Chapter Nine
Ariella
“I fly back today,” came Caridan’s voice on the other end of a wide screen I had been sat at for the majority of the day. He was sending me a video call from the mines that he’d been serving in. His tone was excited and exuberant in a way that I’d never heard before, which only made me feel guiltier that I wasn’t.
“That’s good. You using your own wings for that adventure, or are you taking advantage of human invention, yet again?” I mocked in a light, whimsical tone.
It was just as Targeg had warned me: Caridan was called away to attend other missions. The Koth didn’t consider his choosing official, and so he was made to move into the apartment above mine. He was sent into the mines, and I'd felt the sting of loneliness for a month now. I would sleep alone in the bed we'd made ours and crave his touch and miss his conversation.
I'd tried to keep busy, making progress with my work in a way that was obviously impressive to the Koth. I spent most of my nights in my lab, and it hadn't gone unnoticed. I'd heard rumblings that Caridan would benefit from my findings. I tried not to act too excited when a friendly nurse named Alexandra told me the rumors she'd heard while patching up on of the higher-ups of the Koth.
“Are you alone?” he asked in low tones.
I nodded and his face brightened.
“I found myself missing you,” he admitted. I became lost in the screen, eyes elsewhere as he patiently waited for my response. I startled myself as I realized I hadn’t said a word for some time and smirked at him.
“Oh,” I said and tried to sound upbeat and then teased, “Should that be shocking to you? I am pretty fantastic, lest we forget.”
“Right,” he said absent-mindedly. “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” I said, maybe a little too quickly. “What, I don’t confess my lust for you, and that means I’m not feeling well? Somebody’s awfully full of himself.”
He stared at me, his expression vacuous. “What’s wrong?”
I laughed and suddenly found myself avoiding eye-contact with him. I had been excited about my project all week. This was what I came here to do, after all, but I just couldn’t shake the sick feeling that had been in my stomach for weeks.
I’d been keeping a secret from Caridan, and I wasn’t sure if I was keeping it due to a lack of proximity to my love, or if I would be too afraid to reveal it even if he were here. He would be returning later and, while I had missed him, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see him quite yet.
“Nothing; you’re just feeling insecure because you miss me!” I finally managed to tease.
He stayed stoic a moment and then his expression softened slightly. “You’ve been working hard?”
“It’s all I’ve been doing,” I breathed with put-on exhaustion. “I’m just a lonely little orphan without you.”
“With Targeg a lot, I’m sure,” he murmured. “He must be loving that.”
“Hey, I’m a lovable gal; what can I say? But I’m a taken woman.”
He grinned at this and somehow made it feel like he was right in the same room with me as he leaned toward the camera. Taking another look at me, his shoulders tensed and he asked, “Are you alone?”
“I already said yes,” I scoffed. “Just busy.”
Caridan’s expression darkened, and I knew I had made him sullen. Without any hesitation, he said, “Then I won’t keep you.” And then the screen went dark.
I stared into blackness for a moment before swiping his tab away and refocusing on my work. Usually a tiff like that would have had my stomach in knots until I had the chance to speak with him again, but for now, I felt happiness in my solitude.
The sterile environment of my lab had become my home since he’d been gone.
I’d performed several treatments on Targeg over the last few weeks and was finally seeing some smoke progress. Something, be it in their water or food, was tarnishing their Aurorean glands. My salve seemed to be healing it up quite nicely, but I still wasn’t sure if I could heal it completely.
“Knock, knock,” came another familiar, but unwelcome voice. I spun in my chair to see Brenem standing in the empty doorway of the lab. My eyes flicked behind him quickly, and it occurred to me that I was probably one of the only ones left in the building.
His aggressive nature put me feel immediately on edge, and I would have given anything for Caridan to call back. I turned back to my desk, and the shifter made his way next to me.
He sat beside me and rested his chin in his hand; his arm propped up on my desk as he looked at me in a blithe, playful fashion. I glanced in his direction but said nothing. His hair was black and long, shagging down past his ears. He had stubble that swept across his face and a pointed nose. I felt a shiver pass through my arms as I remember what he looked like when he was transforming into a dragon.
His face was rounder than most Weredragons. They typically had very defined jaws that made their dragon form more apparent even when they were. His wings were beautiful; a long bone connected that sprouted his secondary and primary wings. His wings seemed to form in layers, like spreading out a paper fan, and they radiated heat.
If he were anyone else, I would have been fascinated to see them up close, but instead, I snapped my head back toward my studies and tried my best to ignore him.
“How’s Meg?” he asked with a rise in pitch, his tone light yet condescending.
