Pieces

by Shannon Pemrick

  He nodded and went quiet. He didn’t leave, which made me wonder if he had something else to say. I waited, but he remained quiet. “Do you want one?”

  He looked up and blinked. “What?”

  I held up the bottle of oil. “Do you want a massage?”

  He swallowed hard. “Does it hurt?”

  I chuckled. “Sometimes, but I’ll be gentle.”

  He nodded. “All right, I’ll give it a try.”

  “Take your vest off and lay face down on the bed,” I instructed.

  Raikidan complied. While he lay down on the bed, I coated my hands with the oil and then walked around the bed. Once he was comfortable, I climbed onto my bed and straddled him and he tensed.

  “Relax,” I murmured.

  “Do you have to sit on me?” he grumbled.

  “It’s easiest to do it this way,” I explained. “The bed isn’t as stiff as the massage board, and your body shape is much different than Ryoko’s, so to make it most comfortable for you and for me, I have to do it this way.”

  Raikidan grumbled to himself in what sounded to be his tongue, causing me to giggle. His grumbling turned into soft grunts and sighs as I worked on his back. I held back a smile as I watched him enjoy his pampering, far more than he thought he would.

  I moved off him when I was done, and he turned his head to look at me. “That’s it?”

  I nearly laughed. He definitely had enjoyed it more than he thought he would. “Turn over so I can get your chest.”

  He looked at me warily. “Do I have to?”

  “Well, no, but you seem to want more, and your back is pretty much done, so your front is all that’s left. It’ll be good for you, too. Your back was incredibly tight, so I can only assume the rest of you is as well. It’s probably due to the shifting and the fact you’ve never received any treatment like this before. But ultimately, the choice is yours.”

  His brow furrowed as he thought over his options. I didn’t care what his choice was either way. I made the offer for only Satria knows what reason, and even if it would put me in an awkward position, I had to honor it.

  Raikidan rolled onto his back and eyed me cautiously. He was acting strange about this. Must be some weird dragon thing. Whatever the reason was, his choice was clear.

  Applying a little more oil to my hands, I moved from where I was and straddled him. He continued to eye me as I settled myself. I could feel how tense he was as I began to work. He wasn’t the only one feeling tense about the situation. Sitting on him like this made me feel rather awkward, but I did my best to appear calm as I rubbed my hand across his chest. I focused on keeping my touch gentle to keep him comfortable, but also firm to make sure no knot went undetected.

  As I worked, his body temperature was rose, which I found quite strange. It rose more as I migrated to his abs. I looked up through my lashes, and found him watching me intently. He’s nervous.

  “You need to relax,” I said in a soft tone. “I can’t heal your muscles if you’re tense.”

  “You’re not healing them.”

  “In a sense I am. It may not be fancy like shaman healing or different like your fire healing—which is quite interesting, I might add—but it does heal the muscles and joints. It loosens them so they’re no longer stressed and at the risk of tearing or being involved in some other injury.”

  “I don’t think I can stop being tense.”

  “You weren’t tense while I was working on your back.”

  “I couldn’t see exactly what you were doing.”

  “Then close your eyes.” Raikidan’s brow furrowed and I laughed. “All right, that sounded a little weirder than I had wanted. If you close your eyes, you can’t see what I’m doing, and if seeing what I’m doing is making you nervous, then don’t watch.”

  Raikidan grunted and stared up at the ceiling. He didn’t close his eyes like I instructed, but it was enough for me to feel his body relax more. As I worked, I caught him looking at me from time to time, but as I did, he’d look away. I shook my head each time. He’s so strange.

  Feeling like I had done enough on his chest and abs, my hands migrated to his bicep. This interested him, as he didn’t look away when I caught him watching. As I glided my hands over his muscles, I couldn’t believe how defined they were.

  When I was sure both his arms were done, I slid my fingers gently across his collarbone, looking for any small knots that might have formed around there. I assumed I’d find a few from his shapeshifting. Even though he had never had this done to him before, it amazed me how many knots I had found. His shapeshifting had to be a major factor in that. Sure, he claimed to rarely ever shapeshift before meeting me, but staying in his natural dragon form couldn’t create this many knots. Not with the way he moved in that form at least.

  I froze when Raikidan suddenly sat up. My cheeks burned as my arms hung loose around his neck, and my breathing nearly stopped as his hands touched my back and his breath touched my lips.

  “I–I guess you’re done,” I managed as I slid off his lap.

  Grabbing the bottle of oil, I made a hasty retreat to my closet and busied myself. The temperature of my body rose at an alarming rate and my flustered state sunk in deeper. All he had to do was say he had enough. Why couldn’t he have done it that way?

  The fire escape creaked, announcing Raikidan’s departure, and at the same time, my body calmed down. I hated what he did to me. I hated that I reacted in ways that made me uncomfortable. But most of all, I hated that I didn’t know how to stop it from continuing and going down a path I knew I should not tread.

  Chapter 13

  My breath came slow and calm as I lay on my bed and meditated. I could barely hear Raikidan’s slow breath as he read from my library book. So lost in my meditation, I almost missed hearing my door creak open.

