Chapter 10:
Gandadirth
Cycles came and went and the line between sleep and awake blurred, left and appeared within seconds of one another. I found myself constantly watching Fiona’s cell, fending off the various shifters who wanted revenge for what happened to our captain and those who wanted to get between her legs.
It wasn’t long before I was awakened by commotion in the camp.
I flew to my feet and walked outside, watching as two shifters marched inside Fiona’s cage and began touching her and knocking her down, holding her with their tails.
With a single gust of wind, I flew inside the cage, infuriated.
“Hey!” I yelled. “What the hell!”
I loved using human curses.
The shifters seemed intense about getting a hold of her, slapping her and yelling things in Dobromian to her.
“Hey!” I repeated in a howl, still not getting their attention.
I shot a beam of fire out the cage door and then whipped my tail against the gray shifter, knocking him down. He looked up at me with embarrassment and anger.
Tesyduss whipped me back, using his spiked tail to jolt me with a light slap and I grabbed him by the arms in a show of power. He struggled against me and whipped at me again, harder this time: drawing blood.
I clamped my claws into his arms, sure to leave a mark, and then dragged them down his scales; watching them flake under the razor slices.
“We’ve had enough of her!” Tesyduss yelled, venom dripping from his words.
“Well that isn’t your call, is it?” I said, and my eyes flicked down to Fiona, who had scrambled to the far side of the cage.
“No, it’s Jadirel’s,” my friend spat back. “He gave the orders.”
“She’s the only one who can take that thing off of him,” I squinted. “Why would he want her dead?”
Tesyduss stepped closer, panting from the effort of our scuffle. “I wouldn’t be so quick to protect her, Gandadirth. Use your head instead of your dick, at least for today.”
I swallowed and raised my chin to my friend. “First of all, you would if you could,” I said firmly, a brotherly tease to try and keep things light: to heal us from our disagreement. “And second, who’s to say anything’s going on with her?”
“Oh please,” he pressed his lips thin. “I watched you crawl into her cage like a beast. You’re no different than Kavryiss,” he said, speaking of our D’Karr who had mated with the human queen.
I lurched forward and grabbed him by the throat while the gray shifter, Vradis, backed away.
“Jealous?” I bit.
“She disgusts me,” he said, batting my hand away as though it were nothing. “I thought she disgusted you.”
There was a long pause between us until, as though pulled by an unseen force, Tesyduss admitted, “We’re all curious. Fine. She’s like…” He gripped my hand and pulled it firmly off his neck before extending his arm to Fiona. “She’s like some mystic… thing. But evil. Okay?”
I blinked and looked in her direction, cold and unreal.
“We thought you’d satisfy your curiosity and get rid of her,” Vradis offered and shrugged. “At least have her take his collar off?”
“We’ve been dragging her along for what?” Tesyduss spat, making all the sense in the world. “So, she can slowly take us out? You saw the bag. She had a ton of those collars. Ready to snap them on us. And how did she get the key?”
I swallowed and my face flushed. Of course, she had to steal it from me, of all people.
“You’re turning into some… pet,” the red shifter finished, brushing a hand through his bangs and tossing the wild stands back.
Blinking, I let out a calm laugh and said, “Is that so?”
Tesyduss read my eyes through the darkness. He leaned into my face; watching Fiona, and whispered, “You don’t care about her, do you?”
I swallowed, and I knew he already knew I was lying. “Not a chance.”
“Good,” he said sternly. “I’d advise against it. Not worth losing your life over.”
“Is that how far it’s come?” I asked, ushering the men from the cage now. “Geez. Talk about an over-exaggeration.”
“Right,” Vradis said absent-mindedly, pulling the cage door behind us. Fiona was still in earshot as he asked, “Then you’ll let Jadirel have her?”
I faked a laugh. “Jadirel can barely stand upright.”
Vradis blinked, serious. “And?”
“And,” I scoffed, “even if he could have her, he’d kill her.”
“Jadirel will kill you, Ganda,” Tesyduss snapped, setting a hand on my shoulder as we all stood, staring at the cage. “So, do what you want with this human and then call it again. We’re convening with our new base today, in case you forgot. We need you focused.”
I nodded. Sullen.
I waited for the shifters to leave, and when I was sure they were finally asleep, I approached Fiona, gripping my hands against the cold bars and pitching my torch back onto the ground.
“You okay?” I asked.
She sat in the corner of the cage, wedged in the angle the bars created. Her long and limber body fit perfectly in its crook. She stared at the ground and said nothing.
“Hey, did I go deaf?” I tried to tease in my usual way. “Or are we not speaking?”
She scoffed and didn’t look up. “We’re not speaking.”
I set my jaw. “Hey, I just saved you, so how about a little thanks?”
She raised a brow at me and speared me with a cold stare. She sat with one knee bent, a hand set on the ground ready to vault herself up at the first sign of offense. She sprung up to her feet, locking eyes with me.
“Yeah,” she said as though it were a dare, dragging out her vowels. “Maybe it’s time we discovered just why the hell you’re doing all this? What, you have to be a big man now in front of everyone, is that it? Want to pass me around like a little ragdoll?”
