by Stella Sky
“Have you talked to Zaphira?”
“Of course I have,” Sarra said with ease, making her way to her bed. She crossed her arms and put them behind her head as she lay down on them. She stared up at the ceiling before turning to me and awaiting the barrage of questions she knew was going to follow.
“What did you say?”
She stared at me in silence, an air I wasn’t used to with her. It made me feel that I was on the outs again, and perhaps rightly so. It was a look that said: how much should I share? We sat this way for some time, willing the silence to give us the answers. I couldn’t drag her back to Udora kicking and screaming. If she wanted to return to Earth, I was prepared to do that, but my heart wouldn’t allow me to say the words.
“I said there was another rebel found,” she said with a crisp roll of her eyes. “That we were asked to come back by the council
“Big fat lie,” I joked, and she seemed taken aback by my lightsome tone.
“What, did you want me to tell her the whole truth?”
“No,” I said, now sighing as I darted my eyes around the room, narrowing them at the memory of my time with Sarra. “Okay, I’m sick of this,” I demanded, walking over to the corner of her bed. “I’m sick of political Sarra or cordial, official-business Sarra. I don’t want your put-on persona; I want you. What are you feeling? Do you hate me? Talk to me.”
“I’m being calm and decisive given the situation.”
“You’re being controlled. This isn’t a council meeting; this is you and me. Stop working and just be my Sarra for two seconds.”
“You don’t want that,” she warned, her brow rising daringly.
I stared at her desperately and nodded. “That’s what I want.”
“You don’t want me to be diplomatic? Fine.” She was leaden. “I hate you. I hate what you’ve done, and I can’t believe I was so stupid to think that you loved me.”
“I do!” I hissed. “I love you, and I want you to stay. Why do you think I did all this? Got you your story? Shared about the rebellion with you?”
“Why do I think you did it?!” she finally screamed, her face reddening with anger as she rushed toward me, shoving me back with little force. “For information! For what else?!” she screamed louder, moisture now gathering near her eyes and causing them to glow. “So now you know about Zaphira. Are you happy now?”
“Not exactly.”
“And what about you?!” she shouted pointedly. “You choose me for information, for political gain; you make me believe that you love me and now you want what from me? To switch sides for you?” She stayed close to my face; so close I could feel her breath as she shouted at me. “You used me!”
I could feel the color sink from my face as she continued to berate me; to say my choice meant nothing. I grabbed her by the arms and then she truly broke down. “We only did this because we heard Zaphira was threatening war against us!”
“She wouldn’t do that!” she screeched. Her body was racked with sobs, and she could barely stand, only held up by my firm grip on her sides.
“Why do you think she’s created those weapons?” I insisted. “You said it yourself they were designed to take down shifters. She hates us!”
“She’s looking for her son,” she cried helplessly and sunk even deeper into my arms. “She’s not looking to hurt you; she’s looking to hurt those who stole him from her!”
She screamed her cries out into the air and hit her hands against my chest. And I took it. I took it because that’s what she needed me to do. Because I didn’t want to lose her.
“It-it’s difficult… some...” I stumbled over my words and shook her body with my hands as I stammered, “Some situations are hard, Sarra. But, I want you to stay.”
“Of course you do,” she scoffed, now with little emotion even as tears spilled relentlessly down her cheeks.
“I love you.”
Before I could even comprehend what I’d said, I felt a sharp crack across my face and backed away to see Sarra nursing the same hand she’d used to smack me with. “Don’t,” she said firmly.
Tears fell down my cheeks, and her expression turned from anger to a deep craving as her crying suddenly stopped. It was such a sharp change in atmosphere that it sent a white hot panic throughout my whole body. She softly gripped my arm in confusion, staring intently at my eyes as to read through to my truth: my true intentions. I could feel my chin quivering as I moved my hands down to hers, grabbing them softly and pressing his eyes closed, letting my tears fall steadily now.
“I chose you because you were already mine,” I reiterated through quivered cries.
“I don’t care,” she said with a heavy breath. Her stare was numb as I reached my hand to her face and began kissing her.
“Don’t,” she pleaded in a whisper. I traced my hands along her figure and touched her urgently, cupping her breasts and feeling down her backside as I pressed myself into her form.
I kissed down her neck, and she stood there, seeming lifeless. This can work, was all I thought. If she let me, I could change her mind. She pushed her hands against my chest and set her jaw. “Don’t,” she reiterated.
I leaned in again, reaching up and touching her face, running my hands through her hair and finally tasting her lips against mine. I watched her kissing back and pressing her body feverishly into mine and reaching for my clothes to remove. Every heavy breath and moan of passion she let out made my heart beat hard through my chest. She opened her eyes and watched me in turn, our eyes forever locked as I took my lips away, my breath airing over her face.
Then I remembered Eddrys’ advice.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
She looked up at me and ran her hand through my hair and down to my cheek.
“Give me one chance to explain it to you, and I promise we can make things better. Just give me the opportunity to explain it to you.”
