by Celia Kyle
“It’s very rude to touch a Preor’s wing.” One of the women chastised her. “I could say it’s bad manners to touch anyone, ever, without their permission.”
“I’m sorry,” Dawn whispered again, clamping her hands under her arms.
“No, I am sorry.” The Preor held out a hand. “I am Rendan. I know you were curious. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
Dawn watched a whisper go through the group and sighed. She didn’t need to be psychic to understand they had realized something was “wrong” with her and now they pitied her.
“I’m a bit slow,” she announced firmly. “I was just curious. I’ve never seen Preor before and I didn’t think.”
“It’s okay.” Rendan smiled. Dawn let herself relax a little and smiled back. It always bugged her that people judged her character based on her disability, but Dawn was not the kind of person who could stay upset for very long.
“Can I help you?” She put on her very best helpful face. The group looked at each other uncertainly.
“I know the plants,” she said, challenging them with a look. She deliberately brushed her hair back behind her ear, so the scar was visible. “I’m injured, not useless.”
This earned her a smile from the three Preor and the women.
One of the ladies—the one who had chastised her—stepped forward to take her hand. “I’m Grace. You haven’t told us your name?”
“I’m Dawn.” She shook Grace’s hand. “What can the Preor possibly need from us?”
“Preor medicine is very different to ours,” Grace explained. “We need certain plants that we can splice or combine to create these compounds.” Grace handed her a sheet of paper and Dawn went over the list. She recognized the chemical patterns and even though she had never seen some, she understood how to combine others to make them.
“Some of these are not even in the periodic table,” Dawn whispered in disbelief.
“Can you help us?” Tension in Grace’s voice rose to such a pitch that Dawn knew this was important. She nodded and hurried out to the green house.
She found a trolley and gathered plants from different sections. By the time she filled the trolley, she had several pots with lots of different plants in them to give to the Preor and their women.
When she returned to ring up the purchases, Grace looked worried. She looked over the trolley with some satisfaction but then reached out to squeeze Dawn’s hand.
“We need help,” Grace rasped as if her throat was sore. “The plants keep dying on the ship. These beautiful plants won’t be any good to us if they just die as soon as we get them up there. Is there someone who could come up to the ship and assist us?”
“Let me ask my father what he thinks.” Dawn turned and hurried out back again, her mind full of stars, spaceships and dragons. She lived in that fantasy that she could go and help them for a few seconds. She tried not to entertain the fantastical thoughts, but her heart wouldn’t let it go.
“Dad?” She found him pruning a huge rosebush with golden honey blooms. “The Preor customers have requested help with their gardens up in orbit. They claim their plants keep dying. Who would you recommend?”
Her father frowned, looking around the shop. All three of her brothers were busy with heavy work. Her mother worked the counter. A few other employees were helping customers around the shop. No one was free to leave.
“Why don’t you go, Dawn?”
“Me?” Her voice burst out of her before she could stop it.
He smiled and hugged her. “We’ll miss you here, darling, but you should go. You’re very talented, and it will be good for them to have you and good for you to go. You know you have your special way with things.”
Her special way with things…
“But I—I never get to go anywhere.”
“I think you’re safe with the Preor.” He smiled. “They have more honor than most humans. Go, honey. You’ll have them fixed in no time.”
“Thanks, Dad!” She kissed his cheek and ran to say goodbye to her mother and brothers. When she rejoined the small group, she beamed so hard her cheeks hurt.
“Let’s go!” she cried eagerly. She tried to walk calmly along with the others, but she ended up dancing and bounding out of the shop. Some things were so exciting it was impossible to maintain even the image of calm.
Chapter Five
Vende’s wings fluttered against the sea air, every particle of salt feeling like it wormed beneath his scales. He sighed as he looked across Kouvai Nihon.
He took long, slow strides along the outer edge, his gaze on the distance. There was a lonely place between the ocean and its breeze, a place where a dragon could be doomed. It still hurt his sense of reason to think about how close his brothers were to the deadly sea, and yet they seemed calm and relaxed.
Truthfully, Vende worried for the Preor. The straps across his chest represented honor and discipline and he felt as if most of his fellow warriors no longer deserved them. They had come here to find mates and change their world. Bargaining with humans was supposed to improve conditions for both parties, but to him it looked like chaos.
The ship high above him felt empty, one of the reasons he was here today. Young warriors he would have seen testing themselves on the training platform were now playing on the corners of Kouvai Nihon. Since Taulan started running around after his dragonlets and all the other senior officers paired up, the majority of Preor who had come to Earth didn’t seem worried about duty or honor.
Choosings were going on almost every day and any Preor he couldn’t find on Kouvai Nihon goofing off would be getting ready to leave for the choosing station. The frustration in Vende burned so deeply that he flexed, blue scales rippling over his flesh. The sigh he released was so full of tension, smoke leapt from his nostrils.
“Vende, you’re starting to tug on my heartstrings,” Penelope murmured from a nearby speaker.
Vende stayed stubbornly quiet, forbidding himself to mention that Penelope did not have a heart, and why would anyone’s cardiac muscle need strings? Instead he simply frowned.
