Azlo

by Maia Starr

  She snorted into her hands and looked up at me with bashful eyes. “The process,” she continued to giggle.

  “Skank,” I whispered with humor on my tongue. “Go get ‘em.”

  We both laughed and watched the unique experience unfold before us. Dragons would rush up to the line of beautiful, educated women before them and with a large ‘whoosh!’ they would be back in the lineup. The shifters had scales that cascaded over their bodies in beautiful patterns. These would light up as they spotted the woman of their choice.

  Zaphira told us this lighting was meant to signal that they could feel deep in their soul that they were already connected to their chosen one. Adalynn had been chosen by a gorgeous Weredragon with swarthy skin and beautiful purple scutes running down his body. His wings were large and powerful, his scales glowing with lust and love every time he looked at her.

  I looked over at Sigisvult and couldn’t help but notice there was nothing glowing about him. He wasn’t even smiling.

  I didn’t know if this was odd or unusual… but it unsettled me deep in my core.

  After the rest of the Weredragons had chosen, we were all ushered into the glass hallways of the Riddell command center. They wanted us to fill out paperwork, of all things. As we made our way through the chilly halls of the government establishment, I just couldn’t help myself any longer. “Hey, big guy,” I whispered to my blue scaled boyfriend.

  He looked down at me with a smile, though looked unimpressed. “Yeah?”

  “Kiss me,” I demanded, and he grinned in compliance.

  He grabbed the curve of my jawline in his hand and tilted my head up, taking my lips into his and engaging in a battle of kisses, both our mouths fighting for dominance over the other. He flicked his tongue into my mouth and sent a white-hot sensation through my whole body. When the kiss broke, he stared down at me with big eyes that seemed to refocus out of their lustful gaze.

  He smiled, and so did I.

  If nothing else, at least we knew that part worked.

  And then it all went black.

  A moment… A brief, indefinite interval of time. A period of importance, influence, or significance in a series of events. A moment was happening right now, and it wasn’t romantic… it was terrifying.

  The lights in the building crackled above us and everything went dark, the loud sounds of a crash or an explosion filling my ears and surging a panic through my body that was so real I nearly collapsed. Shouts and screams from the crew and chosen ones filled the room with dread.

  I screamed out for Sigisvult and then for Zaphira, but the ringing in my ears prevented any noise from coming through. I crouched down to the ground and only then realized the windows had shattered, glass covering my hands and scraping against my knees as I crawled along the marble floors.

  The room was dark and hollow, with smoke billowing everywhere. I could feel bodies being pushed up against me, felt the ground moving as though on wheels. I shifted to try and see through the darkness before weakly grabbing at the person next to me, tiredly asking for Sigisvult. I was greeted with a woman’s whispered voice instructing me to stay quiet.

  Light finally shone through the slats of the windows, illuminating the dimly lit room. There were agonizing minutes of silence and a song of hushed breathing shared by the lot of us before I felt a cold, slick hand land on my shoulder.

  It was Sigisvult.

  “It’s the rebels,” he said as he plucked me up into his arms and gripped me tightly. “Come on, let’s go.”

  With one gust, his wings emerged and we flew to the front of the pack.

  The next few hours were another blur before we were crammed into a safe house with Zaphira barking orders. She was the leader of Riddell, and there had been rumors of a rebel group on Udora for many years now. The rebels wanted to break away from the alliance with Earth.

  “This is it!” she yelled, slamming her hand down on the glass table with fury and looking up at Galsthenn, a white Weredragon with blue eyes. He had taken over the Koth years ago now and made their big decisions.

  I blinked in surprise at Zaphira’s outburst. She pointed to the commanding shifter and yelled, “We’ve had enough! This gets taken care of, or it’s over! This!”

  She gestured around the room at the couples who had paired off together, the shifters now holding their women tightly. I noticed Sigisvult’s hands were nowhere near me as he listened intently.

  “This is it,” the raven-haired leader reiterated.