  “Eira?” I didn’t open my eyes to Ryoko’s quiet feminine voice. “Eira?”

  “She’s meditating,” Raikidan said in a hushed tone.

  “Strange way to meditate.”

  “I can hear you, you know,” I muttered.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said.

  With a quiet sigh I sat up. “What did you need me for?”

  She held up a small book. “I told you I’d loan it to you after I was done reading it. I finished it a while ago and just remembered about it.”

  The book sailed through the air and I caught it. “Uh, thanks. I’ll get to it when I feel like it.”

  She nodded with a smile and then left without another word. Once the door clicked shut, I looked at the book’s cover briefly and then leaned over to my nightstand. Opening the top drawer, I placed it in there. After shutting it, I lay back down to go back to my meditation.

  “How come you’re not reading it?” Raikidan asked.

  “Because I want to meditate.”

  “But you’ve been waiting a long time to read it, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for Ryoko to loan it to me. I said nothing about reading.”

  “So you don’t want to read it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know what it’s about.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I sighed and stared at the ceiling. “I can’t read. Happy?”

  “Why would I be happy about that? What’s so special about you not being able to read?”

  I sat up and looked at him briefly before looking down at my hands in my lap. “It’s expected of humans to learn how to read, write, and speak. If there are one of these that you can’t do, it’s thought that something is wrong with you.”

  Raikidan closed his book and came over to sit on the bed near me. “So why can’t you read?”

  I shrugged. “It was hard enough for me to learn how to spea
k.”

  “You couldn’t speak?” I shook my head. “For how long?”

  “About five years,” I admitted.

  This bit of knowledge interested him greatly. “That’s not normal?”

  I shook my head. “Natural-born humans start to talk between their first and second year. All experiments are supposed to come out of their tanks with a full vocabulary and ability to communicate it. I had the vocabulary; only I couldn’t say any of it. And when they tried to teach me to read and write, I couldn’t picture the words. I didn’t understand how words were made by letters and how those letters worked with how we spoke, especially when some words looked nothing like what we said.”

  “If you couldn’t speak, how did you communicate with others?”

  “Body language.”

  “That worked well for you?” He asked, clearly surprised.

  I nodded. “It was enough to communicate what I wanted or needed.”

  “Well, then if you don’t need to read or write to function, what’s the big deal?”

  “Why aren’t you surprised by any of this?” I asked. “Why aren’t you surprised that I couldn’t speak for a long time?”

  Raikidan shrugged. “Dragons can’t speak for the first five or so years of their lives. It didn’t occur to me to think it was abnormal.”

  I snorted. “I’m not a dragon.”

  “Point taken, but you still haven’t told me why it’s a big enough deal for you to get upset over admitting it.”

  I pulled my legs up to my chest and rested my chin on them. “I was seen as a freak by my own kind. No tank-born outside of my company wanted to be around me. They thought there was something wrong with me, and imperfections were to be avoided at all cost. Then, after I learned to speak, they continued to avoid me because they were afraid of me. It didn’t matter what I did or said. They still saw me as some sort of freak.”

  “Eira, is this why you don’t talk to anyone?”

  I nodded. “Why say anything when it’s pointless? Words only hurt in some way in the end.”

  Raikidan rested his hand on my shoulder. It was warm and his grip was soft. I leaned my head and rested it on his hand. I didn’t understand what was with me lately. I’d been more willing to talk to Raikidan when he wanted to, and now I was seeking some sort of comfort from him.

  My plans to keep him at a distance were starting to crumble, and I didn’t know why. I had never had this much trouble keeping someone away. That’s not true and you know it, Eira…

  “Eira—” He stopped at the sound of thundering footsteps. They were everywhere. Some were heading downstairs while others were heading to the roof. One in particular headed to my door.

  The door swung open and Ryoko barged in. I slid to the edge of the bed. “What’s wrong, Ryoko?”

  “We’re needed immediately.” She was trying to stay as calm as possible. “Raynn’s team screwed up a mission, and now we have to get them out of there. They’ve already lost seven members.”

  I swore under my breath and launched myself off my bed. Raikidan was close behind me as I made my way into the living room. Before I could say anything, two communicators flew through the air at me. Catching them both, I tossed Raikidan his and then secured mine on my head.

  Argus thundered up the stairs from the basement and tossed Raikidan and me a carbine and a pistol each. He then threw us a small satchel of spare ammunition faster than we could get ready.

  Seda spoke with urgency before anyone was finished getting ready. “You must leave now. Aurora will send you the coordinates through your communicators. Two other teams will also be joining you along with some others from our team. You will all have to meet and jump in immediately. There will not be time to discuss tactics.”

  “That bad, huh?” I inquired.

  She nodded. “This assignment required stealth, which is not what happened. Now there is a large army on the defensive.”

  “Raynn’s team was a bad choice if they wanted stealth,” Rylan muttered as he loaded his rifle. “They enjoy making a commotion too much.”

  “I agree. Now you must go.”

