Azlo

by Maia Starr

  “Brenem,” the white Weredragon warned with a stern but unthreatening tone. The white dragon, Ikar, had been assigned our leader for this choosing. We were to follow his orders exclusively.

  For being the shortest of the bunch, Brenem had a larger-than-life ego. He fixed himself on perches and never truly seemed to completely leave his dragon form behind. His eyes were wild, and there was a fire that breathed in him always. He prided himself for his deathly red scales and the bright-blue veining that ran through them. He was a red dragon.

  For centuries the red dragon was revered for greatness. Our leader was a red dragon, as was the first dragon ever to take a human mate. It was a sign of honor and dignity: two personality traits Brenem was sorely lacking.

  Yet, he became Ikar's closest friend and still seemed to revere the white dragon even despite the superbia he showered himself in.

  To say Brenem and I weren’t friends would have been an understatement of the highest variety.

  The heavy thud of the Iron Gate echoed behind me as I walked toward the front of the Riddell station. The thud of dragons landing behind me no longer jarred me in human form, and I walked with ease into the station where our representative met us.

  I’d accompanied the hunt on enough choosing ceremonies to know the drill by now. I wasn’t here to choose, after all. I was here as a guard.

  Our Koth, or government back home, had grown weary of the human governments. They’d become skeptical of human interest in Koth matters, especially since the humans had started sending their scientists back to our planet with us.

  Now I’d been assigned as security to all Earth missions, including choosings.

  “I said ten minutes,” Zaphira snapped to our Koth as she clicked her heels against the metal beneath her in a tapping motion. When on Earth, Koth did not refer to our government, but a rank as leader among a group of Weredragons.

  Ikar of Koth was our leader for this mission. A distinction we often had to explain to humans. Their attention span was so bleak sometimes I felt it wasn't even worth it to carry on a conversation.

  Zaphira was the exception, I'd decided long ago. She was the only human I spoke to with any regularity.

  My eyes followed her before looking to Ikar for permission to speak as representative. He nodded my way and quickly walked to the set of leather couches that sat in the waiting room. I looked back to Zaphira and offered my best smile as I responded: “And I called you unreasonable. I think you’ll find a lot more enjoyment in life if you learn to temper your expectations just a titch.”

  “A titch, he says,” she responded with flirtation. She always did, with me anyway. “I’ve no patience for you today, Caridan. Let’s get this over with; I have a lunch date.”

  “We wouldn’t want to keep you from that.”

  “Hmph,” she snorted out and looked down at her tablet, scrolling through it quickly as though wondering if there was anything worth noting to me about its contents. “All standard girls. All well-read and–”

  “Scientifically appealing?” I cut her off. “Scientists, doctors, passive mates all willing to please?” I raised my brows, and she let herself fall into the office chair by the front desk, dropping her tablet onto the counter.

  “Hilarious,” she remarked.

  “It’s gotten easy to rehearse,” I said passively. “You give me the same speech every time.”

  “And yet you keep coming, so I must be doing my job,” she said with a smug raise of her brows.

  I shrugged and exhaled heavily in her direction to make sure she could smell the heat on my breath. From my peripheral, I could see the rest of the Weredragons assembling by the window. The hallways that connected the Riddell station were all made of glass, which meant they could catch a glimpse of the hopefuls on their way to meet their mates.

  “Are you going to be choosing today, Caridan?” Zaphira asked with a smug smirk on her face. I sneered in her direction and refrained from grabbing her by the neck and holding her up against the wall. That just wouldn’t have been gentlemanly.

  “No,” I said pointedly. “Why, Zephira? Are you throwing yourself into the pot?”

  “Please,” she scoffed absent-mindedly before finally turning her tablet off in exasperation. “They’re all excellent candidates. We always choose excellent candidates, as you well know.”

  I nodded but said little, my eyes flickering over to the window like the rest of the men. I tried to act like I was above the watching process, but something about the women pulled me close.

  I could have handled myself better if I didn’t have to watch both Brenem and Ikar attend the choosing. I would have rathered bite myself in the tail than witness any smug shower of happiness from either of them.

  “That’s a lot of girls,” I whispered to myself as I saw the women approaching the outside.

  “And you brought extra men,” she said simply in return. “We figure it can’t hurt to have a bigger selection is all.”

  “Yes, and then we take them all home with us; is that it?”

  She said nothing but stood from her chair and walked by me dismissively. “Always a pleasure, Caridan.”

  “That’s it?” I’d asked in mild surprise. Usually, the director had more to say to me. “Nothing more to say about your pleasing candidates? No insight? No derisive remark about our expanded army?”

  She shrugged. “Would it make a difference?” She watched my eyes carefully and then gave a single nod. “I thought not. I have to go meet the girls. Walk me out.”

  Again, I looked to Ikar for permission, and he gave me an approving but uninterested wave.

  I walked Zephira to the doors that stood just feet away from us, and she stopped just long enough to give me a pointed frown. She gestured with her hand to the Weredragons that were now nearly pressed against the window, roaring with unbridled lust and excitement at the arrival of their mates. “If they break that window, we take away half our candidates; you got it?”

