by Celia Kyle
Vende
Dragons of Preor
Celia Kyle
Anne Hale
Contents
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
About the Authors
Blurb
He had thought he would never experience the Knowing. All he needed was the right woman.
After suffering a traumatic injury as a child, Dawn has lived a sheltered life under the shadow of tragedy. Despite her passion for botany, neither her family nor her limitations ever allowed her to pursue her dreams...until the day she encounters the Preor and they need help only she can provide.
Vende has grown weary. Weary of overseeing the engineering infrastructure for the Preor Third Fleet, weary of watching as his fellow warriors find their mates, and—after several failed Choosings—weary of trying to find his own. It's time he face facts and resign himself to the life of a solitary warrior. Then he meets Dawn and finally understands the full power of the Knowing.
Desire. Love. Need.
But destiny can be cruel to those it sidelines. With the fate of the Preor hanging in the balance, Vende and Dawn must face seemingly insurmountable odds to find their happily ever after--not to mention save the warrior race from extinction.
Will it be enough? Or will Dawn and Vende lose their love before it has a chance to fully blossom?
Chapter One
A cool ocean breeze lifted from the surface of the sea and swept through Vende’s hair, the salty edge flowing over him to burn his wings. Other Preor had grown used to the proximity with the ocean, but he had not yet made his peace with briny waters.
Today he wore his trademark scowl, so deeply engraved in him that he might not recognize his face without its presence as he walked as close to the edge of the platform as he could, gaze on the tumultuous waves below. Sea spray lifted into the air as foamy tides crashed together under the platform. Fractured rainbows danced around him, shifting back and forth on the cold wind that lifted the dark blue hair from his neck.
“Enjoying your walk, Vende?” Penelope—the Preor Third Fleet’s computer—managed to sound both polite and sarcastic at the same time, a talent that infuriated him. Her voice emitted from one of the many speakers positioned throughout the training platform.
No, it is no longer a training platform, he mentally sneered. The human hacker Lily joi Argan King had absconded with the platform and turned it into Kouvai Nihon—a vay-cay-shon spot for Preor and human-Preor mates.
“Vende?” Penelope pressed him again.
He sighed and wondered if he should bother to respond. He was here to mourn his lost resources, not get into another verbal joust with the overactive artificially intelligent computer that had taken over the ship.
Besides, he was enjoying his walk. Though Vende had realized he had misinterpreted many things in human culture, he did not know how to respond to Penelope without sinking further into the mire of unknown words and inexplicable meanings.
“C’mon, Vende. Don’t give me the silent treatment.”
“How would you ‘treat’ anyone with silence?” he muttered without thinking. When Penelope laughed in a great tinkling cascade of sound, he knew he had stumbled over human language yet again. “If silence is a treatment, you should definitely have it,” he snapped.
Penelope laughed even harder. “Fuck, Vende. That was almost clever. I think you might be getting it.”
“Getting what?” Curiosity plagued him. Could he be getting resources for his new training platform?
“Forget it.” Penelope actually sighed.
“Forget what? How can I forget what I am getting when I don’t know what I am getting?”
“Vende, you’re giving me an intense migraine and I don’t even have a biological brain.”
The waves churned and tossed up a great swath of spray and he scowled at the deadly sea. It was a beautiful thing. Vicious and fatal. Any Preor could appreciate its beauty, the moods it seemed to display. He still had to question the validity of building a pleasure palace on top of a Preor death trap, though. It was meant to test and train warriors, yet Penelope and Lily “repurposed” it for the many families of Preor and human-Preor mates.
Further down the platform he watched several young males shift and leap from the edge, throwing sea spray and vapor high as they powered through the sky. Their lighthearted cries affected him deeply. He loved his work as engineering master, he lived for his career and did not take much pleasure for himself, but that was his own path.
He could not expect every single Preor to be as devoted to their position as him. As he listened to their laughter, he had to finally admit the vay-cay-shon platform was useful. Not as useful as a training platform, no way, but it had improved the mood of many, and it had given the mated Preor a chance to get off the ship.
“I think I saw a smile there, Vende.”
“Don’t you have anything better to do than annoy me?” he grumbled at a nearby speaker.
“Well, I’m actually doing several things right now. It’s what I was built to do.”
“So, you can steal my resources, run the ship, and monitor potentially a billion variables, but you can’t build me a new training platform?”
“Is it really so important?” Penelope muttered. “It’s not like we’re at war or anything.”
“War could come at any time!” he snapped, barely holding in a roar. “A Preor must always be ready for battle. To protect the innocent. To defend.”