“Look, I’m not here to be your life coach or anything, but you seem to be resisting the change, Vende.”
“Life coach?” The words bubbled up before he could stop them.
“Oh, that’s a silly little Earth term. Jabbing you is fun but I’m trying to help you right now. Talking about your problems is a good way to work through them. Have you seen a heart master? I’m sure Heart Master Khaza will make time to speak with you.”
“I don’t need help identifying my feelings,” Vende muttered, frustrated. “You stole my resources. You took away my training platform and now the troops are down here playing instead of working.”
“Vende… Where’s the fire?”
“Fire!” he cried and spun. “Where?”
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Vende. It means why are you rushing the solution to the problem? Why is it so vital that it’s causing you to be upset?”
“Because Preor should always be working toward honor!” he spluttered. “Who knows when a war might suddenly come after us? We must train. We must remain vigilant.”
“What if there is no war, Vende? What if it’s just mates and dragonlets from now on?”
“Then they should learn to fight as well. Discipline is essential for a Preor.”
“Okay… How about you just let everyone have a holiday for a little while? What do you think?”
Vende shook his head and snorted. Hall-ee-dae. Ridiculous.
“Think about it this way, Vende.” Penelope tried an encouraging tone, but she was not very good. “You’re stressed because you’re trying to do the job of everyone on the ship. Why not just wait for the primary warrior and war master to get their own asses into gear and take a break yourself?”
“Because someone has to—” He shook his head violently, biting back what he would have said. “You’re reckless, Penelope, and I swear I will have you disconnected as soon as I can figure out how! We have been
attacked. We have had Preor turning on each other, secret plots right under our noses. We have also had human schemes undermining us and mates in danger. We need to remain vigilant!”
“Okay. You’ve got me there. I really do think you could take a couple of days off though… The ship won’t fall apart. Will it?”
“I would not know. Would I?” Vende retorted, somewhat viciously. “The ship is my responsibility, but I barely ever have time to do my engineering work!”
“You and I should be best buds, Vende. You care for the ship and I kind of am the ship.”
He frowned again, sighing as he kept ambling along the edge of the platform. There was a flat, bare area up ahead that was used as a landing strip for ships. He kept walking toward it, wondering how things were going with Grace and Carla and their mates. He had been ignoring the fear deep in his gut that they were hanging over a precipice without some of their basic medicines. Maybe it was better to keep everyone out of combat training, at least for now.
“Without some of our healing compounds, I can see how this might not be a good time for combat training. I still think the teams should always be prepared for attack. I fear we are becoming… weak.”
“Vende,” Penelope sighed. “I’m trying to be nice here, but I think you might be just paranoid.”
“Will you stop insulting me with words I don’t understand!” he exploded furiously. “You have no honor and no decency! Even amongst human beings it is considered rude to speak in another language in front of someone who doesn’t understand!”
“I’m speaking plain English, Vende. If you’ve done enough background research to know that much about humans, why didn’t you search slang terms?”
“I did,” he muttered, not about to admit that the explanations did nothing to enlighten him.
There was a high whining from above that whipped the spray into salty peaks above the wind. Vende kept walking toward the landing strip, hoping it was Carla and Grace returning with good news. He wasn’t sure why Rendan and Kozav had to accompany them. Any Preor was capable of escorting the females and if the warriors had cared enough about their military duties, Vende wouldn’t have to be out here worrying.
He strode toward the landing area, the wind plastering his dark blue hair to his cheek and neck. His scowl was becoming a spectacular expression of his ongoing frustration, and his fists clenched in time with the flexing of his wings.
Vende was going to give Rendan and Kozav a piece of his mind. No matter what else was going on, the primary warrior and defense master could not neglect their positions. Every bottled-up thought and resulting fury boiled up to Vende’s skin as he prepared to tell them exactly what he thought.
There was utterly no excuse for neglecting duty. The women needed to get into the lab and the Preor needed to return to their routines. He would get Penelope to put up a new training platform—that would not become another vay-cay-shon spot—and finally, he could restore some normalcy to his position.
The roar of the shuttle’s engine died down as it landed lightly. He stood just outside the flat ring of the landing pad, arms crossed, and eyes fixed on the door. It was finally time to voice his concerns and remind the others of the importance of discipline.
As the doors opened and Carla and Grace stepped out, a wave of weakness overtook Vende. He stayed on his feet, but it was a struggle to remain upright. He leaned forward and clutched his forehead. Images flashed through his mind and it affected his stomach, causing it to twist and knot. His hands shook a little and his heart pounded so hard and fast he felt the throb in every cell.
He looked toward the shuttle, breath caught in his chest. He couldn’t call out. He couldn’t speak. He was held in the grip of a power that even the strongest Preor warrior could not fight. He was in the grip of the magical, terrifying thing he had thought he would never experience.
The Knowing.
Chapter Six
The glass of the short-flight shuttle’s window was cold against Dawn’s fingertips. She leaned forward far enough to touch the cool surface with her nose as she tried to focus on the beautiful, floating island of lush green below.