  She stared at me sternly until I finally broke into a smile. “Whatever you say.”

  I placed my hand on the small of her tiny back and marveled once more at how frail and alluring human women were. I stepped out into the daylight with her, and she quickly removed my hand from her back. When she turned to me, I grabbed her waist with both my hands and pulled her close to me so I could feel the energy in her body speed up.

  I leaned in, and she dug her nails into my scales, causing me to wince ever so slightly.

  “Don’t,” she demanded, backing away from me with anger splashed across her features. “I have to meet the girls. Let’s just get this over with.”

  Her strength made me feel a fire inside. I respected her enough to remove myself from blocking her way. In fact, she was one of the only ones I respected in those days. She’d been humiliated by a Weredragon just as I’d had a grueling experience with a human. Yet she carried out her duties with dignity and efficiency, just as I did.

  She walked away from me briskly, knowing I could catch up to her in a mere second. But I didn’t. I simply watched as she got farther and farther from my sight.

  With a long, drawn-out sigh, she turned around. She bit her lip the way she did when she was about to break the rules and narrowed her eyes at me.

  “Caridan,” she said with no special emphasis.

  With one race of my wings against the wind, I was at her side, slowly lowering myself back onto the ground. “What?”

  “I have a girl for you. She’s blonde, with curly hair. Her name is Ariella.”

  “What?” I glowered and felt my expression twist to one of confusion.

  Her expression hardened. "Choose her or nobody else will. That’s my insight.”

  Chapter Three

  Ariella

  “I mated with a Weredragon,” Amelia said suddenly as she shuttled us down the hallway toward where the Weredragons had landed. She walked backward so she could look at the round of hopefuls as she spoke.

  “And?” my sister asked exc
itedly, a blush crossing her face as she eagerly awaited Amelia’s response. “Are you still together?”

  “Yes,” the assistant said proudly and gestured to her very pregnant belly before flushing. “We live on Earth now, but our adventure on Udora was astounding. I’d write about it if I were a more eloquently spoken woman.” She shrugged playfully and spun back on her heel. “Don’t let Zaphira get you down. Whether you’re chosen or not, you’re going to have an amazing experience.”

  Zaphira emerged back into the building as her formal meeting with the dragons had ended. She told us that, for our benefit, the men had transformed before hitting the surface so as not to scare us with their full forms.

  I stared at her as she walked us through how to stand and what to say when the Weredragons approached. I couldn’t help but wonder what her life was like with the alien species and why she was so cold about the transaction. What had happened to make her mate return her to the Earth with such a sour interpretation of the experience when Amelia seemed so taken by her husband?

  I blinked cautiously and once again looked to my sister, who seemed to have no reservations about the event. She smiled playfully back at me and widened her eyes as if to say she couldn’t believe her luck.

  Though they had landed some time ago, I could still feel the heat of the Weredragon’s landing radiating towards me.

  There were twenty altogether, which was more than we were told about.

  “Probably crew members,” my sister whispered to me as she grabbed my hand with excited anticipation.

  She was probably right. Though the Weredragons were able to fly through our atmosphere in their full form, they would need crew members and a ship to take us back to Udora. We were humans, after all, and last I checked I wasn’t able to breathe in space without combusting, which wasn’t exactly a ‘come hither’ look.

  I breathed in and looked over the wild array of alien creatures before me. While taking on the male form, most still had wings and patches of scales scattered over their skin.

  Their scales were all different colors, and their wings took on different forms. Some had see-through patagium – the membrane of skin that extended between the tips of their wings and their backs. Sort of like bat wings. While others had firm, strong wings that looked like impenetrable walls.

  The men were all fit and sexy with toned bodies and sharp eyes. The way they looked at you was almost unreal. I barely had the words to process it in my own mind, but ‘striking’ had been an accurate portrayal. When they looked at you, you could tell they were staring straight into your soul.

  My eyes scanned the men back and forth as they did the same with the women. The more I noticed we were all just checking each other out, the more I felt like I was at my junior prom – both sexes too nervous to approach the other.

  This transpired for only a moment before one of the Weredragons broke their stance. Without a word, he glided over to a girl named Wynne and took her hand into his.

  He had chosen.

  And it was as simple as that. I couldn’t believe how quickly it had all happened. I looked to Zaphira with sarcastic surprise, and she shrugged playfully as she folded one hand atop the other.

  “That was fast,” I whispered to my sister with a grin as I eyed Wynne down the row of women. “Guess that’s what you get when you keep your blouse undone,” I snorted.

  “This feels like getting picked last in dodgeball,” she responded with a wrinkle in her nose. “I literally wore the sexiest thing I have, and they’re still picking skin over snug.”

  “Snug?” I repeat.

  “My outfit!” she protested childishly. “It’s, you know… snug!”

  The Weredragons didn’t seem to appreciate us talking, as I noticed one dark-haired man frown at our gestures and swooped up to us in a hurry. His eyes were rounded and azure. I expected him to look more human than this, yet something about the way he looked at us sent a fire through me that I wasn’t expecting.