  “We understand,” Galsthenn said with no loss of professionalism in his tone and body language.

  “This is the last batch you get. We won’t put any other girls in danger with this bullshit,” she seethed.

  Galsthenn seemed to twitch at the harsh words and grit his teeth before standing from the table. “It’s being handled.”

  “That’s what you’ve been saying for years.”

  The white Koth leader gave the director a pointed look and nodded. “I said it’s being handled. We will give the women the option to stay on Earth with our shifters for the time being, but as soon as they become pregnant, we need to collect the child.”

  This seemed to strike a nerve with Zaphira and her lips curved up into a wicked smile, annoyance washing over her features. “So be it,” was all she said.

  I looked to Sigisvult with big doe eyes and he looked back at me, both unsure of how to proceed. There hadn’t been a disruption in a choosing ceremony since… Well, in my 21 years I’d never heard of it before.

  The deep blue dragon put his arm around me and leaned down to meet my ear. “I’m not sure how comfortable I am staying here.” By ‘here,' I knew he meant Earth.

  Yet another sign of his lack of chivalry.

  “I’m fine going back to Udora,” I said simply, and my shifter seemed to appreciate the thought.

  “So long as you’re fine with it,” he said slowly, his eyes making their way around the room with purpose. With that, he grabbed my hand, and we took our leave from the politics.

  Chapter Two

  Sigisvult

  We were nearly one week into our new ‘relationship’ and every morning I awoke to the redhead at my side was another headache on my list. She was beautiful, and she knew it. And in my eyes, those were the worst types of women.

  The more I came to know my chosen, the more irritated I became with her. She seemed more preoccupied with flirting with other Weredragons and basking in their attention than she was with being my submissive.

  She wanted attention and compliments and expected a certain lifestyle that irked me. I didn’t know what she did back on Earth, but my guess what not much.

  Celeste had spent the morning the same way she’d spent the last four mornings since landing in Udora – in bed. She sprawled on my bed naked and did nothing all day. I asked her if she wanted a tour of the cities, the old ruins, or the amethyst lakes and was declined every time. I’d given up trying to amuse her and slowly came to the conclusion that her favorite pastime was going to be finding new ways to bother me.

  I slipped my jacket onto my cold arms and began zipping up when Celeste rolled over on the bed and stretched, revealing her small, milky breasts and freckled navel. I glanced over with mild interest and she grabbed an oversized pillow to cover them with.

  As if she didn’t want me to look.

  I rolled my eyes and grabbed my bag to leave when she chirped, “So what is it that you do, exactly?”

  “I’m in communications.”

  “You?” she blanched and crawled forward in the sheets, her bottom high up in the air as she perched on her forearms and stared up at me in surprise. “You’re in communications?” she laughed. “You’re kidding.”

  I smirked and walked over to her, scooping the pillow from her body and meeting her eyes. “Yes, I am kidding.”

  “Oh.”

  “We don’t have jobs like you do back on Earth. You’re either in the Koth or you’re born to protect the Koth. And that’s it.”
r />   “That’s it,” she repeated. “So, what are you working on now then?”

  “Right now?” I looked over at her and frowned. “Well, right now I’m pretty focused on finding the rebel base.”

  “How come they don’t like Earth?”

  “Well,” I breathed coolly. “I guess they don’t think you’re very friendly.”

  She stared at me for a moment before sticking out her tongue and demanding, “Give me back my pillow!”

  I playfully threw the pillow back at her, which she failed to cover herself with, and we remained silent for some time before she casually said, “Are we going to have sex, or what?”

  “That’s romantic,” I snorted.

  “Didn’t think a guy like you cared about romance,” she laughed and watched me with vivid interest as I approached the bed. I leaned down to her, placing my hands on the mattress on either side of her waist. She wrapped her legs around me and pulled me close, laughing as she did so.

