by Maia Starr
“I’ll take it,” I said and kissed her.
We made a home in the country. Far away from everyone, just the way we liked it.
Hazel had a son. One year later, two twin daughters...
A legacy to carry on the Atherien bloodline.
The End
Kaayde
(Warriors Of Cadir)
By Stella Sky
Chapter One
Ivy
I was full of energy. This was the common consensus about me.
My friends, family, past lovers... even my boss. All had told me I had energy from the moment I woke up in the morning until I got the job done.
And I always got the job done. Even if it kept me up for days.
“They're almost ready for you, I think,” one of the Parduss aliens said to me. He had dark gray scales cascading down his muscular arms and broad, sturdy frame.
The thing that struck me most about him was his eyes: pure yellow and slanted, like a true lizard.
“Well, as long as you think so,” I meant to tease, but the tone came off more menacing than intended.
The shifter raised his brows and lowered them quickly, dismissing me. “Hm,” was all he said.
The Parduss were shifters, I was told. Half dragon, half man. Or at least... that's how they looked. At a moment’s notice they could shift from a full, mythological dragon into a man. Some could even half-shift so that they had the appearance of a human with wings.
I took a deep breath and walked around the vast halls of the council buildings. We were on an island called Renden. This was where the Parduss King... or, leader… lived. The Dendren, as they called him.
The lands of Cadir were called plenks. The futuristic cityscape consisted of floating islands in a vertical formation: tiers. All with mountains, all with waterfalls cascading down from one plenk to the next. Looking at them from afar, I was sure the bottom plenk must have been littered with rain from all the water that gathered there. Sure enough, after asking our attendant, I learned that the bottom plenk was like a never-ending rainstorm.
“How come you weren’t brought in with the other girls?” the guard asked, deciding to forgive my previous comment.
“Because I’m the special one,” I said, spinning on my heel to face him.
The Parduss looked me over, and I felt a rush of excitement as I caught him tracing the lines of my body with his eyes. I couldn’t be sure if he was ‘checking me out,’ since I wasn’t all that sure whether the Parduss were properly attracted to human females, but even the slightest curiosity could be useful to me later.
“So special they couldn’t be bothered to fill you in on what’s going on?” he snapped back.
“Oh, I’m all caught up, thanks,” I laughed and made my way to a row of chairs. They were see-through. I set a boot on one of the seats and stared at the guard, still standing firm by the massive double doors to the council room.
“Hm,” he said, nonplussed. “How do you figure?”
“It’s not exactly a secret,” I said with an overly-familiar, overly-jovial tone. “We do have girls who report back to the SAEW, you know. Rumors of the war between the two Parduss camps stopped being rumors a long time ago. That’s why we’re the last batch of humans being sent in.”
The man looked stricken, his face paling.
“You didn’t know?” I asked, genuinely surprised.
He shook his head. “No, I hadn’t heard that.”
“Apparently the deal between Earth and Cadir has been put on hold until you can figure out how to kill the Atherien rebels,” I said easily.
“Or make peace with them,” he offered, not looking at me.
My ears perked up at that and I offered him a wide, wry smile. “Is that on the table?”
The guard cocked his head to me, and it became clear he wasn’t familiar with such human phrases.
“Is that what you want?” I clarified, finally sitting and crossing my legs on the glass-like waiting chair.
He looked startled at the question like I'd just caught him speaking out of line. I smirked at the reaction and leaned forward in my chair. “It's just us here,” I said with a shrug, briefly looking around the room.
The man softened, and he offered a bashful smile. “I don't think any of us want that, except for Fenris,” he spoke of his Dendren.
“Why not?”
He gave a half-hearted shrug. “What happened… before,” he said vaguely, “it wasn’t good, what with the alliance, but the rest of us Gilds don’t forget who our people are. We’re all Parduss. We remember what it was like before the humans came. The terror of thinking this was the last of us.”
“Ah,” I said with a nod. “And you have sympathy for the Atherien?”
He looked around again, suddenly nervous.
“I’m appreciative for all the Dendren has given me,” he said quickly, rubbing his fingers together nervously. “I have a human mate, thanks to Fenris. He pushed hard for the alliance between the humans.”
I wagged my finger at him and sing-songed, “That’s not what I asked.”
“My…” he leaned toward me and got a bashful smile on his face as he mused, “Geez… I don’t know why I’m telling you this but, my mother,” he whispered, “was an Atherien.”
My eyes went wide. “Scandalous,” I teased.
“It is,” he said, more serious now. “There’s a lot of us hidden in the plenks. But it isn’t only us who are against the war. I personally know at least half of the shifters on the plenks who would jump at the chance to…”
I swallowed. “To what?”
“To see Fenris out of power,” he finished and then shook his head. “But I’m running my mouth. For all I know you’re going to get me killed for saying all this.”
“What’s Fenris got against the Atherien?” I asked, and the man shrugged.
“Ask him yourself,” he said and gestured toward the opening double doors. “You’re up.”
