to keep some humor in our conversation. “But yes, there are dragonlings here.”
Hazel’s brows drew into a deep, disturbed grimace and she locked eyes with me and snapped, “Take me to your room. Now.”
Within just a few minutes, I flew her up to the tallest tower in Titan, wondering what it was she wanted to tell me.
We reached my bedroom, and Hazel stormed in behind me, coming in from under the arched doorway looking so small and delicate beneath it, despite her long legs and wiry frame.
“I’m sick of this shit,” she said and I frowned at her.
“Here I thought we were getting along so well,” I laughed.
She marched across the room in the same white dress I had first seen her in so many nights ago now. The slip plunged at her breasts, showing me the flat skin that showed: the faintest buds of cleavage on either side of the fabric’s edge.
“You have to take me back, and you have to make the deal!” she insisted, overcome with emotion. I stared at her for a moment and then stood up, concerned.
I walked over to her, both of us standing by the open, oval window. I grabbed her hands and furrowed my brows. “What’s wrong?”
She pushed me lightly and turned her head away, her eyes filling with tears.
“I’ll-I’ll say,” she shook her head and stared down at the palms of her hands: thinking. “I’ll say I made a deal to come and be the one to look at the land. I’ll say it was only supposed to be for the night, but I… didn’t want to screw up the deal, or something! So I stayed to get as much out of you as I could.”
“Hazel, relax,” I said with an amused breath, watching her pace around my room.
My room was in the the largest of the mainlands. It was a highrise that looked over the darklands: an area of the wilds that was too dangerous even for the Atherien to travel to.
The top floor of the building used to belong to my mother. It was where we would convene to plan attacks. Now it belonged to me. There was a spiral staircase in the far-left corner of the room, next to one of the expansive oval windows. The stairs led to the roof: a glowing sanctuary of greenery. A personal garden.
The oval windows made it easy for the Parduss to fly out at a moment’s notice. They were also good for keeping humans from running off, I learned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Talk to me. Use words.”
“Take me home,” she enunciated: her impossibly big hazel eyes going even wider.
I felt a choke up the side of my throat, and my jaw went slack.
“Wh…” I began, but words escaped me. She looked so serious. “Why? What happened?”
She set a hand on her chest, drawing my eyes to her curves once more. “I don’t belong here,” she said: lip trembling. “And you have kids here.” She looked incensed. She was close to tears, but only inhaled a quick, emotional breath.
I swallowed audibly. “And?”
“And?” she yelled, gesturing toward me. “So, you acted like there were no more females!”
“I said we had no more childbearing females,” I clarified.
She blinked. “The girls can’t when they’re adults?”
“I don’t know,” I said carefully. “But they’re sick. So we’re guessing not.”
“Bring them to the plenks!” she said and then marched up to me, pressing her hand flat against my chest. “Why didn’t you bring them to the plenks? We could have helped them! We have doctors there!”
She burst into tears then: furious and angry tears. Furious with me. Again.
I felt emotion rise up in my throat, though I couldn’t figure out why. Her eyes were glistening. It made them look greener than usual. She blinked them hard, letting the tears spill down her face, and I became transfixed with the long, dark lashes that surrounded them.
“You should have told me that,” she said, indignant.
I put my hand over hers, still resting on my chest. She tried to pull away, but I held my hand there.
“Why?” I asked. Her behavior… this overreaction was beyond questionable. I couldn’t hide the suspicion in my tone as I said, “Tell me exactly why.”
“Because!” she yelled and threw her hands into the air, turning away from me and walking toward the window. She spun around before I could say anything and insisted, “Because they’re going to kill you, you idiot!”
I felt my body sink, and I searched her eyes.
It wasn’t like we hadn’t already suspected that they would come to war with us after I rejected their deal.
That fact alone made me even more suspicious of exactly what Hazel knew about the Gilds plans.
“You’re sure?” I asked, rubbing a hand across my mouth and letting it rest on my chin.
She tensed as I grabbed her hand again and she stared down at our interlocked fingers, then she looked back up at me.
“Yes,” she exhaled shakily, her eyes flicking back and forth from mine.
“How?”
“I don’t know,” she took a steadying breath and closed her eyes. “But I can find out if you take me back.”
I clenched my teeth nervously. “So, they never wanted to make a truce with us?”
