Chapter Four
Scashra
I had developed an infatuation. Chloe Quinn, the scientist. I’d spend two days with the breeders at the Manaxula compound, reassuring them there was a slight hiccup in the plans and that they would be reunited with the science expedition soon.
As for the scientists, I’d put them off as well. They hadn’t yet met my father but were instead assigned missions straight away and had been out in the mainland taking samples.
But Chloe…
She had captured my attention. Her long red hair was intoxicating. He resilience in the unsure situation I had put them in intrigued me. I couldn’t get her raw sex appeal out of my mind.
I knew she was afraid of me, but she clearly didn’t want me to know it, always talking back and making demands.
It was a game I was happy to play with her.
But, Chloe wasn’t mine to have.
Pash was.
And today I would finally return to her.
I was summoned to the council room and knelt down before my father. He’d heard that the scientists had been put to work, but there was still no sign of the breeders. I had only taken soldiers loyal to me to guard them—swore them to silence to ensure my secret was safe.
I hadn’t told Pash that I’d kept them alive. I knew she wanted them dead, but as soon as I met them, I hesitated, and I never hesitate.
It was enough for me to come up with a plan B and simply keep them hidden for now.
“Where are they?” the Dendren demanded, brushing back his long salt-and-pepper hair. His voice echoed through the chamber, and all eyes of his council members were on me.
“The breeders will arrive on a separate shuttle,” I lied, bowing my head to him. I would have to remain this way until he spoke to me again.
“Then why did you let them into the field?” my father urged. “Have they double-crossed us?”
I looked up at Pash: elegant in white, her pale eyes as she looked back down at me. My heart lilted as I thought of her in my bed and how tonight I would finally get to be with her.
“They wouldn’t lie,” my brother Fenris snapped from across the circular seating of the council members.
I turned my profile to him: black armor looking heavier than he could carry against his pale features and icy hair.
Pash swallowed at that and snapped her attention to him. “You’re so sure of the humans now, are you?” she said, a powerful, throaty voice echoing through the room. “So sure that you’d question your Dendren? Your brother?”
My father looked at her and seemed to become inflamed by her questions, now needing to hear Fenris’ answers for himself.
Fenris looked over at me with his dark eyes and briefly closed his eyes. Shaking his head, he laughed out, “Forgive me. I just know when I’m being lied to, and right now it isn’t by the humans.”
“Because you’ve laid with one, you trust them?” Pash pushed.
My father looked over at Fenris, clearly displeased, but seemed to want answers. For once, he wanted to believe in the humans. After all, the breeders were the only hope we had for survival.
Fenris stood, and the rest of the council stayed seated. He knew the room was largely against him after he’d taken a human lover, but he set his palms on the table in front of him as though he would vault forward at any second and said evenly, “Yes. And if they say there is another shuttle coming, there is another shuttle coming.” Then he turned to me sharply and whispered, “If that’s what they say.”
It was clear he didn’t believe me, but he wasn’t willing to bring my father in on it. He didn’t want the Dendren to turn against the human alliance.
I swallowed hard and looked back up at our father who had begun coughing harshly: the deep scratch of his throat was heard every time he tried to breathe in. At one-point Illox, who was standing next to Pash, moved toward him and put gentle hands on his shoulders to make sure he was alright.
My father waved him off, still heaving blood-laced spit into his palms as he coughed.
“Find me their diplomat,” my father wheezed between coughs before finally settling down. “We should have met before they were sent into the fields.”
I nodded, still kneeling before him. “Of course.”
“Let’s hear this out as soon as possible. We have a crisis on our hands,” my father said.
I swallowed and made brief, uncomfortable eye-contact with Fenris.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, only to be waved off by my father.
“Go find the rest of them and get me their scientists!” he shouted, obviously embarrassed. “Amlodesh is hurt. We need them to look into her!”
My heart sank, and I rose to my feet. “What happened?”
“By what else?” he said in a hurried explanation before bursting back into his horrible cough.
The silence that followed was deafening. The plague. Whatever was doing away with our females had gotten hold of her too.
“Will she live?” I asked, and the whole room went silent.
My father didn’t give another word before he was helped out of the council chambers. I looked up at the vast, glass windows behind his raised council seat and watched as our three suns started to fall into night, filling the room with warm, amber hues.
I stood there, lifeless, thinking about Amlodesh and how little I knew about the state of her. I had just seen her two days ago.
The room cleared out as I stood by the bench, the area for those wishing to approach my father. It was just Pash, Fenris, and me left in the room.
“What’s going on?” I asked desperately as Pash walked up to me.
I wanted so badly to wrap her up in my arms and hold her, but I couldn’t. Not with Fenris here.
“He’s worried,” Pash said, explaining my father’s sudden absence.
“He’s sick,” Fenris snapped at her.
I looked to Pash, and she didn’t deny it. My anxiety spiked again, and I said, “With what?”
“They don’t know,” Fenris said, leaning against the council seating with one knee bent, foot against the wall. He crossed his arms and explained, “I suspect that’s the real reason why he made the deal for the doctors to come.”
The knot I’d felt in my stomach was growing bigger and bigger now: swirling around like a darkness that was taking over my body. What would life be without Amlodesh?
“Where are the breeders, Scashra?” Fenris said, arms cross and head tilted up to look at me.
I met his eyes and set my jaw. “I don’t know,” I enunciated.
He came at me, whipping his body forward with immense speed as he tackled me. Within seconds I was on the ground, gripping his arms as hard as I could as he beat his fists into my face.
With a jolt of my hips I whipped him off me and began to shift, feeling the bones of my wings emerging with immense pain.
Fenris began to follow suit until we were both half men, half dragon: raging wings coming out of human bodies.
He flew toward me again, grabbing me by my neck and squeezing.
This was his way of saying he didn’t believe me.
“Fenris!” Pash screamed and held up a hand to him. Fenris was stupid, but he knew better than to attack her.
He snarled at me and took several steps back, whipping his arms down and breathing heavily through his nose.
“Go tend to your father,” Pash scolded, pointing toward the door.
Like a child, Fenris obeyed, watching me all the way out the council door as if to say: we’re not done here.
I looked to Pash with confusion and rubbed my hand over my swollen face, rubbing my forehead.
“Now what?” I said to her, and she looked at me curiously.
“Now… nothing?”
“Pash,” I whispered and turned to face her. “My sister is dying.”
She swallowed and gave a curt nod. “And we will find a way to fix her. Go! Get the scientists off the mainland.”
“Alright,” I said with haste, unsure what they could do even if I brought them to her.
“Are they…?” she began, wringing her hands together nervously as she walked up to me.
“Dead?” I finished, and she nodded.
I hadn’t intended on lying to her, but I couldn’t bear to displease her, either. Our deal hinged upon it, after all. I took her long fingers into my hand and said, “Of course.”
“And you’ll tell your father they broke their word?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“Then,” she said, pulling me close to her body but never moving to kiss me. “Everything is going to work out.”