  “I’m not into freckles,” I said with a smirk, looking down at the way her body was showered with the curious dots. In a way, they reminded me of my scales, swimming through her body

  “Ignoring you now,” she teased and looked suddenly suggestive as she ran her tongue across her top lip and squinted her eyes. She grabbed the back of my head with her hand and used the other to caress my arm and the scales that covered them. “You know, I’ve always fantasized about being with a shifter.”

  I raised my brows dismissively. “You and about a hundred others.”

  “Don’t you want to make my fantasy come true?” she asked in a seductive voice. “Happy wife, happy life.”

  I stared down at the stiffened peaks of her breasts and bit my lip. Meeting her eyes once more I said, “I have to go.”

  “Really?” she blinked in surprise and pulled the sheet up over her body, face flushing in embarrassment.

  “Celeste,” I said sternly and pushed her legs away from my body. “There is a rebellion going on, if you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Yeah, and I’m naked, if you hadn’t noticed.”

  I stared in disbelief and burst into a small laugh, covering my mouth with my hand as I made my way toward my front door. She followed me, stomping her small feet against the marble floors, dragging the sheet that loosely clung to her body behind her as she chased me down the hall.

  “You have a responsibility to me!” she demanded. “We’ve been here for days now, and all you do is work. We haven’t had sex once, and you don’t even try to have conversations. You are like…” Her brows met, and she stammered, flustered before she shouted, “The most boring person I’ve ever met!”

  “And you are the most spoiled,” I said tersely, setting my hand on the doorknob. “Wonder if the two have anything in common?”

  Her mouth gaped, and she widened her eyes in surprise before brushing a wave of ginger locks out of her face. “Yeah, sorry I actually expected to get to know you and like you after the whole choosing thing. You know, I uprooted my whole life to be here, buddy.”

  “Buddy?” I repeated incredulously. I let go of the door with a loud clinking noise as the knob snapped back into place and I walked up to her, towering over her small stature. “You only have yourself to blame for your choices. This isn’t a nightclub or a social club or–”

  “Any kind of club, I get it! You don’t have to lecture me. You’re not my dad.”

  “No,” I breathed. “Apparently I’m just your buddy.”

  She looked up at me with such defiance it made rage surge through my legs and landed right in the pit of my stomach. I was sent over the edge as she watched my anger taking over, and she smiled.

  She actually smiled.

  My eyes lit up in a fury, and heavy breaths were the only thing stopping me from losing it on the girl.

  “We are in a war here,” I seethed. “Do you understand?”

  “No,” she said, gesturing wildly between us with her pointer finger. “We are in a relationship here. Do you understand?!”

  I gave a loud laugh, my breath ghosting over her face as I did so. She looked offended, but I didn’t care. “This isn’t a relationship, sweetheart. It’s a breeding program.”

  Seemingly ignoring my insult, she began to nod, as though I was making her point for her. “Exactly! And we haven’t been doing any breeding at all. The Koth wants me to get pregnant. Aren’t you supposed to be following orders? I mean, isn’t that literally what you just said to me: the rest of you are supposed to do whatever the Koth wants?”

  I stared down at the fiery redhead and wasn’t sure what to say. Not because she had made a point, but out of sheer surprise at her lack of intellect regarding Udora’s political state.

  “We’re supposed to be having a baby,” she stomped.

  “I don’t even know you,” I said incredulously.

  “And you’re not trying to!”

  “I wonder why,” I snarled and spun on my heel, my tail whipping wildly behind me as I exited my front door and slammed it so hard I thought it might fall off its hinges.

  I grit my teeth nearly the whole way to the valley. The breeze was cold as I flew into the latest war zone, a purple hue taking over the whole sky as the five planets in the high atmosphere reflected down to Udora below. A group of shifters huddled around our mossy spires. I had been called in secret to discuss some of the more recent events in the Koth.

  “Well hello, Bossman!” greeted Vordamm. He wore full battle armor and had his wings out, orange and thick, one of the heaviest sets I’d ever seen. He crossed his large arms as I approached and put on a warm smile. “You’re late,” he offered as though I wasn’t already aware.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I waved him off. “What’s going on?”