Kouvai Nihon was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. The fresh, bright green vegetation covered every single surface, big trees, trailing vines and grasses of different lengths sweeping its spaces. Through the haze of waterdrops and floating rainbows she could sense happiness and contentment. Life forms here were happy. Not just the plants, but everyone else, too.
She watched their descent eagerly, every hitch of the ship making her laugh as they descended toward the flat plain below.
“Have you ever flown before, Dawn?” Carla spoke softly.
“No,” Dawn answered, breathless and still focused on the platform below. “Never.”
Grace smiled indulgently and rubbed Dawn’s arm. “I hope you enjoy your stay with us. There is so much to see.”
Dawn just nodded, ready to jump up and down with excitement. Her head felt funny. Not one of her usual headaches—which could strike out of nowhere and leave her crippled for hours—but a warm, tingly sort of sensation.
And it increased the closer they got to the platform.
To Dawn it was as if her mind gradually filled with ideas. Things she had never heard of, things she couldn’t have imagined. They stayed just out of her reach and rather than getting frustrated, she simply let the sensation pass through her. She was used to having thoughts she couldn’t understand or hold onto.
The shuttle landed with a rocky little bump and Dawn laughed in delight. She hadn’t known that flying was so much fun!
As one of the Preor slid the door open, the strange tickling sensations returned. Dawn touched her forehead, hot needles of pain prickling from her temples and across her scalp. She leaned forward, holding her head with one hand and bracing herself against the wall of the shuttle with the other.
“Dawn, are you okay?” Grace eased closer and squeezed her arm gently, checking her pulse at her wrist.
“I’m okay.” Dawn was a little trembly, but she knew she had to get out onto the platform—had to. She had never doubted her instincts in the past and she wasn’t about to start now. She stepped out on to the flat surface, wind gusting at her from the ocean as she stood still against the onslaught.
She had somehow sensed that the feeling would change as soon as she hit the platform. Now when it flowed over her like silk, she opened her arms and closed her eyes. Suddenly… she knew lots of things. Things that made sense and somehow didn’t at the same time, yet she still understood. It was confusing. It was glorious.
She knew how to fasten the double crisscross shape over a Preor’s chest to show his merits. She knew complex and habitual family traditions. She understood about different weapons, their use and how they were made.
She knew… everything. Her head, which had always been so very empty, now overflowed with knowledge. Every day, every single damn day of her life had been chasing after her thoughts, reaching through layers of thick fog just to keep hold of them. Each moment a struggle.
This knowledge blasted all else from her mind. She kept her eyes turned up to the sky, giving herself up to the sensations of the wind as it stroked her skin. When the Knowing asserted itself even harder upon her, she opened even further, inviting it in.
Her head overflowed with thoughts and facts. She could pick them up, one by one, examine them and then put them back down. The craziest thing was, she could find them again with ease.
My brain is working!
She opened her eyes and as the blue unfolded upon her, a whole new aspect of the Knowing hit her.
“Syh,” she breathed, feeling as if the blue so far above her was in her hands. The caress of the sky, the freedom of it, was so encompassing that Dawn felt like she could fly.
Suddenly a fist clenched deep inside her stomach. She wrapped her arms around herself and staggered. Instantly the others touched her, trying to ask what was wrong. She shook her head, trying to answer but
unable to hear them properly, even if she had been able to organize her new thoughts enough to answer.
Then Rendan touched her between the shoulder blades.
She screamed, stumbling forward. It had been like getting stabbed by hot pincers. She could hear others gathering around her even tighter, and she moaned. She was sick, weak. She had to get away to somewhere she could just breathe. Everything had been fine—better than fine—until Rendan touched her.
As she drew long breaths into her lungs, an urgency ran through her blood. She had to be somewhere. She had to do something.
Someone needs me!
This need, this dark and echoing loss, struck her through her bones. She couldn’t let another male touch her ever again! The darkness surged inside her and it came with that same Knowing. If you do not submit, there will be no joy, only death…
She moved toward the feeling. She had never felt such dark energy before. It was longing, and it was loss—the loss of something she had never had.
Her heart glowed with love as she looked up. Now that she was a few steps away from the others, the nausea dying down. The Knowing pounded at her temples, but it was exhilarating, not sickening. Goosebumps flew across her skin and she sighed in pleasure. She knew what to do.
She looked across the field and her face lit up in joy. She couldn’t see much from this distance, just the large shape of a male who was bent over the way she had been only seconds ago. Beautiful blue wings stretched above his head and loose, tousled dark blue—almost black—hair fell over his shoulders.
A palpable wave of pleasure rippled through her. It burned and throbbed between her legs in places she had never known existed. It made her nipples into such tight, hard points that they hurt. She tried not to focus on this pleasure—even though she ached to—because it was so strange it caused her some shame. She turned her mind to more complex thoughts, amazed by how easily she could do such a thing.
All she had to do was turn her mind in a certain direction and the great expanse of the Knowing provided answers for her. It was as if having this knowledge so suddenly downloaded into her mind had forced her memory to expand, and her thoughts automatically connected the dots without any effort on her part.