Chapter 12:
Vaikrand
“Good job with the girl,” Jakartez said, shaking my hand and baring his claws to me. He was a representative of the D’Karr. I took this as a very good sign.
“I didn’t mean for her to become wounded,” I defended slightly and the shifter laughed and waved me off as though an explanation wasn’t necessary.
“The D’Karr is very pleased with you. Pleased to hear what you have to say.”
Yeah, I bet, I wanted to say. Instead, I smiled like the coward I had become.
The D’Karr had been nothing but prideful at my returning the girl. I had a plan, I insisted to him, but first I would have to go through a proving to get him to see things my way.
The purple shifter led me through the entrance of The Tower and watched me closely as we ascended to the top of the spire.
As far as I was told, Athena was the public enemy. She was the unbreakable human with information they needed. I had finagled my way to visiting her; telling the higher-ups that I had the perfect information to make her succumb to our wishes. Which they quickly obliged.
The Tower was just as I had remembered it from so many years ago. I stepped up the stone staircase and relished the feel of the cool stone against my bare feet.
I felt the air coming in through the spire windows, humid and breathless. It smelled like the air that used to form around the fields back when we had real crops. I took it as a good sign, at any rate, that maybe things were about to change. After all… there was a shift happening between myself and Athena that I felt good about, if I could get her to listen.
I stepped up to Athena’s floor and halted before I reached the entrance. I swallowed hard, hoping for a gracious reunion. A chance to explain myself.
I saw Aurlauc in the corner of the rounded room. He stood against the far wall and watched my human with careful, soulful eyes. His expression made me sick.
He loved her. I understood now.
I didn’t like it, but I understood.
I nodded my head in recognition and caught eyes with Athena, her blonde hair dampened to her forehead from the heat. My eyes glanced down to her leg and traced the shape of her wound with my tongue against the roof of my mouth.
Whipping my tail to the side, I approached the cage, half expecting her to come up and greet meet, half expecting her to come up and slap me.
Instead, she stayed firmly planted on her mattress.
“I wanted to see you,” I said desperately, watching with embarrassment as Jakartez widened his eyes, laughed, and left the room.
“Oh you did, did you?” she said, toneless, never making eye contact with me.
“I…” I bit my lip and looked over to Aurlauc awkwardly. I approached the cell door and wrapped my hands around the bars, feeling the cold, slick moisture against my palm.
“You, what?” the blonde said harshly, limply, staring lost into her blankets, picking lazily at the stray strands that had bunched together at the corner. “You love me?” she asked, blue eyes staring fiercely at me now. “You need me? You want me?”
I looked to Aurlauc once more and then back to Athena’s eyes.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
Athena stood then, walking up to the bars calmly and giving me a once over. “Really?” she asked slowly. “So all that bullshit wasn’t a rouse to make me feel sorry for you? For me to let my guard down so you could sell me down the river and get back in with these people?”
She laughed, but it wasn’t funny.
“Athena, no,” I pleaded with some annoyance, reaching my hand through the bars to touch her. “What must you think of me?”
“What do I think of you? You gave me up, you son of a bitch!” she screamed through her tears and tried ravenously to punch me from behind her confines.
I grabbed her arms, and we grappled for some time with difficulty as she pulled me closer to the bars, slamming my body toward them with the full weight of her.
Then she slapped me, hard, and wrestled for her laser pistol that hung at my side. I grappled against her hands, pushing her back and trying in vain to stop her tiny arms from scrambling through the bars. My heart jumped as she managed to catch the grip of the weapon and rip it from my belt. I grunted with effort, and she backed far into the recesses of the cage, gripping the weapon as she cocked it toward me.
I could see the pink hue light up from within the barrel of the gun as she aimed it square between my eyes and pulled the hammer back, her finger hovering over the trigger like a cornered beast.
Her grip was solid. I stared down the barrel of the gun and ran my tongue along the roof of my mouth. I knew she was a steady shot. But inside I was trembling so hard I could nearly hear my heart thumping outside of my body. We locked eyes. She must have wanted me to look scared, but my expression was unreadable: stoic. I didn’t raise my hands nor my brows. I just stared at her, watched her reaction with complete understanding.
Then I saw it. The hurt.
“Athena!” Aurlauc yelled through gritted teeth. Obviously, he thought he was doing her a favor by letting me into The Tower, and now she was putting the silver shifter in jeopardy, again.
The silver Weredragon stepped close to the bars and raised his hands to Athena and we both watched as tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Just, stop!” she screamed, warning us both back with another shake of her weapon. “You used me,” she looked at me.
“I didn’t,” I said. “And if you would just listen, instead of being your stubborn self, you could actually hear what happened!”
I waited for her to put the weapon down but she didn’t: just grit her teeth at me and nearly snarled.
“Athena, they were going to kill you!” I screamed, smashing the side of the bars with my now throbbing hand. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Fly away,” she enunciated furiously.
“Athena, I claimed you. I stayed to defend you. I did and said whatever I could to get you safe and you still fight against me?” I flared my wings out before her, splayed up against the back wall of the narrow cell. “I’ll not be held responsible like a villain!”
I loved her and did what I was supposed to do to save her, and now she hated me for it. I felt a rage rip through the pit of my stomach, and I spun on my heel, whipping at her cell once more, denting the metal with a loud slap.
“You did it for you,” she literally spat.
Then I felt the fire well up in my throat and it was all I could do not to release it in my furor. Instead, I let out a wild dragon’s cry. “I did it for you!” I screamed. A roar: a screech that pierced the room followed by a deep, echoed cry that found its way to every wall in the small tower, reverberating through the floors.
A deafening silence followed between us, and I wanted to take it all back then. The roar, the whip, and the moment I ever thought to betray her.
“What now?” she asked quietly, an emotional fury still living on her words. She looked up me and watched my eyes as they watched her gun slowly being lowered.
“Now we find a way to get you out of here.”
Her eyes searched mine and she finally set the gun at her side. And all of a sudden she looked entirely too broken for my taste. “You scared?”
I shook my head. “No.”
She watched my eyes, tears escaping hers and slowly crawling down the sides of her face. “Because you don’t care what happens?”
“Because I know what I’m doing,” I said firmly.
“And you believe that?”
“When have I ever lied to you?” I asked.
I winced at my wording. The sentence was delivered with a sting, the harsh and pointed implications of our relationship suddenly reopened. She closed her eyes and exhaled a small cry, shaking her head at me and whispering, “I don’t know anymore.”
I stared down at her, blood and flesh replaying in a still frame over and over in my mind. “I know what I’m doing.”
She nodded, eyes closed and still crying, relenting to my words with all the belief in the world. Her eyes opened, stained red from sleep deprivation and warm air and suddenly I realized how strange it was to be this close to her face, the way her breath smelled; how striking her eyes looked.
“You’re so beautiful; it’s not fair,” I tried to whisper.
She didn’t respond to the sentiment, just crumbled into a heap on the floor, pulling her legs to her chest. I’d broken the defiance in her, and I hated myself for that. But I was going to make it right.