  The girls who were not chosen as mates got to return to Udora for exactly one year to study their land and culture. After the year, we would have the choice either to return to Earth or have a representative beseech the Weredragon council on our behalf to stay for two more years to continue our research.

  I had always assumed I would be the latter, but the longer I watched the Weredragons take their pick of the women I had come to know as friends, the more I resented not being chosen.

  The man who approached us had dark features and deeply tanned skin with fluorescent purple scales that seemed to hum and breathe on their own every time the man moved. I was hypnotized by the beauty that exuded from the creature just feet from my face, yet at the same time, I desperately wanted to tell him to go away.

  He watched my sister for just a moment before his eyes fixated on mine. No matter where I looked or how I shifted nervously, his eyes didn’t leave mine. Suddenly his azure gaze shifted, and for just a moment, he had a tall slit for a pupil that you might see on a snake. Or, you know, a dragon.

  He locked my eyes with his and his scales began to glow. Then all of the sudden, they stopped and his eyes returned to the human pupils I was accustomed to.

  “Are you going to pick one of us, or what?” I said finally; my tone coming off completely rude. Whoops!

  My sister looked mortified, and the dragon looked amused. He furrowed his brows at me and offered a somewhat arrogant smirk.

  “Is that an attitude deserving of a choosing?” he asked, now crossing his arms and leaning back on a wing that he had extended to the ground below him. He was tall and beautiful, and he looked at me with dark lashes and perfectly pointed lips. I felt my knees buckle in a way they hadn’t done since I was eight and kissed Tray Phelleps for the first time in the third grade.

  I played coy with him and raised a brow, crossing my arm in mimic of his posture. “And what makes you think I want to be chosen?”

  “Ha!” he laughed with a sarcastic demeanor and hopped up from his wing. We stared into each other’s eyes for some time, as though we were having a standoff of sorts. As much as I’d wanted to win our little contest, my eyes couldn’t help roving about his body. He pointed his index finger at me with a grin that said he’d caught me staring and looked entirely too proud of himself for doing so.

  “So you don’t want to be chosen, huh?” he asked in perfect English. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. An accent, or something. Surely aliens should have had some kind of accent, I thought, but not him.

  Before I could respond in kind, he turned around and spread his wings out fully. They were the kind that reminded me of the bat. The see-through membrane of his wing shimmered against the light, and the colors that reflected through the patagium were like a rainbow in an oil slick; all purples and deep greens swimming around a black atmosphere.

  I blinked in surprise as his wings extended far out on each side and he turned around to regard the other Weredragon.

  “What do you think, brothers?” he shouted with some authority. “Should I take the mouthy one off your hands and claim her as my own?”

  I bit my lip with uncertainty and was surprised to see some of the Weredragons chuckling in response. Here I’d thought it was supposed to be a dignified event.

  A beautiful Weredragon with blonde hair and white, wide-set scaled wings smirked and closed his eyes as he shook his head with bemused disapproval.

  “That guy doesn’t think it’s a good idea,” I said with a lighthearted raise of my brow as if it were all a big shame that he couldn’t have me.

  “That’s alright,” he said smoothly.

  As he took my hand into his wide palm, I suddenly felt a sick rush of butterflies flow through me. I looked to my sister with surprise, and to my horror, she also looked shocked. I was unsure if I should be offended by the surprise that was plastered across her face, like she couldn’t believe her sister, of all people, was being chosen instead of her.

  “I’ll take my chances,” he said and began pulling me
away from our structured lineup.

  “Wait, wait,” I said and tugged away from his surprisingly ginger grip. “If it’s all the same to you,” I whispered, leaning close to him. “I’m pretty good just being a nurse or a biologist or, hey, anything really, just not a wife.”

  He raised a brow curiously and seemed to consider my words before gripping his long, scaly fingers back around my hand and pulling me forward. “It’s not all the same to me,” he shrugged with a spiteful stare. “I have claimed you. That’s not a request.”

  “Hey, you know who’s dying to be chosen?” I asked in my most obnoxious tone. “My sister.” I tried to spin on my heel and point to Meghan, who was now making humiliated eyes at me and waving her hands back and forth as if to dismiss us both. “She’s beautiful, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know,” he said as he looked her up and down before turning his eyes back to me, his scales once again glowing and fading as quickly as a breath.

  “You… don’t?” I was dumbfounded. “Alrighty then,” I said under my breath. “Well, maybe you don’t know about human standards, but let me tell you, she’s a knockout. Me? I’m second rate, really. Second banana. Second born, even! You don’t want me; you want Meg.”

  “Meg,” he repeated slowly and looked her over once more, his grip tightening around my hand as though he thought I would run. “I don’t think so,” he said wickedly as he leaned into me and bit his lip.

  “Listen, sir,” I said through completely gritted teeth. “I’m sure you’re very nice, but I’m just not… lookin’. You know?”

  I could feel the Weredragons around me swooping in at alarming speed and selecting their mates before whisking them back to the male lineup just twenty feet away. The force of the air behind their wings left heavy plumes of wind racing behind them. They flew in such quick succession, I nearly lost my balance.