I blinked. “Okay, I don’t know what that means.”
“Don’t be glib,” she said. “It’s unbecoming.”
I sighed and rubbed my palm back and forth across my mouth. “I don’t know what that means, either,” I shrugged.
“It means eat shit,” she spat, literally.
“This human speaks!” I said with a loud laugh, sarcasm dripping from me. “So charming!”
“Fiona,” I said and reached a hand into the cell. She stared at it in a way that made me feel hollow. I moved my fingers, signaling her toward me. “You’re putting me in a bit of a spot.”
She raised a brow at me and then began backing away briskly. I could hear clomping behind me and couldn’t help but think: What now?
I spun on my heel and watched Jadirel approaching us with haste; loud footsteps marching terror closer; the pink beam of light still encircling his neck. He walked like a creature who had been beaten: bested. Like a beast with a limb ripped off. He stammered toward us, making grunts and groans.
His pride had been drained from him, which only proved to make him angrier.
“Open it,” he commanded to me, and I obeyed, opening her cage and quickly moving in after him to make sure he didn’t do anything to hurt her.
Jadirel walked up to her, his yellow scales glowing in pain, further illuminated by my torch. He snarled at her, foaming from the intense pain.
“You,” he said, looking at me with a parental hysteria. He pointed to his collar and gritted out, “I want this thing off. Or her usefulness will have run its course.”
I could feel Fiona’s fight or flight take over, and I set a hand out in front of her; she swallowed.
“Who made this?” Jadirel seethed to her, only blocked from grabbing her by my hand.
“I did,” she said, defiantly.
“Well, good for you.” Jadirel enunciated, “Then you’ll know just how to take it off.”
“Do you know?” I asked, turning to her and pleading for a more civil tone.
“It’s programmed to my fingers,” she said.
I couldn’t tell if she was lying or not. If it really was programmed to her fingers, that would mean that we couldn’t get rid of her; we had to keep her for her prints at least.
“Good,” Jadirel said, reaching painfully to her hand and gripping her wrist in his fist. “Then I can just rip one off and use it.”
I swallowed.
Guess I hadn’t thought of that.
My teeth clenched so hard I thought they might shatter and I watched him tug her forward; my wings flinched at his touching her, and then widened my eyes as Jadirel screamed out in pain as the collar seared his flesh.
Jadirel didn’t let go of her, now mashing her fingers up against the only spot cleared of the lasers, hoping her touch would release him.
“It doesn’t work like that!” she shouted, smacking against him with her other hand.
The yellow shifter squeezed down harder on her, lifting her from the ground and crushing his fingers tight around her before screaming in agony. “Then make it work,” he demanded through strained breaths.
Fiona looked at me, and I set a hand on Jadirel’s shoulder.
“No,” she said.
I fumed. “Fiona!”
“You keep me in my cage, I keep you in yours,” she said with a tilted chin; struggling for breath as Jadirel tightened his grip.
My body tensed as the yellow shifter began squeezing her, causing the life to go flowing out from her face. I widened my eyes and put a testing hand on Jadirel’s arm.
It was then that I realized something was happening inside me. There was a fire burning that I had been trying to put out for cycles. A deep pulsing in my gut that only surfaced when Fiona was around. And now I knew I couldn’t be without it. Wouldn’t be without it.
“Without her, you’ll never get it off,” I cautioned, and he weakened his grip. “Fiona,” I turned my attention to her, brushing my hand against her hair and never breaking eye-contact. “Please. Just do it, or you’re dragon meat, got it?”
She stared me down a moment longer, her face going blue.
“Fine,” she snapped her lips. “Put me down.”
My commander looked up at her as though she were insane: astonished. But to my surprise, he set her down.
“You're too tall,” she said tensely, and he knelt before her; his breath flowing through his nostrils and hitting her like a gust of wind. He locked eyes with her and never let her gaze go.
I watched as she brushed his hair out of the way, setting a careful thumb against the metal and I watched as the pink laser retracted into the metal and fell to the ground like an empty can.
Jadirel’s eyes shot open like a puppet as he looked up at her. His thick, square-jaw clenched repeatedly.
There was that sick feeling in my stomach once more. A lilt of sharp nerves shot up my stomach as I watched my commander wince and wrinkle his nose as he calculated what to do with the girl. His eyes roved about her body, stopping on her open pants once more before whipping her down with his tail, sending her flying to the ground.
My body jerked forward to help her, but I stopped as Jadirel cautioned, “Gandadirth.” But I ignored him and ran to her side, helping her sit up and rubbing my hand along the welts his thick tail had left on her. She burst into a sob, and I looked up at my commander, my face still as my eyes shot up to his, cold and wet.
I didn’t know how, but something between us had changed, as though this moment would always be there between us. A point of reference to when it all broke down.
He turned to me fiercely, pointing a single finger at me.
“She’s outgrown her use.” His voice was so calm it sent a shiver through my wings and down to the tip of my tail. I was buzzing. “If you are not willing to share,” he cautioned, “then I want her gone.”
I swallowed. “I understand.”
“You’d better.”