by Maia Starr
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 d
ots 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.”
Chapter Nine
Brooklyn
More reports on the radio; more missing girls.
The Parduss were back with a vengeance, and I was hating every minute of it. There was still a curfew in place, and there were army personnel everywhere now. There was no way to get away from them.
I went to work every day greeted by an army officer, was escorted to my car every night—which I couldn’t complain about.
But the threat of the Parduss was so real, it made me start to relive the past more than usual.
I had invited Korus to my place, and he hadn’t left for days. I was still just as excited to be around him as the first time we went out.
We spent our days reading and talking and making love. I tried to watch television with him, but…he got far too into the storylines. It’s like he didn’t understand it wasn’t real, or something. Whatever it was, it was adorable but intense.
Today we laid on my couch, kissing and teasing each other. I didn't know which Korus I enjoyed more. The one who took me hard and made me feel insatiably sexy and desired, even out in public, or the one who held me close to him and softly thrust inside me, savoring every moment we had in our little makeshift bed.
He slipped his tongue into my mouth and flicked it against mine, moaning as he did it. He pushed his pelvis against mine, waiting for me to grind against it, but there was a thought that I couldn’t shake.
“Can I ask you something that would probably take us out of this moment?”
He laughed at that and shook his head, biting my lip and pulling me back into our kiss. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Please?”
With an amused breath, he pulled back and smiled. “Anything you want.”
“Your, um…girlfriend,” I stammered. “How did she die?”
Korus’ brows raised quickly, looking at me with surprise. “Well, that was out of nowhere,” he said with a nervous laugh.
Maybe to him it was, but I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since he’d brought it up so many weeks ago.
When he first told me, it was like a sad exchange of information. My kidnapped sister for his dead girlfriend.
But, now that I knew him better, the fact that he this whole other life before me was incredible…and infuriating at the same time. After all, you can't compete with a dead girl.
And if she died while they were still together, that meant that their love never had the chance to blow apart. He never had the chance for things to go sour or to fall out of love with her.
He loved her and then never got to see how it would turn out.
My past relationships all fell apart. Things may have been different with Joshua, but he existed in a terrible time in my life that would stain our love forever. Even seeing him the other day only served as a painful reminder of what happened to my sister.
He bit his lower lip, and I watched the skin catch under his teeth. He didn’t look particularly pained by the question. Instead, it looked like he wasn’t sure how to answer, or maybe how much he should tell me.
“She wanted a child,” he exhaled, and I nearly lost my breath.
“Oh,” I stammered out. “I didn’t know that.”
Korus gave a loud sigh and thinned his lips.
“And she died during childbirth?”
He shook his head. “There was a…” he said and then seemed to think better of whatever else he was going to say.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s probably hard to talk about,” I offered gingerly.
“No, it’s not that,” he said. “It happened a long time ago. It’s just, complicated.”
“Like, the medical jargon?” I smirked. “Don’t worry; it won’t confuse me.”
His eyes searched the room, suddenly far away.
“Let’s go back to our deal,” he said. “Back in the valley. One for one.”
I blinked, “What, you want me to talk about my sister?”
He nodded, and I set my jaw. Sure, go ahead and change the subject. Leaving me hanging about your secret love and possible baby.
“What made you so certain that she’s still alive?”
I thought about that for a moment and then shrugged. “There was never a question. I just knew.”
“How many of the Parduss took her?”
“Three,” I said. “They ransacked her ship. They hadn’t even left the ground yet. Can you imagine?”
“And they stole the ship?” he said, narrowing his eyes.
I nodded. “Yeah, as far as I know. They never found any of the bodies so…as far as I’m concerned, they’re all still out there.”
My parents had a funeral for Alexandra eight months after she went missing. There were more than four hundred attendees.
Alexandra was bounding with energy, tireless and hard-working. She loved travel and space. It was why she joined the terraforming project.
I loved that about her—her willingness to take on the unknown.
Now, don’t get me wrong, my sister was well-liked, but there was no way she had four hundred friends. It was the city who came—everyone who had heard about the abductions flooded out to show their support for our loss.
Alexandra was giving and exciting to be around, but she was also a stubborn bitch. Once she had her mind made up about something, there was no changing her mind, even if it was in her best interest. She didn’t take shit from anybody.
That’s why I knew she was fine.
And that’s why I never attended her funeral.
My parents and I hadn’t spoken much since then. They thought I betrayed her memory. I felt like they gave up hope.
We were at an impenetrable stalemate. And as far as I was concerned, we couldn’t get out of it until Alexandra came back.
Hell, maybe I was a little stubborn, too.
“You’re probably right,” he said, running a hand up and down my bare leg. “It’s no coincidence that the only people they took were females.” He swallow
ed, hard. “You ever think about why?”
“All, the, time,” I enunciated with wide eyes. “But nobody seems to want to find out. It was enough that the Parduss left. Which was…they won, you know? Our armies may have sent them away, but they still got what they came for.”
“Have you ever tried to do anything about it?”
I scoffed. “Of course! I offered my assistance as a medic to every space program I could think of. Anything that would get me out there and any closer to finding her. I would have done anything!”
“Where do you think she is?” he asked.
I crawled into his lap and stretched my legs out, nuzzling into the crook of his neck. “I don’t know. I’ve thought about it a lot. Maybe she got away.”
“Here, or wherever they took her?”
“Where they took her,” I said as though the answer should have been obvious. “If she escaped here she would have found her way back.”
“You guys were close?”
I nodded. “We fought. A lot. She was a pain in my ass,” I laughed, “But yeah, we were close.”
Then a mild silence raised in the air like a fog as Korus watched me. He brushed my bangs out of my eyes with the back of his fingers and looked me over, studied my features.
“What?” I asked with a bashful laugh. “You think I’m horrible don’t you, for saying she was annoying.”
He shook his head and said, “No.”
“Harping on my sister is something I do,” I argued for no reason. “And it’s nothing I wouldn’t say to her face. I mean, sure, people aren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, but my sister isn’t dead.”
“I know she isn’t,” he said firmly.
“Right,” I said with a single nod and then kissed him on the tip of the nose. “So, my conscience is clear.”
He set his hand against my cheek and pulled my lips into his, leaning his forehead against mine when our kiss broke.
“I’ve gotta say,” I snapped up happily, “You make me feel justified about my opinions. Not sure that’s always a good thing,” I laughed, “But still makes me feel pretty fantastic.”
“That’s the last thing you need,” he teased. “An even bigger ego.”