I nodded my thanks toward the man and watched as the rest of my crew, the breeders Earth had sent as part of a truce with the Parduss, filed out of the council chamber.
I was brought in last. The only one out of ten to be briefed alone.
My friend Tammy exited, all gorgeous with her short stature and strawberry-blonde hair, and widened her eyes toward me almost comically as she mouthed, ‘Watch your mouth,’ as she passed.
I laughed to myself at her warning. She knew me well.
I stepped into the throne room and looked up at its massive dais. The room was circular, with a semi-circular gallery of seats for the council to sit at.
Two guards led me in, and I stood at a podium. Their leader, Fenris, stood before me, descending the dais.
He was quite handsome, to say the least. Like the guard outside, he was broad and intensely muscular. He was a black dragon with a glittering of dark scales down his arms and strong jawline. His nose was crooked, likely something earned from a battle.
Fenris looked at me expectantly, and I started to feel awkward.
What now? Was I supposed to… curtsey? Bow? I wasn’t sure of their custom.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said with a bashful laugh. “I don’t know the proper greeting on Cadir,” I said to Fenris, extending my hand toward him for a handshake.
He smiled and gave a nod, shaking my hand and standing far too close to me.
“That’s fine,” he said with a tired breath: a kind smile sitting at the corners of his lips as though waiting to be let out. “I still remember when my…” he paused for a moment before concluding, “when Alecia came to Cadir. She was always worried about offending me or the Parduss. The truth is, we’re not that sensitive.”
I widened my eyes and gave a polite laugh as I mimed wiping sweat off my forehead.
“Good to know!” I said cheerfully. “I will rest a bit easier now.”
“You're the last of human females being sent to Cadir,” he affirmed.
I nodded. “That's what I've been told. We were already mid-
flight when they announced the halt, so I guess they figured there was no point in calling us back. They say they won't send any more until the war is handled.”
He nodded. “Which makes having a human female even more of a special commodity, as you can imagine.”
“Uh-huh.” I set my jaw at the phrasing but gave a polite nod.
“You’re the head of the crew?” Fenris asked. He wore thick plated armor and a long, regal cape that he continued to push off his shoulders so that it fell straight behind him.
“I am,” I said with a nod. He looked me over, inspecting me. The gesture made me laugh, and I scoffed, “Don’t look so surprised!”
Fenris smirked at that.
“I’m the one overseeing the girls. Though, I’m also here as a breeder to whoever you assign me to,” I clarified, eager to please.
Fenris nodded slowly and crossed his arms, looking me over. An intimidating female shifter stood to his left, watching me carefully but saying nothing.
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” he said slowly, “because your post is going to be a little more… unconventional than perhaps the SAEW is used to.”
I blanched. “Okay,” I said, drawing out my vowels.
The relationship between the humans and the Parduss had been strained, to say the least.
The Parduss female population was dying off: most of the living female shifters now diseased somehow and left barren as a result. In order to continue their population, the Parduss sought human females. Who they kidnapped from Earth during a time now referred to as the L7 War.
We won the war, driving the shifters back to Cadir, but we never recovered the women stolen. Some years after that the SAEW—The Space Administration Extraterrestrial Watch—made a truce with the Parduss.
We agreed to send a handful of women to Cadir each year if our scientists could accompany them and take their findings back to Earth.
This had been a great deal, until now.
These Parduss were called the Gilds, by some. They were the warrior-bred Parduss who roamed on the plenks.
The Atherien Parduss, those who were banished to the mainlands, were the reason the humans had stopped being sent to the planet of Cadir.
The Gilds did not include the Atherien in the deal with Earth. With no female Atherien left, they wanted a fair piece of the deal. They wanted human females. This was, apparently, something Fenris did not want to share.
But things had gotten hostile in recent years. With attacks happening monthly on either the plenks or the mainlands, the SAEW no longer deemed it safe to send the humans to Cadir. Except for my crew and me.
Goodie.
“We want to wrap this halt up as soon as possible,” he continued unsurely, exchanging a look with the white shifter at his side.
I drew my brows together and continued to nod, utterly confused.
“Good, that's great,” I said absent-mindedly.
“This is Pash, by the way,” Fenris said tersely, gesturing to the woman still standing on the dais without looking at her.
I looked over at the woman—a heavily armored woman with long, braided white hair. She was a beautiful white dragon with blue eyes. She was tall and slim with long legs and a strong, square face. There was no doubt she was someone important to the council room.
“She is my personal advisor,” he clarified.
I nodded toward her. “Ivy Elm,” I said.
Some people had asked me whether or not my name was fake: a chosen name to shield my true identity. It wasn't.
Pash looked me over with a cocked brow, raising her chin to me, but said nothing.
I certainly didn't know either of the important Parduss who stood before me, but from the atmosphere in the room, I could tell there was a tension between them, and not the sexy kind.
“We've made a truce with the Atherien,” Pash interrupted, clearly impatient for our meeting to be over with.
“Oh?” I blurted out suspiciously with genuine surprise. “That was fast.”
