Chapter Ten
Korus
Just this morning I was with Brooklyn, enveloped in her skin, allowing myself to feel things I never allowed myself to feel before. I'd slid inside her, warm and wet, and held her up against the wall as she writhed on top of me.
I'd buried my face in her breasts and reveled in our bodies connecting in such a permanent, yet fleeting way.
Now we weren't even speaking.
The guilt inside me was overwhelming. I felt like all I was doing was lying to her over and over again. I wanted to give her answers to quell her sadness, but there was nothing I could do without completely revealing myself to her.
And who's to say she could still love me if she knew the truth about me. Who I really was.
I wanted to tell her about the problem with the Parduss. Obviously, Silan wasn't a researcher. She was just a Parduss who suffered the same fate as the rest of our females. One who I loved.
The apartment seemed cold and lonely without Brooklyn in it. My guilt was eating me up. I wanted her to see things from my perspective—to tell her the truth—but if our argument was any indicator, it was going to take some time.
I heard a loud thumping on my door and made my way over in haste, hoping it was Brooklyn. I opened the door and was taken aback by the sight of Joshua. He was drenched by the rain, his oversized trench coat soaked right to his body.
“Joshua,” I said unsurely.
He looked up at me, terrified and furious, his eyes wild with panic. “What did you do with her?” he yelled, slamming his hand against the doorframe.
“Brooklyn?”
“Yes, Brooklyn!” he seethed. “Who else? I knew it. I knew in my gut I shouldn’t have trust you, and look! She’s missing an—”
“She’s missing?” I repeated in haste, raising my hands to cut him off.
“Don’t play dumb,” he warned me, his hand resting firmly on his gun. “Where are they keeping the girls?”
My blood ran cold, fear creeping through my limbs and tingling every part of my body. “They took her?” I repeated numbly.
“You’d better tell me where she is or I swear, man. I don’t care who or what you are, I’ll kill you,” he snapped.
“How do you know she was taken?” I urged, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and pulling him close to me.
The man searched my eyes, looked for any form of sincerity in me. He must have seen something he believed in, because soon his hard expression twisted into pain. He pushed me off of him with a single shove and moved past me, walking into my apartment and clicking on the television.
I shut the door behind me and stepped in slowly, like I was standing on a precipice.
The reporter on the television, a well-dressed man with a stern face, was already speaking. Joshua turned up the television and the reporter continued, “-ix women have gone missing from the Terraceview Apartments and the surrounding area. These civilians appear to be a part of another Parduss-related raid. Army officials are locking down all spaceports in the event that—”
Joshua looked up at me, carefully studying my body.
“Now,” he said, slipping his hand over the power button on the television. “What do I need to know here?”
“I…don’t know,” I said numbly, just staring forward.
“I think you do know,” he said slowly.
“Give me a minute!” I yelled, throwing my arms into the air. But he didn’t. Instead, he ran up and punched me in the jaw, sending a hot, sweltering pain searing through my jaw.
“No! Your minutes are up!” Joshua fumed again. “We need to find her now! And what I want to know is what the hell you did with her.”
I gritted my teeth and grabbed the man by the shoulders, squeezing him tightly as I enunciated, “I didn’t do anything.”
“I saw you,” he said, wrinkling his nose in a snarl.
I drew my brows together curiously and waited for him to continue.
“On the video,” he clarified, “I saw you. I know you knew that Parduss. I may never be able to prove it, but I know she was trying to communicate with you. So now you listen to me: if you know where Brooklyn is then you're sure as shit going to tell me.”
With that, the man freed himself from my grasp and cocked his gun at my head, never breaking a sweat. “Now,” he said slowly.
I blinked, feeling like the slightest breeze could knock me over. They took her. They took Brooklyn. They were going to bring her back to Cadir, and there was no way I could save her. Not if they were already on their way.
“What do you want to know?” I conceded, looking down.
“How are the Parduss getting around?” he said with no small amount of shock in his tone, likely not expecting my cooperation or my admission of being involved with the Parduss. “How is the army unable to detect a dragon?”
I swallowed. “We shift.”
“We?” he asked nervously.
I let out an uneasy breath and let just enough of my façade fall away so that he could see horns and scales starting to form on my skin. I lifted a lip and gave him a good look at the deep, sharp fangs that protruded from my gums.
“We,” I repeated.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” he said, backing away from me and the setting a hand on his temple. “Oh shit. I knew it.”
“Congratulations,” I deadpanned.
“So they…oh gosh…” he looked up at me, trying to process the information. He winced in disgust, eyes elsewhere now. “They’re just…among us! They could be anywhere!”
“Yep,” I said.
Joshua struggled with his weapon, likely deciding whether or not he should fire a bullet through my flesh. Instead, he lowered it and muttered, “I should bring you in.”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“I can’t do that,” he said, shaking his head.
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re the only one who can help us now.” He paused. “Why…why are you telling me all this? Why did you admit this to me?”
“Brooklyn trusts you,” I said evenly, “And Brooklyn doesn’t trust anybody. So, now I’m trusting you.” Then I froze, unsure if I should proceed. I pressed forward and said, “And because you love her, so I know you want her safe.”
“I do love her,” he said with a slow, scared nod.
“And so do I,” I said. “I’m going to get her back, but I’m going to need you.”
“Y-yes, of course,” he stammered. “What do I do?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “But something tells me I’m going to need five, brave females.”
He swallowed and thought about the strange request. “I can do that,” he finally said.
“Do that…and I’ll lead you right to the Parduss.”
“And what are you going to do?” he asked, seeming content so long as he had a mission to focus on.
