Chapter Thirteen
Brooklyn
I marched out into the battlefield, an empty runway of chaos, fire, and debris covering every inch of the property.
The sun was starting to rise, pinks and orange hues masquerading at the edges of the sky.
I swallowed hard, tears filling my eyes as I approached Korus. He had shifted back to his true form. The real him, finally.
Before…the things I said. I was in shock.
These were the thoughts that filled my mind, but I couldn’t make them come out of my mouth. I was too overwhelmed by the sight of him.
We stood just a handful of feet apart, watching each other.
This man, this Parduss, was the one I loved. I couldn’t deny that for even one more second. He was the one my soul needed. And I was so overcome by his safety and his love for me, that suddenly nothing else mattered. The rest we could work out.
His body heaved with ragged breaths, a warrior fresh out of battle, and he tried to stand upright, his neck hunching back as he looked up to the sky. He stood by the body of Naxra, beautiful and lean and practically lifeless. Perhaps she was.
“Korus!” I called to him, standing in his glory, watching his wingspan widen as he splayed himself out before me.
He looked down at me, shimmering golden chest and a body full of gray scales, and I felt proud.
I took a step forward, and he flapped his wings down, forcing a gust of wind to race through the runway. It was a warning. Don’t come any closer.
He grabbed Naxra with his mouth and slumped her body onto his back, blood spilling everywhere.
“I’m sorry,” I said, loud enough for him to hear. I knew he did, because when the words left my mouth, the black slits of his eyes flicked toward me, lizard-like.
And just like that, he was gone.
His whole body took flight, and he ascended skyward, going up into the fading morning stars until I couldn’t even see a trace of him.
I watched as he left me and wondered why, then rightly concluded that I deserved it. I hadn’t believed in him when he needed me to—I accused him when all he wanted from me was some compassion and understanding.
He kept saying he was coming back, that he wouldn’t give up on us.
But he did.
The days passed slowly after that, time ticking at a crawl. My days were only accomplished by viewing everything as a task. Get out of bed. Good job. Eat breakfast. Nice. Go to work. You got this, Brooklyn.
But then, when I would come home, there were no more tasks for me to do so I would crawl into bed and cry or reminisce or stare numbly.
I didn’t even have a way to contact him.
Joshua did, or so he said, but wouldn’t give up the information, saying it was official government business.
Even Joshua had given me something of a cold shoulder since the battle, telling me I was too hard on Korus, as though I didn’t already know that. As though I wasn’t already beating myself up for it every single day.
There were no more Parduss sightings.
No more reporters.
What I wouldn’t give to hear about them now. Before, it would have made me sick to hear that the shifters were in the area, that they had made their way back to Earth. Now I spent every free moment checking the alerts on my phone and watching the news, hoping for some sighting of them.
Then, on one not so special day nearly ten days after the battle, I came home to find my door ajar.
My heart sped up, and I walked into my apartment—and there he was.
His black hair was a mess of wind-bitten locks, his sharp eyes smiling before his lips did.
“I—” he began, but I never gave him the time to finish.
I raced over to him and jumped into his arms, curling my legs around his body and showering him with kisses. “I went to tell you how I sorry I was,” I said through my kisses, holding his face in my hands to make sure he was real, “But you left!”
“I know,” he chuckled, holding me tight.
“I love you so much; I didn’t mean those things I said, I…I was shocked but, it doesn’t matter now,” I said, looking back and forth from his eyes.
He leaned in, warm and familiar and mine, and kissed me. He ran his hand up the back of my head, holding me close to him. “I love you, too,” he said with a smile as he pulled away from me.
We stared at each other, basking in our reunited love, and then I
“What?” he teased.
“What?” I repeated wryly.
“There’s always a complaint, so, come on, let’s hear it,” he said, bouncing me in his arms to get a better hold of me.
I slipped out of his arms and set my hand on his chest, not wanting to stop touching him. I looked up at him with cupped brows and softly asked, “Why did you leave?”
“You told me to fix it,” he said, smirking.
“Yeah…” I tested the word out slowly. “And you did. You won the battle.”
“Right,” he said, rolling his shoulders. “But you told me to fix it.” I smiled up at him, brushing my hand through his hair, confused. He swallowed nervously and pulled out a transmat orb—a device used for interplanetary communication, complete with the ability to make recordings if a connection couldn’t be established.
“There’s something…I never told you,” he said slowly, and my heart lilted. More secrets?
My palms started to sweat as I looked up at Korus, my brows drawing together nervously. “What?” I asked desperately.
“I met your sister,” he said, and the words danced through my ears like a sentence I had imagined.
I shook my head and did a double take of his mouth. “Come again?”
“Alexandra,” he repeated.
He hit the switch for the orb, and we watched as it hovered there, a black screen coming up and trying to establish a connection.
“I met her when she was brought in from our mission on the Earth. And you were right. She’s still alive,” he continued. “So, when you said I had to make it right…” He shrugged, smirked. “I knew what I had to do.”
The room lit up with the familiar glow of a lit screen, and my gaze turned to the projection—my sister.
“It’s just a recording,” Korus said, but I could barely hear him.
“Brooklyn!” she nearly screamed, all but bounding into the camera.
I fell to my knees, looking up at her with wide eyes. “Is she real?” I asked with a laugh as tears spilled down my cheeks.
Alexandra looked absolutely perfect, if a little older than the last time I saw her. Her skin was glowing, and her dark hair was long and thick like mine.
She squinted both eyes shut in a cute confirmation of her realness, as though she really heard me. “So,” she said playfully, “I met your man. Korus.”
I swallowed hard and looked up at him with a smile.
“So now it’s time for you to meet mine,” she said and ducked out of the camera’s view before coming up with a little boy about the age of six or seven. He had dark hair and dark red scales. “This is Maxden. He’s mine. I know right?” she said, leaving room for a pause, as though awaiting my reaction. “Obviously, he’s a little…different,” she giggled. “But he’s my world.”
I inhaled sharply, and Korus knelt down on the floor next to me, taking my hand in his.
“So, Korus tells me you’ve been keeping the hope alive! Said you never gave up on me. I’ve never given up on you either. I’ve been…” she choked up then, tears invading her sweet, round eyes. The emotion got to me, and I let out an audible cry, putting a hand over my mouth to silence it.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for…ten years, sis. And let me tell you, that’s way too freaking long. I miss you. I love you,” she nodded, smiling into the camera now before exchanging a glance with Maxden. “And I’m coming home.” She gave a playful salute and smiled.
Then the video cut out.
“She’s happy,” Korus said, squeezing my hand.
“And she’s coming home?” I cried, hugging him. “How? How did you do all this?”
“I had to make things right. You mean too much to me to let everything be ruined by what’s happened. I knew I had to bring her back, no matter what.”
“But how?” I repeated.
He shrugged. “I had a friend help me back onto Cadir, to find her.”
I smiled, elated. I couldn’t believe I would see Alexandra again, and that she had a child—that we both managed to fall in love with Parduss shifters and choose to spend our lives with them.
“And I owe you…everything,” I said, nuzzling into him.
“I never want to lie to you again,” he said. “All I ever want to do is make you smile.”
“Well, you’ve set one hell of a bar,” I said, and we both laughed. “Now kiss me.”
He pressed his soft lips to mine, our lips dancing against one another, and I knew everything from that moment on was going to be different. But this time, I wasn’t afraid. I had a new life to lead, my sister to reunite with, a nephew to meet…and I had Korus, and that was the happiest ending of all.
The End