  Everyone was rushing up the stairs before she could repeat herself. The urgency of this mission was enough to pump our adrenaline and make us move without question.

  I played with my communicator’s signal as I jumped from our rooftop to the next one over. “Aurora, do you have those coordinates for us?”

  “I sure do, babe,” she replied. “I’m sending them over to all of you right now just in case, as well as the frequency you’ll want to set your communicators to.”

  “Thanks,” I replied as I read them.

  As I had figured, we were heading for Quadrant Two. The Council had been doing a lot of assignments there lately for unknown reasons, so it didn’t surprise me in the least that we were heading there now.

  I set a quick pace toward the battlefield, and before I knew it, we were getting close. I knew because I could smell the battle even though I couldn’t see it. It smelled of fire and burning bodies.

  Bullets flew through the air and soldiers fell to the ground all around on both sides of the battlefield.

  “Take them all out! Don’t let a single one live!”

  My heart pounded in my ears as we scaled the rooftops. My eyes darted all around as my scanner picked up movement in all directions. I held my gun at the ready. I couldn’t be sure if these figures were friend or foe, and with Raikidan becoming tenser by the second beside me, I was having a hard time thinking straight.

  As we moved closer to the battlefield, many of the figures on the scanner came into view. They were other rebels. I couldn’t believe the numbers. I had figured maybe twenty would show up, but I was getting a reading of fifty or more. The realization of how dire the situation really was had now begun sinking in.

  “We need a team to pick up the right flank. It’s under the heaviest fire,” a male voice rang through the communicators.

  “Team Three will take it,” I replied.

  “Very well. Satria go with you.”

  Landing on the ground, Ryoko took the lead as our shield. Rylan stayed on the rooftop and went about finding a suitable location while keeping an eye on us. Bullets rained down on us before we were even able to reach the thick of the battle.

  “Rylan, if you see any tanks, let Ryoko know,” I ordered.

  “Will do,” he replied.

  I unloaded clip after clip on the opposing military, but it did nothing to their numbers. I flinched when bullets graze my arms and face, but I kept on fighting. Slowly, more members swarmed in, adding to our small team, but even the added numbers didn’t help our odds of prevailing.

  Fire blasted out from one of the alleys. Men and woman screamed in pain, and ran as their flesh burned. Raynn’s obnoxious laughter echoed through the street. Figures it’d be him. I forced my way up and flanked Raynn.

  He glanced back at me and grinned. “Still playing with toys, I see, Eira.”

  I snorted and took out three more soldiers. “At least now I know why you fail so miserably at simple assignments. Are you sure you were born with a brain?”

  Raynn growled and pulled the trigger of his flamethrower. “At least I can take—”

  A large blast of fire shot past us, taking out a mass of soldiers, and I chuckled. “What were you going to say, Raynn? I was too distracted watching Raikidan show you up.”

  “Stupid bitch,” Raynn muttered.

  “Insult her again and you’ll be my next target,” Raikidan threatened as he flanked Raynn’s other side. He pushed past Raynn and moved closer to me. “So are you going to stop playing around, or am I going to have to do your work for you?”

  I snorted and slung my carbine over my back. “Never challenge me.”

  Rushing forward, I spat out two
small embers into my hands and formed two massive flames that consumed them both. Mustering up as much power as I could, I tossed the flames into the swarm of soldiers. Many jumped out of the way, but those who weren’t fast enough became my unfortunate victims.

  Raynn muttered insults at my supposed weak display, but I wasn’t done yet. As the flames around me burned, I felt their heat and pulled their inviting warmth closer to my chest. The flames responded, and I forced them to submit to my control. Moving them, I merged them into a giant flame and spun it around me, creating a circular wall. Filling my body with more energy, I forced the wall out in one large wave that covered the width of the street.

  Soldiers attempted to flee, but to no avail. They weren’t fast enough to avoid my flame and cried out in pain, falling to the ground in seconds as the intensity of the heat torched their very essence. The fire only died when the heat of the borrowed flames died in my chest. My breath started coming in small, ragged bursts, but I wasn’t done yet. There was still more fighting to be done.

  I turned and grinned at Raynn. “You were saying?”

  Raynn glared at me instead of speaking, and I gladly soaked in his humiliation.

  “Not bad, Butterfly,” Raikidan mused as he made his way over to me. “Although I thought you could do better.”

  I snorted. “I’d like to see you do better.

  Raikidan opened his mouth to respond, but loud shots that caused my heart to skip rang through my ears. I gazed around in bewilderment as a building began to collapse. Raikidan grabbed onto me and pushed me into a small alley as a building came crashing down on us. Raikidan held me close protectively—our breath coming short as adrenaline coursed through us.

  “We need to fall back!”

  “No. We fight to our dying breath. That is Zarda’s order.”

  “General, be reasonable.”

  “We are to fight to the end. We will not let them have this area. That is an order!”

  “They’ve brought in tanks. I’m counting seven in total on our side,” Rylan called in. “And it looks like there are more on the way. Ryoko won’t be able to stop all of these.”