by Maia Starr
The tarred water rushed in at a slow speed, crawling up through the corridors. I looked down at the flooding staircase and stared at the liquid, the way it crept along the narrow passage like tentacles. Without a second thought, I stepped into the deep water and felt it grab onto my legs and pull me down. I grabbed onto the deep joints that set the walls together and pulled myself closer to her calls.
“I’m right here!” I screamed, my echo swallowed by the organic matter forcefully taking down our ship.
I raced into our room and saw her legs wrapped up in the makeshift tentacles.
Her lips were blue, the cold taking over her body rapidly as her teeth began to chatter. I could hear the black waters gushing in through the far end of the ship, saw it rushing in the door and burying the bedroom in darkness.
I raced over and tore the substance from her legs with fury, my claws out and ripping away at the organic matter.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The apologies bubbled forth from my mouth as I grabbed her delicate face into my hands and pulled her toward me. “I thought you were right behind me.”
“It’s okay,” she said weakly, stunned.
“I thought you were right behind me,” I said, my mind barely able to comprehend what was happening.
I pulled her into my arms, her legs touching the water for the first time with an audible gasp at the temperature. Her eyes widened, and terror overcame her features as she breathed, “What is this?”
“I don’t know,” I grunted. “But, it ain’t water.”
We rushed back into the main hall, and I raised her up, so she rested on my waist, her legs wrapping around me through the black tar and water. I struggled to get out from the weight and rush of the water, traversing my way slowly back to the main stairwell.
I used my wings to rush us forward but determined they may actually be holding us back, more for the beast to grab onto.
I retracted them as quickly as I could and raced up to the top of the stairs to the narrow passage leading back up to the deck.
To both of our horror, it was blocked. The tar seemed to spin out in a web, covering the doorway with such force it was almost impossible to move. I scraped at the substance with as much force as I could muster, pushing and pulling and begging for its release to no avail.
Celeste reached out to grab the barrier and shrieked with effort as she grappled with the substance. She screamed in frustration as she pulled urgently at the makeshift gate.
The blackness surrounded us like an army, and I took a step back, watching as the midnight substance crawled across the walls and made targets of us. Celeste’s eyes were wide and her skin pale as she gave me a desperate stare. We looked at one another and both realized there should have been something more between us, some declaration in our dying moments.
“I’m sorry you came back,” she whispered, her tone unreadable.
I looked at her, not yet resigned as my arm still held her up above the water.
“I’m not,” I said.
She leaned in and kissed me, running her hands over the scales on my neck, and I could feel them glow.
I could feel all my scales light up with an intense heat and the blue glow shone from under the waters grasp. Celeste looked at me in surprise. She swallowed and then said, “I’m pregnant.”
“I know,” I nodded. “I know.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
My arms lit up once more, my body filling with an intense heat that I hoped she could feel as the tar slowly backed away from me, letting the water take over as our keeper.
“Tell me to fight,” I whispered through gritted teeth, watching as the tar taunted us, crawling up the wall beside our bodies and mocking our last moments together.
She winced in confusion and said, “I didn’t really think that was an option.”
“I wasn’t lecturing you,” I sighed in frustration. “Just, tell me… tell me something.”
“Fight,” she said with little enthusiasm.
I gave her a testing look and narrowed my eyes at her. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”
“Well, I don’t know! If you can save us, I don’t know why the hell you’re not doing it!”
I stared at her, and suddenly I didn't know either. Why couldn't I do it? Connect to the water. I closed my eyes and held Celeste close to my body, could feel the heat of her body disappear as the freezing water rushed in and took over. I felt the water through my hands and thought about Celeste, thought about the child.
“Can I tell you something and…” the redhead raised her chin so the water didn’t rush over her mouth, gasped for air near the ceiling of the corridor. “And if we live, you have to promise not to hold it against me.”
“I promise,” I said, eyes clenched shut and trying desperately to control the water billowing over us.
“I think I’m in love with you,” she said as earnestly as she ever said anything.
“You think, or you know?”
“I know. I’ve known it ever since I watched you fall in the crater and… maybe even before that.”
I kissed her forehead and pressed my cheek to her forehead. “I didn’t know until…”
I still didn’t know. A dragon’s scales glow when they are connected to their chosen. They’re supposed to glow at the choosing ceremony. It’s how we know, deep in our souls, that we were meant to be with that person. It’s how we know they were already with us and all we had to do was meet.
But I never felt that with Celeste… yet, as she stroked my chest and my body lit up with the hum and long forgotten glow, something shifted.
My body glowed in the most extraordinary way, and I could feel the water beckoning to my command, rushing away from us in fear as I forced it up through the stairwell, bursting through the blackened barrier and breaking it at the seams.
Celeste looked over at me, and both of us raced to the doorway, making our way up to the deck. I fanned my wings out as quickly as possible, the sharp bones jutting through my skin and expanding to fit my needs with excruciating pain.
I grabbed hold of Celeste and took to the air immediately, only to be stopped by a massive spire of blackness in the sky. A woman’s figure emerged from within the center of the column.