“Okay, I should have known better than to ask that question.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Resources for the new platform are being organized. This stuff doesn’t happen overnight, you know.”
“Yes, of course I know you could not complete the task in one night!” Vende’s scowl returned, twice as sharp as it had been. “What a ridiculous idea.”
Penelope giggled and Vende rustled his wings as he folded his arms across his chest, his muscles bulging with his tight position. If she was going to make fun of him, he would not speak to her.
He continued his walk, remaining near the edge. He had to admit that the platform was very well executed. For all his issues with Penelope and Lily, they were good at attending to details. They just did not act with his authority. Would it have been so difficult to ask before appropriating his resources?
“C’mon, Vende. I know you’re enjoying yourself. Stop trying to convince everyone you’re a grouch.”
“I know not what this ‘grouch’ is, but if you keep insulting me, I can yank the cords out of the speakers.” He was an engineering master. Silencing one computer would take not time at all.
“That won’t shut me up.”
Vende shook his head and brought his fingers to his temples, rubbing small circles to ease the growing ache in his mind.
“Look, Vende, I’m working on it. You’ll get your new training area. In the meantime, let the others enjoy their time here.”
He turned from the frothing tides and moved inward, the greenery of the place seeming to wrap around him, casting him in dappled shadows and easing the harsh rays of the Gulf of Mexico’s sun. Deeper into the center a male could forget the place was surrounded by water. Birds had moved in and now chirped happily in the trees, making a wave of song that washed over him.
He was not just ruminating over his lost training platform. He was thinking about all the work on the ship that slowly piled on him. One by one they had lost all their high ranking Preor. Not to war, but to love!
The engineering master was not supposed to deal with command issues. He was supposed to work on the ship, make sure it always ran at its optimum level. His job required him to be both disciplined and creative as he fixed problems on the ship or improved the existing systems.
His control of these factors was now limited by Penelope. This was part of the reason Lily was still not allowed on the ship or to “improve” Penelope further. If he gave the two of them even the smallest chance, they would obliterate his position.
He let out a small growl, big blue wings folding and then extending as he worked through his frustration. Maybe, it would be better if his position became obsolete. He was currently performing jobs for the war master, primary warrior, offense master and defense master. Each and every one of them was so caught up chasing their mate or dragonlets they seemed to have completely forgotten about their duty to the Preor.
Of course, he knew the highest duty of all was to a Preor’s mate and dragonlets. But that did not stop him seething with frustration every time he was called to another part of the ship to attend a matter left unfinished by its appointed male.
His fists clenched as he walked through the lush vegetation, wings tight to his body as he navigated the greenery. Some of it was higher than his head, whispering fronds that shivered so intensely, he could feel as well as hear it. It soothed him, as if the plants had spoken to him, attempting to soothe his nerves. He enjoyed the sensation for a few seconds before casting it away.
It was a fanciful moment and Vende did not tolerate such things. He was disciplined and devoted to his career. He gave up on finding a mate a long time ago and what he fought at this moment was the hope that flared in his heart.
He had been to multiple choosings at Preor Choosing Station Tau, almost in spite of himself. He had always focused solely on his career and told himself there was no chance of a mate, yet he still went to the choosing station every so often. Vende struggled to control his hope and buried it the same way he always did—by thinking about work.
As love pushed out of his heart and discipline and efficiency took over, his face twisted again. The thing no one knew about Vende was that he simply could not function with good humor. Not while he held back the torrent of longing and jealousy that flooded him when he thought about the possibility of a mate.
Seeing his fellow Preor falling into the disorder of family life and forgetting their duties hurt him like the salt of the sea drawing across his scales. Vende could never admit it, not even to himself, but he had never given up hope. He really felt that somewhere there was a mate for him. Seeing other Preor pairing up so frequently caused a painful tension in him that forced him to snap and act with impulse—like when he had kept Argan imprisoned.
“Vende, your face will get stuck like that and then where will you be?”
“I’ll be right here.” he answered, without thinking. “Even if my face did get stuck somehow, why would that change my location?”
Penelope giggled and Vende frowned even harder, dragging a hand through his hair. He didn’t have time to decipher cryptic sayings right now. There was too much work to do.
Chapter Two
The whispering shivered against Dawn’s skin as she carefully moved through the greenhouse. The place was massive, more than three acres of climate-controlled, plant-filled heaven. When the plants were happy, the sounds of their leaves shuffling against each other deeply affected Dawn.
