Chapter Eight
Korus
I’d spent so much time with Brooklyn that it felt strange to wake up in my own apartment. I looked up at the wood-planked ceiling, and for a moment I actually started to miss Cadir.
In truth, it hadn’t been my plan to abandon my planet forever. But now, banished, it seemed like the odds of getting back there safely were slim to none.
Hell, staying on the Earth seemed like a pipedream now, as well.
It had been days since the interview with Brooklyn’s associate and I was happy to put the event behind me. All I could think was how much I wanted to hold the man up by the scruff of his neck
He was right…maybe that’s what pissed me off even more. The white dragon, Naxra, was looking at me. We were communicating—or trying to. She was daring me to take full form.
They were looking for me, and I knew it was just a matter of time before they found me.
I didn’t think it would happen so soon.
I was on my way to pick up Brooklyn; she’d called me saying she was hiding in a flight of stairs, avoiding the media. I’d raced out the door, and there was Naxra.
“Old friend,” she said, whipping wildly behind me and slamming my front door shut with her boot.
She was shifted to human form, a sight that was rare for me to see on her. She was one of the Parduss who preferred a full alien dragon formation—it made her feel stronger.
“Not quite,” I said, spinning on my heel and taking a defensive stance. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t you mean again?” she teased in her low, sultry voice.
She stood tall, nearly as tall as me at six-feet. She had long, ice blonde hair and an elongated face. She was graceful looking, with thick arched brows and beautiful ice blue eyes.
There was something sensual about her, an easy sexuality that oozed out from her attitude with every movement. She was regal. But pretty? She was not.
“What are you doing, Naxra?” I asked, still tensed and ready to tackle her, should she make a move.
“Just watching over you,” she said, snapping her chin skyward and taking a long inhale. She lost her attack stance and watched me for a moment, making sure I wouldn’t make the first move. With that, she raised an arrogant brow and started walking around my tiny space.
“That’s why you’re here?” I said, brows drawn. “For me?”
“You did a bad thing,” she said, spinning on her heel and wagging a slender finger at me.
“I did my own thing,” I corrected.
“Yeah, Korus,” she said in a breathless know-it-all’s tone, “that’s why it’s bad. The Parduss Council isn’t happy with you.”
“Huh,” I mocked, scratching my chin. “You think that might be what that whole ‘banishing’ thing was about?”
She smirked, but she wasn’t amused. “You stole the females.”
“I was taking them home,” I snapped.
“Right,” she said slowly, circling my room. She wore white leather armor over her slender, toned body and looked me up and down, probably just as curious to remember what I looked like shifted. “And how did that work out for you?” She grinned devilishly and then made her mouth into a circle and tensed her throat until a single orb of fire left her lips and disappeared into the air.
My body went cold at her words.
I'd lied to Brooklyn about the crash. I told her I just happened to be working there and saw the ship hit the ground. It made for a great explanation as to why I wasn't as hurt as the girls who had been in the ship. The truth was, I was the one who had been piloting it the whole time.
But I wasn't trying to hurt the girls.
I was trying to save them.
“Did you…did you shoot down my ship?” I asked with narrowed eyes, a slow recognition.
“Ah,” she sounded out. “Who remembers?”
“I do,” I seethed, balling my fists at my sides.
She half shifted, a grunt of pain echoing out her delicate mouth as she let out only her wings, a pint-sized version of them, at any rate. It was the rare shifter who was able to pull out their wings in human form.
Naxra pulled her wings tight to her body and jolted forward, knocking me off balance and then laughing at what minimal effort it took for her to do it.
“You're lucky I didn't kill you then and there, but for whatever reason, you earned my pity!” she said, waving her hand in the rhythm of a fish’s fin.
“You took down my ship,” I reiterated, even more furious than before.
The girls…I had taken them from Cadir back to the Earth. They hated it there so much that I couldn’t bear keeping them there another day.
“You would rather kill the girls just to teach me a lesson?” I yelled, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her, gripping her arms so hard her skin went white.
She made an attempt to shrug and said, “I was just following orders.”
“You hate them. You've always hated them,” I seethed, protracting my claws and drawing blood from her arms as I tightened my grip on her.
Naxra made to jerk away from me but ended up close to my face, spiteful and cocky as she spat, “No, I just don't like backstabbers.”
“They wanted to go home,” I said so furiously I thought I might stop drawing air. “Some of the girls have adapted to Cadir, but these ones didn't,” I said through clenched teeth. “And you would keep them there as prisoners?”
She laughed, throwing her head back. “That’s what they are!”