The creature’s features were dark and slick like the tar behind her. Her eyes were large and covered over her temples on both sides of her face. The black, almond shape held no pupil or color. Whatever she was must have been hiding behind the blackness, not an extension of it.
She raised her brow, nonverbally alerting us that I wasn’t to pass her or cross her. I landed back down on the deck and exhaled shakily.
“Who are you?” I demanded, setting Celeste down beside me and grabbed her hand, forcing her behind my back. “Are you the ruler here?”
I must have been way off the map since the woman merely frowned and showed no small expression of disgust toward me. Not having much luck with the ladies, thus far.
“This is my sea,” the creature said back, raising a seductive brow at me. “I’ve seen you before.”
Celeste squeezed my hand at the woman’s recognition, and I shrugged with confusion.
“I don’t think so,” I said confidently. “I would remember your face.”
“I know your kind,” she said surely, her voice only vaguely female. It seemed double over itself like a smooth and sweet echo. “And you,” she said, extending a tentacle toward Celeste. The tentacle reached down and spiraled around and around until it pointed right at Celeste’s red hair.
“I…” Celeste coughed and backed away from the tentacle. “Don’t think I’ve had the pleasure, actually.”
The creature caught my gaze only briefly, long enough to see that my eyes were absolutely fixated on her. She smiled flirtatiously, a game suddenly afoot.
Without warning, she breathed suddenly and grabbed me around my waist, slithering her spire skyward so I could face her. She pulled me close and hissed into my ear, “I didn’t
think it’d be this easy to catch one of you.”
“I’m usually a difficult man to get a hold of,” I said evenly, never struggling against her. “Though you haven’t entirely gone through with the ‘catching’ portion yet, seeing as how I could easily rip from your grasp, so I suppose neither of us should be jumping to conclusions.”
“Don’t you want to know how I outmaneuvered you?” An odd smile formed on the creature, not one out of joy or lust, but a learned movement.
I struggled against her grip and chuckled nervously. “Will I live long enough that it’ll make a difference?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.” She looked me up and down hesitantly, and then her expression brightened. “You are Caridan,” she said with excitement.
Turning my head, I looked down to Celeste and she raised her brows as if to tell me now was not the time to celebrate.
“No, no,” I laughed nervously. “Not quite. But I’m a friend of his…”
I could see Ikar and Vordamm circling us hesitantly, both unsure whether we should be attacking or exactly how that might work.
She did something close to a frown and kept moving her head from side to side, inspecting me carefully as though I were, in fact, Caridan.
“I am Ravayarus,” she said.
“Sigisvult,” I said. “Why did you sink our ship?”
“I felt you on my planet.”
“Well,” I pressed my tongue firmly against the top of my mouth. “That’s one way to say hello. Can’t say it’s my preferred method, but, I can’t say I’m sorry to meet you, either.”
The creature giggled and turned me to the side, bringing me closer to her form. She seemed shy all of the sudden as her black form took on a human shape, her breasts large and a curved waist protruding from the liquid behind her.
“Why are you here?”
I swallowed hard. “We’re looking for this Caridan you mentioned.”
“I see,” she said curiously, absorbed in my words.
“We need him to help us. Do you know where he is?”
“I like you,” she smiled.
I shifted my sight awkwardly and then raised my brow before the creature freed my wings from her grasp. “I like you,” I flirted back. “I’m looking for a group of people, like her,” I said, pointing to Celeste. “Do you know where they are?”
Ravayarus gave a slight nod, and I could tell her eyes were following me. “In the green below,” she smiled.
I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but the fact that she’d
“I want you to stay with me,” she said and began to squeeze me, neared me in a wave of black water.
I reached out and ran my finger along her cheek. “I will stay with you if you tell my friends where we can find Caridan.”
The woman ran a tentacle across her lips and held it there, judging whether or not I was telling her truth. She laughed and pointed west, just as Ikar had instructed earlier.
She moved even closer to me, feeling that our deal was done. I could see her faux breasts bouncing together, and I resisted the urge to cringe at the strange creature. I wondered if this was how terrifying I seemed to Celeste when she first met me, a strange creature with strange parts.
“Ravayarus, that’s enough,” came a deep call from across the sky.
My eyes darted north to the purple shifter in the distance. The membranes on his wings were transparent, reflecting a dark collection of colors in the shimmering patagium. Like a rainbow in an oil slick. Purples and deep greens swam together in the sheer skin.
The shifter had a deep skin tone and fluorescent purple scales.
He flew toward us with ease, and Ravayarus seemed instantly annoyed with his presence.
“That’s enough,” he commanded again, and the dark creature released her grip on both me and our ship.
I fluttered back down to the wooden beams below and looked up at Caridan, who flew with hesitant strides in circles around the creature. I picked up Celeste and flew next to him, the air freezing cold against my wings as I shadowed his movements.
“Go away, Ravayarus,” he said in a strong tone. “We’ve had enough of you.”
All at once the tar creature shrieked in terror and disappeared back into the sea, taking her slick spires and towers of water back with her, the implosion causing a loud splash as she made her way quickly back down into the waters.