  The shifter was much older than myself, but had taken me under his wing after my folks were killed by rebels decades ago. We’d been close ever since.

  “You’d know if you were… what’s that, fellow shifters?” he called out to no one, his gravelly voice barely echoing across the field to the other shifters who were already shuffling off to their stations. With a wide grin, he turned back to me and revealed, “That’s right: if you were here. Oooh!”

  I rolled my eyes and nodded. “I get it. I’m late.” I sighed. “You don’t know what it’s like living with that… that girl. It’s torture every single day.”

  “Already?” he snorted. “What’s it been, two days?”

  “A lifetime,” I corrected urgently. I offered him a deadpan stare, my eyes telling him to read the pain that etched across my face as I sighed. “Four days.”

  “Wow!” he slapped his leg, causing a loud metal clamor to echo throughout the valley.

  I frowned and looked around at the scattering Weres who had already shifted into their Weredragon forms. It was the rare shifter who could almost take on full dragon form. The most anybody else could get was a tail, wings, and of course the scales that never left our skin. Some had horns or fangs like myself, but the melding of human DNA with a shifter’s was slowly taking its toll on our evolution.

  The sight of so many dragons readied, on the edge of sudden battle made me tense. I extended my hand to the back of my neck and scratched lightly as I looked over at Vordamm, the orange shifter still looking at me with a smile plastered across his long, thin face.

  We were instructed to protect the Koth and, second only to them, was the Udorian valley. This was where all of our minerals were, secrets hidden deep beneath the ancient spires. This was the reason the humans kept coming back: to pillage our goods.

  “I heard you’re not screwing,” Vordamm laughed, suddenly breaking my thoughts.

  “You did?” My face flushed and I pushed my lips to the corner of my mouth. Nodding slightly I stared off into the distance. “Might I ask from whom?”

  “From ‘who,’” he corrected and then scratched his large red beard in confusion. “Or is it whom? Never was good with that stuff.”

  “Vordamm!”

  “Oh, righ
t, it was your girl spreading it around,” he waved, and I followed his lead as he began walking toward one of the mountains. There was a great moat that surrounded the mossy spire, and we both flew over it with ease, the water seeming to reach up and grab us with its moisture as we passed.

  “She’s been telling, well, basically everyone who will listen.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and pressed my eyes shut. “Yet another charming perk.”

  “Just don’t put it off for too long,” he warned. “And don’t be too hard on her.”

  “Vordamm,” I insisted, “Have you ever spoken to this girl?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve talked to her. Hey, I like her. She’s got spunk.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Then we can’t have this conversation. I may have to stop associating with you.”

  “More time for you and Celeste to spend together,” he winked.

  “Alright, you win,” I sighed in defeat and set my hand on the outer rock formation around the entrance to the spire. I eased myself in after him, and we both dipped our feet in the vibrant blue waters, their healing properties easily rushing through my armor and stitching up the cuts on my legs with their ancient magic.

  “So what’s going on?”

  The cave seemed to glow, alive in its own way. Vordamm stepped out of the water and leaned against the mossy wall behind us, extending his leg against the stone and crossing his arm. I stayed in the water and watched as it swirled around my leg and splashed violently against me, willing me out of the waters.

  My eyes were lost in the waters, my tail dipping in and out of the warm glow and feeling refreshed in an unexplainable way. When the dragon didn’t answer me, my eyes darted up to him, and he offered a severe expression in return.

  “What?” I asked grimly.

  Funny how when you know someone long enough you begin to understand their every tick, their every expression and tone, said or unsaid.

  He darkened and with a sigh explained, “Haden and Sarra left.”

  My mouth hung there, and I couldn’t even imagine the look I was giving him. “As in?” I asked for further information, but his eyes said it all. They turned. “Rebels?” I hissed under my breath, my mind in disbelief.