“Nothing you say will ever explain it to me,” she argued.
“I promise you otherwise.”
Sarra heard my plea but said nothing. Her eyes had already glossed over with an aching lust. There was pain between us, something too heavy to carry, but as much as I asked her to speak to me, she wouldn’t respond with words. She drew her shirt from her back and peeled mine from my back. I leaned in to kiss her softly, feeling the comforting heat between our bodies, but she didn’t want to make love.
For as much as I tried to be soft and sweet, she would on return my kisses with hard, intense kisses and deep grinding of her body against mine.
She removed the rest of her clothes, and I followed suit, watching her carefully to try and connect with her. I laid on the bed and refused to do it her way. I didn’t want to use her. I wanted to make things right.
I slowly caressed her body and let my breaths be heard in simple whispers. In return, she set her wrists inside my palms and demanded to be held down and she viciously ground against my body. When I wouldn’t follow her lead, she reached her free hand down and guided my length inside her, keeping her hand around me as I moved in and out of her.
She scratched her fingers down my back and refused to kiss me back now. Her loud cries ripped the love from our connection and ignited something else in me.
I would do as she wished.
I thrust forcefully in her and watched her body react with pure pleasure and loud moans. She looked up at me again, and I didn’t know whether what I felt was love or a pallid pain.
I didn’t know what this was anymore. I didn’t know if she loved me or hated me, as she claimed. I didn’t know if she couldn’t help but give in to our connection and crave our bodies together or if she was doing this to placate me or remove herself from how sweet our love was compared to the raw pain we felt now. All I knew was that I would make it up to her. I would fix it.
Chapter Eleven
Sarra
We arrived on Udora one day after my sexual rendezvous with my chosen – or whatever he was to me now. My body racked back and fort
h from loving him and choosing to believe he would be able to win me over with logic; from wanting to feel him inside me just to prove that things were as they used to be… to wanting him to suffer the pain he had caused me.
To my surprise, the area he had chosen to take me to was the old ruins. The crumbling buildings on the outskirts of the planet that he had once said were so important to him. I looked over the buildings and remembered just weeks ago now when he’d taken me here to meet Rerdig.
The stone buildings looked different somehow. Our ship was docked an hour’s walk behind us. As we approached a large stone home, I blinked in surprise and turned around to face Haden.
Our relationship had been strained, to say the least. We’d barely spoken after our encounter. My body was burning with heartbreak that my mind was still trying to convince my heart wasn’t true. How could this be reality when what we had seemed so real?
“It’s…” I exhaled.
“Sinking,” he nodded.
I stared into the distance as the stone houses that once seemed so regal and watched as they slowly seemed to melt away into the thick mud and moss below. “Udora is sinking. Half of it, anyway.”
I offered a deep frown and stepped farther into the mossy city. “I don’t understand. We were just here.”
“The buildings sink. We build over them.” He shrugged helplessly. “There are two cities buried underground here. Almost three, now. Old Udora.”
“What? Why is it sinking?”
“That’s a loaded question,” he warned.
I scowled at him and whipped around in the wet moss beneath us. “Isn’t that the point of all this? To be open and honest?”
He gave a sigh and walked around the beautiful field. The setting sun lit up the valley perfectly, highlighting the dew on the moss and the intricate carvings of the stone that lay ahead of us. The tilt on the buildings was so intense I could nearly feel them shifting, sinking through vibrations in the earth.
“Why don’t we know about this?” I asked, furiously turning to him. “We could have done something by now!”
“Because they don’t trust you.” He watched my expression of horror and gave a knowing nod. “Now you see my frustrations. I’m not looking to overthrow the Koth because I hate them,” he clarified. “But what they have created isn’t a real alliance. It’s bullshit.”
“How’s that?” I dared.
“If this were a real alliance we would have looked to you for help by now.”
“Okay, Haden, fair enough,” I said with a sigh. “Tell me then, what do you dislike about your Koth? What is so horrible that it must be changed?”
“To start, we have strict rules about the choosing ceremonies.”
My expression darkened as my eyes challenged him to continue. “Because, of course, shifters used to come and steal women. To treat them as property and force them into a life on Udora.”
“We took women for the same reason we do now.
I laughed in frustration. “Forgive me if the way we present it makes the women feel a little more at ease. Like we’re going to be loved and respected, or something.”
“My dear, sweet, perpetually intelligent Sarra,” he said and raised his hand toward me. “Aren’t you? Deception aside, which, by the way, I fully intended on telling you at some point–”
“Uh huh,” I rolled my eyes.
“Haven’t I shown you nothing but respect and love? Didn’t I tell you that shifters know who belongs to them the moment they meet? Shifters didn’t come down to steal women; we came down because we felt a connection. We feel as though your soul is bidding us to Earth.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. I thought on his words for a moment while turning back to the crumbling, wet buildings before us. I watched as dusk slowly approached, casting beautiful colors across the forgotten valleys. There was something romantic about his statement, sure, but there was something incredibly eerie about it as well.