“The alliance with Earth is important to us,” Fenris added quickly. “We sought to remedy the problem as soon as possible.”
“I heard an alliance was made in the past,” I offered awkwardly.
I looked up at Fenris, their leader. I'd heard some great things about his work as Dendren: his fight for peace between the humans and the Parduss. His great love for his human wife. The battles he'd won for the sake of keeping his people safe.
There were also some unsavory things on his resume: wiping out other races on other planets, the way the humans had thought the Parduss would do to them. I'd heard of his hatred for the rebels: the Atherien. I heard he'd poisoned his own father and sister and murdered his brother, all to grain his position as Dendren.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “That didn't go so well. We extended a truce with the Atherien, but they didn't like our terms. They wanted more females than we could give.”
“It was insulting,” Pash said so tonelessly that I wasn't sure whether she was defending the Atherien or if she was simply explaining herself. “We've been at war ever since.”
“And the Atherien have already agreed to the truce?” I asked.
Fenris laughed. “They had to. Half of them have died off since then. Even their little ones.”
“Their children?” I asked, and my stomach sank when he nodded in confirmation. It made me sick.
Fenris clenched his teeth together and looked unsure how to proceed with our conversation. His hesitation made me wary.
Pash rolled her eyes at his pause and snapped, “The truce is on shaky ground. I wouldn't go rushing back to your superiors quite yet announcing the war's over. In the meantime, the terms of the truce indicate that the rebels will get the last batch of women sent to the plenks.”
My brows shot up, and I finally understood where they were going with all this.
“Me,” I clarified.
“And the ones who came with you,” Fenris explained. “You'll be sent to the mainlands at first light.”
“Right...” I said, petrified but never showing it. “Aren't the mainlands...” I trailed off.
“Dangerous?” Pash asked, and I nodded. “Yes. But we heard you're the best. That's why you're here, isn't it?”
“Yep,” I said with a wary nod. “That's why I'm here.”
Chapter Two
Kaayde
Atherien songs played so loud that they echoed through the dangerous forests: drums hitting in unison and vibrating against the ground signaled a celebration was afoot.
It had been so long since the mainlands had a reason to celebrate that it almost felt unsettling to hear our native music.
The mainlands consisted of several different regions. There were the outskirts, where the human scientists were often found exploring under the guard of the Gilds. This was the only area of the mainlands that had a direct connection to Renden, the council plenk for the Gilds.
We weren’t on plenks: the floating islands of greenery. We were on solid ground: an immense flat mountaintop that spanned on endlessly.
The other areas of the mainlands—the glowing seas, the darklands, and Titan—were all places that the Gilds were too scared to go. There were dangerous creatures that lurked in our land. Ones our old leader had managed to befriend in her time as Dendren. They respected us—the devoured the Gilds.
It was in the bustling streets of Titan that our celebration was being thrown.
“I can’t believe this,” I said to my friend Z’echs.
We watched, side-by-side, as the crowd of Atherien who remained all gathered together to see the influx of humans who were being sent
Z’echs looked up at the spaceship as it began to descend into our city square. Despite the celebration, we were all on edge that the long-awaited truce between the Gilds and the Atherien was a farce.
We were half expecting for a crowd of warriors to burst forth from the ship as the doors opened.
There was a great sigh of relief that spread ac
ross our people, inwardly or outwardly, as a band of humans began to file out of the purple ship, accompanied by Pash—the representative from the plenks.
The relief was so real that when the first human female emerged, the Atherien erupted in a mighty cheer that echoed throughout the square.
“Never thought I’d see the day we made an alliance with the Gilds,” I said, shaking my head.
Z’echs, the yellow shifter beside me, began to laugh out loud in relief. He turned to me, barely containing his emotions, and said, “Am I crying or laughing?”
“Laughing,” I said, toneless.
“Oh good,” he said, finishing out his chuckle. “I could have sworn this was a trap.”
I looked up at the shifted Parduss surrounding our city, perched high on our rooftops, ready to attack.
We were all expecting a disaster from this meeting. Yet here we were, watching the humans pile in.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Z’echs reiterated, staring at me with beady eyes and itching his fingers through his long, black mane of curls.
“Me neither,” I snipped.
Z’echs nudged me and smiled, exclaiming, “Oh, come on! You should be happy about this!”
“I’m… just not as ready to trust the Gilds as Veynore is,” I said of our Dendren.
Back when our leader died, it was her hotheaded son, Orylis, who had screwed up our truce with the Gilds. They had only offered us a handful of females to help us, in exchange for our help hunting in the mainlands.
He found this truce to be inexcusably weak and, without discussing it with the rest of us, he went off and stole one of their fiercest warrior’s human lover. Then he’d run off to Earth with her.
Needless to say, the Gilds weren’t impressed.
Back then, we had dragonlings: young children to protect. Now they were dead, and we had Orylis to blame. It was after that happened that Veynore begged the Gilds to give us another chance.
Theren, the great warrior who had been scorned by our leader, vowed his revenge and had been attacking us ever since. Not even the prospect of saving our children moved him.