It was like having silk trailed across her skin. There was no breeze in the greenhouse, yet as she passed the plants shifted as if a gentle wind breezed through them. She knew in her heart that the plants were happy, and they liked her. Though, she had stopped talking about things like a plant’s feelings a long time ago, too disturbed by the way people condescended to her when she opened up about things that were outside the scope of human senses.
Her left hand wandered to her face and she absently touched the scar above her ear. It was long, curved and white—a jagged slash where hair simply refused to grow. She didn’t know how old she had been when it happened or exactly how she was injured all those years ago. She simple knew she had been very young, and the accident had happened in a field during harvest.
She had overheard her parents talking about it one night and she would never forget the fear and disbelief in her mother’s voice.
“I’m telling you, Gerald. The groundcover vines had grown over her. They were literally holding her skull closed when I got there.”
“You were just frightened, Natasha. You weren’t seeing straight.”
“I know what I saw. She would have been dead if the plants hadn’t wrapped around her. Part of her skull was missing—”
“I know. The thresher must have picked up a rock and thrown it out of the blades. I didn’t hear her scream.”
“Neither did I. But it was as if… I was warned.”
“Enough, Natasha. Our baby girl is alive. Let’s just be grateful and be done with the matter.”
It had never been mentioned again, at least, not within her hearing. Dawn’s recovery had been long, but as soon as she got back to her gardens she had healed quickly. Her three older brothers called her a witch.
“Not a warty, wrinkly old sorcerer,” Jason, the eldest teased her. “But an herb woman… A beast talker. Someone who can charm nature.”
She was pleased with the compliments, but she felt she was the one being charmed. The energy that came over her when she was in a place full of life took her outside of the confines of her mental disability. She had come to crave the sensation as her body became more and more difficult to live in.
Due to the accident all that time ago, she struggled in school. She suffered headaches, severe light sensitivity and moments of complete amnesia. Her short-term memory was faulty at best. After seeing her struggles, her parents and brothers stepped in and forced her to lower her workload. They couldn’t bear to see her suffering.
But she tried as hard as she could to study and pass her classes because she desperately wanted to study biology and chemistry in college. She dreamed of working with rare plants, discovering and creating new hybrids. She was used to harvesting, processing and splicing plants to create oils, tinctures and infusions but she wanted to understand the process so well she could create new compounds.
No matter how hard she tried, though, she simply couldn’t retain the information to pass her exams. When she started passing out from pain and nausea, her parents took her out of the hard classes and put her into basic art and agriculture. Dawn had protested once and her father had told her sternly that her health was the most important thing. She couldn’t risk it for goals that were out of her reach.
It hurt her to hear the truth. It seemed everywhere she turned doors closed against her. The disability she had been forced to live with never loosened its grip. It just slowly squeezed her a little more each day until her level of function was decided only by her pain.
She drew her fingers across the edge of the big, fan-like leaves of the plant she tended. Like before, it weaved and fluttered as if there was wind when there was none to be felt. She had come to trim and harvest the plant but found herself drawn to the soi
l. She knelt, hands digging through the shifting dirt.
Under the surface, the bed had set too firmly, and the plant’s roots were in mild distress. She pulled out a little fork and lifted and aerated the soil, feeling the energy of the plant lift as its leaves turned up to the sun.
“There you go, sweet thing.” She stroked the leaves again. “Now I’ll just take a few of your extra leaves for my throat and lung potion. That will direct energy into your trunk so you can focus on giving me some flowers.”
She always talked to the plants. Her family had gotten used to it and looked on her with a kind of baffled endearment. She knew her family loved her, but she also knew they were afraid for her and the stress of looking after her wore on them. They would never abandon her or neglect her—she knew that—but it didn’t stop her from feeling like she was a burden.
Since school had ended a couple of months ago, she had worked in the nursery full-time. She loved interacting with customers and had a knack for knowing which herbal medicine was needed to treat anyone’s ills. She could also advise people on what sort of plants they should grow to improve the atmosphere of their home and garden.
Dawn heard the far-off rattle of the generator and knew her brothers had arrived for work. It must be nearly 7 a.m. Since she started at five, she should take a break, but first, she wanted to finish her rounds.
With a light touch of her fingers, she bid the small palm tree goodbye, moving on to the next row of delicate ferns. She couldn’t remember their scientific names anymore. Most of what she learned in school had been forgotten. Sometimes moving through her own mind was like navigating a road drenched in thick fog. She would reach and reach but everything stayed murky, grey and confusing.