“No, they’re supposed to be helping us,” I argued.
“What,” she scoffed, finally managing to pull out of my grasp. “Are you screwing one of them, Korus? Here I thought you didn’t have the rank for that.”
I shook my head. “You hate them.”
She rolled her shoulders, “I do, but that's neither here nor there. I was told to stop you, and so I did.”
“How'd you get here so fast?” I asked, the question just occurring to me.
“Don't be so naive. We're already here. Been here for three tunatr'as now.”
I swallowed. “Years?” I repeated in surprise
With that simple phrase, Naxra rolled her eyes and rubbed her forehead as though somehow saying that had ruined our conversation. “Don't use their words, Korus. I hate human words.”
“I was never told of that mission,” I argued.
“Yeah! Good thing, too. Because apparently you were just steps away from throwing this all down the drain. But if you want to make it up to the Parduss Council, then they've sent an offering to you.”
I pressed my eyes shut. “I want you out of here,” I snapped.
But I couldn't tell Brooklyn that even if I wanted to.
When I looked up, Naxra had her finger bent sideways, knuckle in her mouth like a child sucking its thumb. She used that moment to study me and suddenly I knew we were about to fight.
She crashed forward, lurching toward me and kicking me in the side.
I grabbed her leg and sent her plummeting backward, but one gust of her wings flapping prevented her from falling. She used the gravity to lunge herself back toward me, scratching down my arm and twisting it roughly behind me.
What I wouldn’t give to shift and be able to smack her down with my tail, to show her the full force of my power.
“What’s the matter?” she teased devilishly, as though sensing my thought. “Feeling a little stunted here on Earth?”
I whipped around her and pulled her hair back, holding my arm firmly against her neck and locking her into a hold. She bucked against my grasp and then finally submitted.
We stood there, silent and breathing hard for a moment before I began to let her go, unsure what else to do. It’s not like I could kill her in my house. Nor would it benefit my people to have one less female.
She spun around and jumped down, roundhouse kicking me until I was flat on the floor. “Don’t fight me, Korus!” she screamed in a deep, wet cry. “I will end you!”
She huffed with the effort and knelt down to face me, putting her hands on either side of my shoulders and leaning in close.
“Why’d they send you?” I asked, struggling against her grip.
“To make a deal!” she shouted and then whipped me onto the floor. I knew she wouldn’t kill me. Naxra liked me too much. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t hurt me.
I looked up at her, feeling cold and hating every heartless phrase and tone that left her mouth. “And so you killed them?” I shouted, the vibrating growl humming through my throat, almost coming out of me as though there were two voices—one human, one beast. My voice got louder as I shouted and I couldn’t control myself anymore. “I threw away everything to try and bring them back, and you would throw their lives away just to hurt me?”
“Sort of the point of martyrdom,” she said callously.
“Why do you hate them so much?” I screamed, standing and marching toward her. Our faces were so close, I could see dots of spit on her face from when I shouted.
She snarled at that, lifting a lip in disgust. Then, all at once she erupted in a furious scream, “How would you feel if you were being replaced?”
Naxra pushed me back, hard, with a single motion. It nearly knocked the wind out of me and send rushing pains up through both my arms.
She stalked away to the corner of the room. Not nearly as far away as she would have liked, I assumed.
“Naxra…” I said slowly. “It’s not your fault. We had no choice but to get these females. You’re…”
“Dying off!” she screeched, turning around to look at me. It was the first time I’d ever seen Naxra really, truly emotional. She let out a single grunt of pain and shook her head, forcing her tears away. “I know that!”
“There's not enough females left to keep our population going,” I reasoned.
It was true. Our females were down so much, we needed the humans to make up for our dying population. It was something the female Parduss must have despised, something that made them feel like they’d failed us.
I’d never thought about it from their perspective before.
But, that still didn’t mean those women deserved to die.
“Save it. I've heard the speech. I understand what you want: a bunch of half-breeds,” Naxra spat, her voice trembling.
“Naxra, I'm sorry,” was all I could think to say.
“'Course you are,” she said, shaking her head and knowing full well that I could never understand the fight she had before her, the weight of her guilt.
“The Council wants five females by the Celestial Set, and you can even include your little doctor in the mix. But if you don't get them, that's it. They want you gone, and they want me to be the one to do it.”
I stared at her, unsure what, if anything, was left to say. So I nodded.
She wiped the blood from her plump lips and walked to my doorway but turned before she left. “Don't be a fool, Korus. You know I could kill you.”
“I know.”