“Theren did,” she said firmly. “But…” Hazel shrugged. “Pash didn’t trust you. So, no, I don’t think she intended on living up to her end of the bargain. Pash and Theren were given permission to attack if they felt unsure about the truce, and Th-well… she,” she corrected, “decided to follow through on that.”
“How can you find out what the plan is?” I asked evenly. “When did they say they were going to do it?”
“I don’t know,” she shook her head. “But I’m sure they’re a lot more eager now that you kidnapped me.”
“Right,” I said absent-mindedly.
“If you bring me back to Renden, I can get one of their nanodats. The information is on it. I know where
Theren put it.”
I shook my head. “We don’t do that. We can’t. Not the Atherien.”
“Oh,” her face fell.
What were the odds we could defend Titan against the Gilds? I had felt so confident before about their incompetence in the wilds. Now I wasn’t so sure.
“Why are you telling me this, Hazel?” I asked, suddenly curious. She had no reason to, really. I had taken her against her will, after all. “Why would you put yourself at risk?”
She blanched. “Because… they’re going to kill you?”
I nodded, my expression prompting her to elaborate. I held my breath as she looked me over in the most vulnerable, alluring way possible.
“And I… don’t want them to,” she continued, her words painfully slow, as though someone were feeding them to her.
“Why?”
She raised a shy shoulder to me. “I… think I’m falling in love with you.”
My arms prickled with nervous tingles until the bumps spread in waves across my whole body. My mouth pulled into a broad, flirtatious smile and I leaned in and kissed her.
I couldn’t help myself.
My hand found its way to her face, and I pulled her towards my lips, tasting her finally.
I felt a rush of nerves swim through my core with a building heat in my chest as her lips danced against mine, pulling me closer. Reciprocating.
SMACK!
I winced at the sudden tingling pain against my cheek: her hand against my skin in a sharp double-smack.
We stared at each other, both caught off-guard by the contrast of our smooth lips to the awkward after-slap.
“Don’t do that,” she said, her chest rising and falling slowly: heaving.
She stared into my eyes and closed her mouth in a too-little-too-late protest.
I ignored it and put my hands on either side of her face, holding them there as I watched her.
She looked defiant and intense, which made me want her even more.
“You can’t say something like that to me and expect me not to kiss you, Hazel,” I said.
She looked at me carefully and then closed her eyes. She gave in, letting me kiss her: pushing her lips eagerly against mine.
We kissed for what felt like hours up against the wall nearest to the window. I held her against the smooth stone behind us and pressed my body into hers, kissing until we created a warm breath between us that was all our own.
I pulled back and grabbed the bottom of her shirt, pulling the delicate fabric over her small breasts and flinging the fabric on the floor next to us.
“Take your clothes off,” she whispered with a coy smile, and I quickly followed her request.
Her eyes beamed as she looked at my body, tracing my frame up and down as she followed suit, removing her clothes and walking up to me, pressing her body up against mine for warmth.
My hands roamed slowly across her skin, filling my palms with her breasts and feeling the cool sensations as she took her own time exploring me.
She ran her fingers along the bright scales on the sides of my body and finally rested on my back, pulling me down to the floor.
Kissing me, she used her hand to guide me inside of her and encouraged my movements when she put her hands on my hips.
I pushed in once and then stopped.
Hazel opened her eyes and met mine, giving a half-smile of amusement as it finally dawned on her.
“Have you… never done this before?” she asked.
I swallowed and whispered, “You can at least try to contain your dismay.”
“Oh…” she giggled in a whisper. “Thrust back and forth,” she instructed and then grabbed my hand, leaving me propped up on one elbow. She pushed my fingers between her legs as I slid in and out of her and pressed them against her center in small, circular motions.
I followed my instincts, thrusting into her at a slow pace, watching her breasts slowly pillowing against my movements like tiny waves across her chest.
As my pace quickened, I took my hand away, and she replaced it with her own: her face glazed over with lust.
Her breath was loud and sharp, and she arched her body back. I let out a low moan, feeling myself getting to the point of no return.
“Don’t,” she said, and I grit my teeth, trying to hold back.
“Not yet, not yet,” she repeated in a trance: our bodies now moving in a perfect rhythm.
I let out an aching noise, higher-pitched than I would have liked, and her hand started to quicken its pace.
She let out a long moan that got hungrier with every thrust until she pressed her eyes shut and clenched the furs underneath us.
I watched in fascination and ran my hand up the side of her face as I came.
We lay there, entangled in a heap of sweat and heavy breaths until she pushed me off of her. I rolled beside her, propped on my side: my left hand running down her stomach.