“The choosing ceremonies have to stay,” I snapped.
“Fine,” he groaned. “The choosing ceremonies have their place, I’ll admit. Just know that it came as a bit of a shock to those of us who never used to have to submit to rules.”
“I am dismissing this complaint. Next!”
He laughed derisively and continued. “Alright, how about this: humans come to Udora to research our planet, and then they keep the research to themselves!”
“Hah!” I said, spinning around and pointing a finger in his direction. “Not true! In fact, we gave you
“And what did you keep?”
I felt my stomach flip, and I pursed my lips, still unsure how much I should share with the shifter who had won my heart and then stomped on it repeatedly. He was right. We’d taken antidotes for various illnesses and more and never even reported our work to the Koth.
“You use up our resources, for another thing.”
“Um, planets are made to be inhabited,” I scoffed almost in jest at the accusation.
“Not ours. Not at the rate you’re sending people. We have more people than we have farms and we’re losing resources quickly. The way of life you’ve shown us isn’t sustainable for Udora.”
“And the Koth acknowledge this?”
“Of course they do!” he shouted. “But do they care? No! Because they want the women. They want the power that the alliance brings.”
“But you don’t,” I exhaled and looked over at him, no longer afraid to show him my sadness.
He seemed to think on that and then his face fell. “I head the rebellion,” he admitted. I wasn’t shocked. It seemed perfectly reasonable that he was the one calling the shots, what with how Rerdig was handled. I blinked and expressed nothing at the sentiment.
Zaphira told me she believed the rebels had a spy in the Koth. I just didn’t assume it was him.
“We have a mole in the Koth,” I repeated from our earlier conversation.
“Right,” he nodded. “I remember.”
“He’s the one who told us he believed there were rebels looking to turn on the alliance with the Earth. That means he probably knows you’re the spy in the Koth.”
Haden went to say something but seemed to think better of it. The comment took him by surprise, and he raised his chin to his hand. “Haden, I do love you,” I finally admitted.
“And I love you,” he smiled.
I walked over to him and burst into sobs once more. “Please don’t do this,” I pleaded, throwing my arms around him in a desperate attempt to get him to back down. “Please,” I begged. “We can make this alliance better, I promise, but you can’t do this. You can’t throw away everything we’ve worked for.”
I looked up into his blue eyes and could feel my lip quivering uncontrollably, and he looked back down at me like a parent would to a child, grabbing my chin in his hand and smiling empathetically.
“Please,” I begged. “I’ll do anything to stop this war.”
“Okay.” I could feel him buckle under the weight of my tears. He wrapped his arms around me and gave a slow nod. “But I need something from you.”
I smiled weakly at him and relished the feeling of his hands brushing through my hair. “I hope it’s a kiss,” I joked sadly.
He shook his head, and the earth shook beneath us as the crown of a once glorious stone tower plummeted into the muddy, watery deep. The sudden suction caused a reverb that echoed through the valley with a sickening slurp. Haden looked at me with just as much surprise as I was sure was showing all over my face.
I swallowed, hard, and wondered how it was that the city began to sink so quickly.
"Do you know much of shifter legend?"
"Of course," I said with wonder. It was my job to study their species, to become familiar with what was important to them - to the extent that they would let us, anyhow.
"Then grab on," he insisted with a wry, sad smile.
Haden grabbed my hand softly and spread his wings before flying me into the air. The world looked so green from high up
above. He stopped after just a minute or so and landed in at a curved set of buildings that seemed to stretch into a half circle in a bare field. The building was a castle or a fort of some kind, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it could be used for. There was a lot I didn't know, it seemed.
The curved fortress stood in front of a tall cliff and behind a great body of water that I'd never encountered on Udora before. The waters glowed with purple glowstones beneath their surface, and I felt my heart race with excitement at its beauty. Then suddenly the earth was showered with glowing rain.
The liquid seemed to carry a beautiful mist throughout the valley. Trees and greenery caked with the crawling Udorian moss were everywhere. And then there I was, soaking up the scenery like a sponge. Large flat rocks could be seen peeking out through the water’s edge, gorgeous from side to side, as the rain pelted down.
He walked us over to crystal-clear water with a striking view mountainous terrain near the back of the fortress. I heard nothing but warm, calm, serene sounds of falling of water as the rain found its way to our bodies. For all the times I had been shown Udora’s landscapes, this time felt different. It was soothing in a way I had never experienced before.
Haden’s footsteps drew nearer, and he set his hand on my leg as I sat down on a jutting rock near the water’s edge.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" he asked, and waited a moment for a response. When one failed to present itself, he began walking around the riverbank.
The hurrying dusk hid the vibrant colors of everything around us, but I couldn't stop staring at his blue eyes. I thought about what they looked like in the daylight; what they looked like when he told me he loved me. Crystal blue with jagged circles around the pupil; there were so many layers to how beautiful they were.
"Yes, it's beautiful," came my delayed response. At hearing my voice, he came back over to me and knelt down next to me. The rain poured, but neither of us moved.