There was a great tidal wave that splashed over the black ground below, and then all at once, it looked like natural waters once more. Deep and blue.
Celeste was shaking in my grasp, clinging desperately to my body. It was then I realized I’d never properly flown with her before. As if this… Ravayarus creature wasn’t terrifying enough, she was also hundreds of feet above the ground.
I exhaled deeply and stared at Caridan. The legendary shifter, fire-breather, escapee, thief. I couldn’t help but be in awe of him as his wings gusted large breaths behind them.
He didn’t speak to us. In fact, he only turned once to regard the white dragon we had brought along with us.
The two stared at one another in a deep exchange, the message only perceptible only to one another.
Then both took to the sky, racing one another as if there was some unspoken finish line.
Chapter Eleven
Celeste
I shivered against the wind, once again finding myself drenched and freezing in Sigisvult’s company. I didn’t know what in the world we’d just encountered, but it terrified me. Half dragon men were hot, but murderous swamp ladies were, well, just unpleasant.
I was happy, however, that we had found Caridan so easily.
The flight back wasn’t too long before we were sitting in the company of those we’d been seeking for weeks.
The view from the small camp was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. I stood in the mass of dust and rock and stared up into the deep above, planetary rings infecting the sky, large and shimmering like I’d never seen.
Sigisvult came up beside me and grabbed my hand and looked down at me with a handsome smile as we approached the fire.
A blonde woman stood by the raging flames. She wore a heavy cloak and had long masses of blonde curls falling forward. She looked over at Caridan with a familiar, sad smile and didn’t quite seem to know what to do with herself.
Though a little older now, forties at least, from pictures I saw at her mother’s, I knew it was Ariella.
Besides her there were other humans afoot, researchers from Riddell sent to populate and cultivate the land. I looked down at the crumbling soil beneath us and wondered exactly how bad a job they had been doing in the last 20 years.
I breathed deeply and took a seat by the campfire, Sigisvult taking a seat next to me.
“We meet again,” came the high tones of Ariella as she offered a pleading smile to Ikar.
The white shifter nodded his hello to her, but refused to sit.
For his part, Vordamm was already digging into a bowl of mystery meat one of the scientists handed him. If he cared about the dramatic events that had clearly once unfolded between Ikar and Caridan he didn’t show it.
Those from Riddell were kind enough to give us space as we familiarized ourselves with those once banished from Udora, the lot of us sitting around the fire that raged near makeshift huts nearby. A small camp of colonists.
“You have a nephew,” Ikar said suddenly, looking over at the blonde woman nearby.
Ariella looked over at the white shifter and beamed, her eyes growing big and blue and endlessly pleased. “Meghan?” she smiled.
Ikar nodded. “Poammenus, a red dragon.”
Ariella raised her brows in small recognition and then looked to her mate. Caridan’s eyes shifted toward his chosen and then quickly to the ground at the mention.
“It’s Brenem’s,” Ikar confirmed.
“I don’t suppose you came all this way to tell us that,” Caridan said tersely, crossing his arms and leaning back against one of the huts nearest
to the fire.
“You know, there’s a legend about you,” Vordamm suddenly interjected through slurps of his stew. “You guys, I should say,” he corrected, pointing wildly between the two.
“Is that so?” Caridan said skeptically with a slight raise of his brow.
“Rebels say your kid’s gonna come and kill us all, the Koth district. Retake Udora,” the orange dragon clarified, but it was clear that the couple had no idea what he was talking about.
“What do you mean retake?” the purple shifter asked, concern washing over his tone as he looked to Ariella.
Ikar raised a hand to Vordamm in annoyance and sighed into his hands before closing his claws into a steeple. “Rebels have broken out in Udora. They’ve been killing us for years… attacking our lands. Legend goes that a child will be brought back from a human and a Weredragon. A female.”
Caridan flinched, and Ariella immediately stood, making her way to him protectively.
“The girl will come back and rage fire on the land. The rebels believe she’ll pave the way as the new leader and take over. And we happen to know…” he raised his brows unsurely, “that you have a girl.”
Ariella suddenly let out an insincere laugh and placed her hand on Caridan’s shoulder. “And you have an interest in bringing our child back as your leader?”
“I have no interest in that,” Ikar said honestly.
“I do,” I piped up, rubbing my hands together for warmth in front of the fire.
“No,” Ikar snapped at me. “In fact, Bromis’ son took over.”
Caridan raised his brows in recognition but said nothing.
“I’m interested in you,” the white shifter said. “And only you.”
“You were the one who banished me,” Caridan enunciated through a snarl. “Do you remember that?”
“Do you remember why?” Ikar seethed back, the hairs near in his tail rising up in anger.
“I’m sorry you came all this way,” Ariella interjected slowly, looking around the group of us unsurely. “But we have no female.”
Ikar met her eyes in some sort of showdown, and I suddenly felt wildly uncomfortable. I looked at Sigisvult, who was also looking agitated, and then over to the blonde woman.