She batted it away and sat up with a hand pulled up to her forehead.
“Shit…” was all she said.
Chapter Ten
Hazel
If I felt guilty… I didn’t feel guilty enough.
After we had sex, I excused myself from Orylis’ company. I had to leave: had to get some air and go think. But Orylis took my hand and pulled me back onto the floor where he was laying, and we spent the entire night together.
Why did I have to tell him I was falling in love with him?
The thought made me cringe, but it was the truth. And because of that truth, we hadn’t really ‘had sex’ or ‘fucked.’ No, we made a real mess of things by… making love.
It was slow and sweet, gentle and caring, just like every ridiculous love story I had ever read made it out to be when you were really, really connected to someone.
Apparently, I never had been with any of my other sexual encounters.
Just Orylis.
Even the thought of him made me feel sick in the most amazing, consuming, torturing way I could ever imagine.
Then I thought of Theren: the blind, beautiful love and respect he had always shown to me. I thought about how worried he must be by now, and I felt even sicker.
But my guilt couldn’t keep me away.
I’d come back to Orylis by the very next night, just to sleep, and we stayed up the whole night kissing. And then the night after that he filled my body, and the night after that I straddled myself on top of him until I was so familiar with the feeling of him inside of me that I knew exactly how to make myself come against him.
Our one week together had turned into two months. Sex every night: basking in his playful demeanor and falling deeper in love with him. Every day was a new experience… and still, I had caught no sight of Fenris’ army.
Today Orylis said we would finish the tour he’d bargained with me for.
We’d put it off, both of us knowing that when he showed me the last promised location, the badlands, we would have to start thinking about our end-game.
“As promised,” he said and gestured out toward the black beyond.
It was one of the strangest, most stunning sights I had ever seen. The dark land cascaded for miles, as flat as a sheet of paper. It looked as though a volcano had erupted and left its crusted, molten rock hardened to the surface of the land.
In the distance, was a great cave that had a wide opening. I could see flickering lights within.
“What’s in there?” I asked, and Orylis bit his lip: shrugged.
“Something bad,” he said with a smirk and slipped my hand inside his.
“Wow, thanks for clearing that up,” I laughed.
He smirked. “I live to serve.”
I tried to make out what might be in the cave, but I had no luck. We were miles and miles away, as Orylis didn’t want to get close.
“Not even the great Atherien’s are brave enough to venture through the rock?” I teased as we stood directly at the edge of the forest, looking out into the abyss.
“That’s not rock,” he said tersely,
pointing to the molten-like substance.
On the ground crawled a black sludge: glopping up in dripping strings of movement and crawling across the ground as slow as tar.
I stepped back and could feel the disgust looming over my features.
“What is that?” I asked, repulsed, taking another step backward.
He exhaled and shook his head.
“It’s called siccus,” he said and led me to an oversized tree: the kind with a trunk so thick somebody could live inside of it.
On the side of the trunk was a ladder. We crawled up into an intricate span of treetop houses, connected together by rope bridges.
“This is convenient,” I laughed, and he put a finger to his lips. I walked to the edge of the empty metallic room, and we stared out the window to get a better view of the siccus.
“It’s this… black gunk that infects whatever it touches,” he explained.
“Infects as in…” I began curiously.
“Kills. Like that,” he said and then snapped his fingers. “It’s what killed the second-in-line to be Dendren. Amlodesh.”
“Wow,” I said and scraped my teeth lightly along my lip. “And we’re here because…?”
“Because I wanted to explain to you why I didn’t want you to run out into the wilderness like you kept doing,” he teased and then went sullen. “I’ve never seen it this far out though,” he said, looking out the open window.
“What do you mean? It’s not usually on the ground like that?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nah. Never comes out this far. Maybe it’s hungry,” he said and grabbed my waist to startle me.
I pressed my eyes shut and laughed, falling into his touch.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll fly us back. It’s too dangerous for the real tour.”
“Have you ever been caught by it?” I said, still fixated on the blackness outside.
“Um,” he wrinkled his nose. “Am I still alive?”
I laughed. “Yes.”
“Then no,” he concluded wryly. “Now come on.”
I watched him transform for the second time since I’d been in the wilds. His body stretched and turned until he was a mid-sized aqua dragon. He had spikes going down the front of his long neck and down his entire body, fanning out into fins as they reached the underbelly of his tail.