“I wouldn’t know,” I snarled and stood, backing away from him by several steps. “But I’m pretty sure I’m done with this conversation. You’re not supposed to be here, and I’m busy, so if you don’t mind…”
Brenem laughed defensively and watched me lean up against the counter, knee bent in tight jeans and foot resting against the bottom cupboard. “She doesn’t like other females around the watering hole. Something tells me she and Caridan would have been just perfect for one another.” He raised a victorious finger in her direction, cocking a brow as he explained, “The jealousy, and all. Though I’d argue that not only have I softened her prickly exterior, but I even encountered a sweet, albeit fleeting, moment with her on the porch.”
“A sweet moment?”
He shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Well, I’d argue that Meg is naturally a very sweet, caring, fun, awesome person, so that fact that you had to soften her in the first place says a lot.”
“Like?”
“Like the fact that she was cold to you in the first place says that you’re absolutely unbearable.”
He nodded along as though he were my best friend in the world, listening to my problems. Finally, he said, “I’d say she’s pretty hot towards me now. Very hot, in fact.”
I stared at him for a long time and looked sharply hurt before carelessly tossing my hands into the air in defeat. “Okay, I give! We shouldn’t be talking anymore.”
“Why? Scared your boyfriend is going to disembowel me, as he so loves to do?”
I stared at him, unimpressed at the sentiment until he signaled for Meg to enter the room. She was done up in one of her favorite, tight dresses. She waited for him to wave her in and then I could hear the click of her heels against the cold, metallic floor. He gestured for her to stand next to him, and so she did. He told her to tell me what she’d learned, and so she did.
I was surprised she was able to breathe without his say-so.
“I thought we weren’t speaking,” I said sharply, unable to look away from her.
“Ari,” she said, and then broke down, tortured sobs escaping her lips as she attempted to tell me something. Brenem grabbed her hand, and for the slightest moment, it actually looked like he was concerned. The expression made me go pale and the conversation that followed only made me feel worse.
Caridan was a killer, she insisted. I should leave him, because he would kill me, too. Brenem told me Caridan had attacked and disemboweled his brother after he tried to befriend a woman Caridan was guarding.
Meg cried into my arms and begged me to go back to Earth, and for the life of me, I couldn’t garner a reaction. I felt numb. And then the numbness was replaced with anger.
I jerked away from her and grew so furious
“This is what you want to say to me?!” I yelled.
I startled her so much that her tears immediately stopped. Even Brenem looked puzzled by my reaction.
“Hey, kid, she’s not messing around here,” Brenem defended, standing as I did to protect my sister, as though I would ever try to hurt her. “I was there. You were taught about us well enough to know that if Car’s willing to kill one of us, he’d think nothing of using you to save his own skin, okay?”
“And why would he need to be saving his own skin?”
Brenem looked at me with a sympathy that infuriated me even more. “Why!?” I demanded, slamming my hand down on the counter.
I looked back and forth between the pair and became so worked up that my teeth began to chatter. I hated feeling like they had something over me. Like they knew Caridan better than I did. I was the one he opened up to, not them. I was the one who had won his heart over, wasn’t I?
I stood from the pair and smacked my hand down over the power tab on my computer and pointed towards Meg. “Now it’s your turn. Don’t talk to me,” I clarified. “Not until you’re done with this,” I said, referring to the red dragon beside her.
Storming away from the pair, I made my way into the city. It was overcast, and there was a familiar smell of Udora that seemed to fill the streets. I walked the three hours to the shuttle station to see if I could pick up Caridan as he landed.
As the day drew to a close, I found myself in the middle of the darkened city. I thought the walk would cool me off, but the frustration only grew. I couldn’t believe how stupid I felt. What did I know about Caridan, anyhow? How did I let myself get in this situation in the first place? I signed up for this to do research, not to have sex with a shifter.
Seeing his face light up in the shuttle exit bay left me feeling no more comfort. His demeanor, while loving, was discouraging. He couldn’t embrace me, and so we both made idle chit chat about my research and his mission as we entered one of the glass lifts and made our way back to the apartment in the city.
I couldn’t even tell him about Brenem, I kept thinking. He was too jealous and too unstable. I didn’t know whether or not he would comfort me or go flying off to fight the red dragon.
As I looked around at the high-rise apartments and shops that lined the city, I couldn’t believe what humans had brought to these people.
We arrived at a complex that looked like it was made entirely of metal and glass. It looked so medical I had almost expected to feel the cold barrage of steel against my skin when we entered that first day here. Our home together was all beautifully stained wood and chic couches; a brick façade covered one wall. He had a kitchen that looked no different from back home. There was a fireplace in the living room, one couch, and a coffee table with intricate carvings on the legs.