“I’m…going to go perform the calling.”
I made my way back into Gazers Field, stepping deep into the valley. The grass was taller than it was the last time I’d been here. Tall strands of green and yellow hiking up to my waist, like a grassy swamp.
It was here I would finally make my move—to concede to my past.
I’m here now, I wanted to scream. Instead, I shifted. I hadn’t been in my full form for so long that it felt foreign to me. My blood ran hot, and I could feel my limbs stretching out from their sockets, felt my tail form and sway back and forth.
My body went gray and scaled and spiny, my chest rocky and muscled and shimmering with gold. I flapped my immense wings, perching myself on a small mass of rocks that sat in the field.
Craning my head back, I called fire to my throat. It burned furiously and quickly, and I held the power of it in my mouth, waiting. Tipping my head back, I let out a great cry, a burst of flames that shot high into the sky, disappearing into the night and then suddenly falling back down onto me in embers.
The shards of fire that hit the grass caused it to light up in a hurry, the stream of reds and oranges rushing through the valley like water through a stream.
I crowed in quick succession, three throaty bellows that shrieked and echoed.
Other Parduss appeared, flying overhead and circling me. Various ones landed and perched around the valley, watching. But they knew who I was after.
And then she appeared. A beautiful white Parduss.
She spread her wings so that she glided slowly down toward me. Her eyes were slits of black on blue as she watched me through the whole descent.
Naxra.
She landed in the fire, stamping her feet against the flames and snuffing them out.
Standing up on two feet, her small arms awkwardly sitting at her sides, she let out a great shriek that sent a sharp pain through my ears.
Then, in an instant, I shifted back, and she was right on my figurative tail, shifting into her upright form.
“You rang?” she said, breathing a visible plume of air out into the night.
I marched up to her, grabbing her by the neck and raising her off the ground as I dug my claws in. “Five girls,” I spat. “That’s what you said the deal was.”
The Parduss around us tensed, waiting and wondering what they should do. Naxra was too proud to ask for help, and so all of the subservient soldiers waited with baited breath as I choked her.
Naxra looked at me with her piercing, icy blue eyes and smacked my hand away.
When she was released from my grip, she threw her hands around her throat, massaging it out. Then she cocked a brow and looked around our surroundings with calculation, careful not to step in any of the fire.
“Yeah,” she breathed out, the hint of her voice already thick with sass. “And you failed to deliver, as per usual. Korus makes his own rules!”
“You said I had until the celebration—the Celestial Set!”
“So, what, you were actually going to go through with it?” she mocked.
“I want to come back to Cadir,” I said lowly, watching her as she paced around me.
“Five girls, Korus,” she said, splaying her fingers toward me. “That’s all it takes.”
“She says, as though it’s that easy,” I mocked.
“Hey, you’re a Parduss,” she said, “These people are sheep. Should be easy enough to take them.”
“Like it was easy to defeat the humans last time?” I fumed.
“Last time was a fluke,” she waved me off. “Besides, we know how they think now. We have the girls on our side, remember?”
“Then why not use them as your spokespeople?” I advised sincerely. “There’s no better advocate for life on Cadir than their own people.”
“Please,” she laughed. “If we brought them back here they’d probably run for their lives.”
“And here I thought they were happy,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes at her ignorance. “Or maybe they are, and it’s you who likes to pretend they hate it on Cadir. You know, I often wonder why you chose to become a warrior instead of a breeder. You could have been in charge of those girls, trained them on how to live amongst the Parduss.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, and I knew I had to be careful then. Naxra was a higher rank than I was, especially since I had done such a fine job at getting banished. She had the entire warrior class at her fingertips, and with just one snap, they could all launch on me this very instant.
“I’ll bring you five girls,” I said forcefully, “but I want mine back.”
“And he beats his chest and makes demands!” she shouted with just a hint of flirtation in her voice. “Do you not understand how this whole ransom thing works? I have what you want, so I get to make demands. Got it?”
“I want the girls to—”
She clapped her hands, laughing. “Noise, noise, noise! You’re losing my interest, Korus. Do you want your little girlfriend or don’t you?”
I swallowed, infuriated. “Yes.”
“How romantic,” she mocked. “Alright. Five girls. Tomorrow night.”
I nearly lurched forward. “Where should I bring them?”
She raised a brow at me. “Bring them home. If you’ve forgotten how to get there, then perhaps we don’t need you after all.”
“You want me to deliver them? And then you'll bring me Brooklyn?
“She may not even want you after she knows,” she warned, never quite answering my question. “You are aware of that?”
I set my jaw. “That's none of your concern|
“Nope!” she grinned. “Just a friendly observation from one of your oldest friends.”
I crossed my arms and raised a single brow. “I didn't know we were friends.”
“Aw, Korus, that hurts,” she said, mocking a sad face and slapping her hand over her heart. “Oh, and there's one more thing,” she said.
I sighed. “Don't make me beg, Naxra.”
“But you look so cute doing it,” she teased.
“What is it?” I snapped.
“The council wants you home.”
I shook my head. “They'll kill me; you know that.”
“Not if you bring the girls,” she specified.
“No,” I said.
“You're saying you don't trust the council?” she shouted with mock-surprise.
“I'm saying I don't trust you,” I swallowed, watching her carefully.
She laughed. “And yet you plan on bringing me five girls by the end of tomorrow. Wow, you must really…love her.”
“And here I thought you hated human words,” I breathed.
She waved me off.
“Tomorrow,” she repeated, snapping her finger at me. “And don’t worry. I’ll take good, good care of your precious Brooklyn until then.”