The bed was in the middle of the apartment, and to my great delight, it had been a king size.
“My lady,” he said with a raise of his brow as he invited me to sit on the white leather in his living room. “Do you need anything? Are you hungry or thirsty?”
“No,” I said, now feeling absolutely exhausted. “I’m just… done.”
“Oh,” he said, sounding almost taken aback. “I see.”
“Meghan hates me,” I said before collapsing onto the bed. “I saw her today.” My stomach flipped, and I could feel the sick rising up my throat. I swallowed hard and said, “She wouldn’t even look my way. It’s like I had two heads or something. She hates me.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t hate you–”
“Oh no,” I interrupted him with a tired laugh. “She hates me. She never actually said the words, but I can pretty much bet my 22 years of sisterly intuition on it. There’s pretty much no getting around that.”
“Ah,” he said with a simple nod. “She’ll cool off.”
“Yeah?” I scoffed at his repeated sentiment; that was weeks ago, and she still hadn’t so much as glanced in my direction. Though I was fairly certain she was having an affair with Brenem. “Will Brenem cool off?”
His expression prickled as he poured himself a glass of whatever alcohol he had in his pantry. “It’s… a bit of a different scenario, I should say.”
“Oh, you should say? Funny thing, that. Because you don’t say. You never say anything. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, as much as I like you, I don’t really even know you.”
He seemed incredulous, annoyed. He stared at me with fury for just a moment and then calmly enunciated, “What would you like to know?”
The look he gave made me feel terrible. Obviously, he felt like he had been doing a good job of trying to open up to me and there I was telling him he’d actually been doing awful.
“Why aren’t we supposed to have sex?”
“We do have sex,” he set his jaw.
“I know we have sex. We have sex all the time,” I said with furious annoyance. “But I want to know why you aren’t supposed to.”
Caridan gave a careful glance around the room, took a large sip of his drink, and then made a steeple of his fingers while he thought on my question.
“We can’t have sex, and we can’t start a family. Why?” I demanded. “I mean, it’s not like I want to start anytime soon or anything. But, you chose me, and I didn’t really have a say in it. Now we’ve had sex, and I’m worrying all day that some shifter is going to pop out of the blue and snatch you up. I mean, you did say this was your punishment, which, you know, fills me with a lot of comfort,” I snapped sarcastically.
“Are you done?” he said, raising a brow with annoyance.
“No!” I huffed and moved his drink away from him.
“You’re free to leave anytime you want,” he snapped.
“No,” I said in a drawn out fashion. “Because I’m in it now!”
“You’re… in it,” he repeated slowly.
“Yeah, you know, as in…” I felt my face flush and couldn’t believe what I was about to say. I felt like I was in middle-school as suddenly I was talking a mile a minute, my tone sitting somewhere between smitten and embarrassed, and defensive, as I spewed, “Well, I love you, okay? That’s what Meghan and I argued about. I love you. I think you’re interesting, and I want to be around you all the time. Does that spell it out for–”
“I love you, too,” he said quickly; a smile was creeping over his features as he grabbed my hands, looking absolutely stunned. “I love you so much I feel this flame stir up in me when we have to be apart.”
I wanted to tell him not to be sweet, not to make me feel amazing, but I couldn’t. I took that moment to be selfish and listen to him gush about how much he loved me in the way that men do when there is no one else around to judge them.
My heart ached with the same intensity he’d just shared with me and then I said, “Have you ever been with a human woman?” My tone was somewhere between sadness and curiosity.
“Once,” he said, his demeanor falling now. His eyes flicked back and forth for a single second before his gaze became lost on the wall behind me. “Targeg told you,” he said with sudden realization.
“No, Meg did.”
“And here I thought you didn’t talk to Meg.”
“Well, you’re going to want to brace yourself, because there’s something else I’ve been lying about.”
“Perfect,” he snapped.
The silence played with our tension for a moment more before I continued, “Only once?” There was a laugh on the tip of my tongue. “And here I thought your kind was supposed to mate for life? Or is that just another rumor created to make you sound nobler than a bunch of common–”
Before I had the chance to take a breath, Caridan whipped in front of me and grabbed me by my neck. His smooth flesh felt minty cold against my skin, and I bristled beneath him, grappling in vain against the grip of his large fingers. I panicked for a breath, and my eyes widened as he watched with no change in expression.
“That is not a lie,” he said through gritted teeth and lifted me from the ground, so I was now at eye level with him. “I chose her, I loved her, another raped her, and so I killed him. Then the Koth killed her, and I have been banished from choosing ever again. Happy?” His tone was matter of fact, but I could hear the furor building up in his voice. “The dragon I killed was Brenem’s brother, and we have sought for blood ever since. Now why are you doing this?!” he suddenly screamed, a growl coming through his human tones that made me shake beneath him.
As I shook, he suddenly set me on the floor and never broke eye-contact with me. I pulled back in agony and suddenly burst into tears as I blurted out, “Caridan, I’m pregnant.”
The words spilled out of my mouth like an echo that rang over and over again. I couldn’t stop them any longer. He looked at me in absolute terror, and then rage filled his eyes. It was the reaction that I’d feared the most.
“Listen,” I said calmly, but he wouldn’t.
The way he looked at me made me feel like my stomach had just dropped out from under me. He didn’t ask if I was sure. He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me, believing my every word and hating me for it.
I could feel the tears spilling down my face but barely registered the sensation of crying; couldn’t feel the pull at my throat or my chest tightening. Instead, I simply watched as he spun on his heel and headed for the door.
“Caridan!” I yelled as I followed him down the hall, but he didn’t turn around. I found myself running on sore feet to catch him.
“Why did you do this!?” he finally whispered through gritted teeth, whipping around as we reached the field beside the apartment we had made out beautiful home.
“Last I checked, there were two of us involved in this mess, and look, I know you’re scared, but we can figure…”
My words escaped me as Caridan pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “They’ll want us dead. You and me both.”
“We’ll find a way,” I went to touch his arm, my body aching for him to wrap his wings around him and secure me in his warmth, to tell me everything was going to be alright. Instead, he jerked away from me as though the very touch of me sent a chill of pain through his veins.
“You don’t know what they’ll want me to do.”
“Uh, I think I can figure out the mystery,” I snapped back. “They killed your last chosen. That doesn’t exactly scream a victory for me, but… what? You’re just… fine with that?”
His eyes went wide with anger, and he narrowed his gaze at me, inching dangerously close to my lips. “Excuse me? Am I ‘fine with that?’ Is that what you really just asked me?”
“We can figure this out,” I said evenly, trying to calm him with my tone. “I want to be with you. Do you want to be with me?”
“You know I do.”
I snorted at the statement, a reaction that seemed to draw him back. “Forgive me if I’m finding that a little hard to believe right now.”
“Ariella,” he said forcefully. Suddenly the moment was frozen and still. His eyes twittered back and forth like a pendulum, as though I might say something bright enough to get us out of this situation. He went to speak and then seemed to think better of it. His demeanor finally seemed to soften, and he looked up at me with a calculated glance and asked, “Did you tell your sister?”
My heart froze in place, and my stunned look said it all to him.
His momentary calm faded away once more and he cried out, “Why!? Why would you do this!?”
“So, what?!” I shouted, finally finding my courage. “That’s it for us? You’re not going to fight for this? You said you loved me!”
“You told her,” he whipped around and smashed his tail against the chair nearby, pitching it across the room with force. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
The rest of my words escaped me, and suddenly he began to shift. His bones dislodged and careened around his body, scales suddenly showering over him like a waterfall; his face pained as the shock of it all moved through him.
Purple tones caressed his body as his wings began to grow. It was then that I knew I was about to see him in full form, a sight he had tried to show me weeks ago when he told me he wanted to share everything with me. I had been too scared to see it then and was still terrified to have to witness it.
I backed away instinctively and screamed his name, as though pleading with him not to take on full form. I could see the shriek startled him. He breathed heavily, and a plume of smoke escaped his mouth as I tried desperately to stop the process.
Then it was over, and he stood before me, not the Caridan I knew in still moments and stolen silences, but a massive dragon. He was shaded in deep purples and black with a bony, thorny skull. There were rows of horns atop his head that were only made to look more menacing by his curved, small ears. His nose was pointed and long with horns creeping out of his chin and jawline. He let out a baleful roar that echoed through the skies and across the hills and valleys.
My body shook under the weight of the sound, and I backed away instinctively. I could hear the echo of his cry as it hurried through the field we were standing in, bringing a powerful gust of wind behind it.
His wide neck ran down from his head into an enormous mass with thundering wings. Growths that looked like steeples cascaded down his back to his massive tail.
He looked at me, and even through his new veneer, I could tell he was tortured. He didn’t respond. Instead, my eyes followed the purple dragon as he took to the sky with a terrifying scream, the gust from his wing knocking me to the ground.
I looked into the night and watched as he disappeared into blackness, only the sound of him carrying through the skies.