Warriors Of Cadir (A Sci Fi Alien Romance Collection)

by Maia Starr

  Finally looking away from the pyre, I turned to my friend and managed to snort, “And you want to kick off the inaugural event… right now?”

  “She was our leader,” he said firmly, meeting my eyes. “The Parduss are going to be lost without her.”

  So am I, I wanted to say.

  “We need you to step up,” he said, turning his profile to the ones gathering back on land and starting campfire, making sure they were out of earshot.

  I scoffed. “Thanks.”

  “I’m serious,” he urged. He always was. “You have to take charge sooner than later, otherwise factions will form and morale will drop even lower.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. This was what it meant to be Dendren, now? No peace? No time to even grieve my own mother?

  “You think I’m so incompetent that I can’t stand here for two seconds without our whole society falling apart?” I mocked.

  Veynore pursed his lips and then gave me a hard smack on the shoulder. “I’m saying it’s in the best interest of our people for you to create a plan.”

  I stayed silent for a minute: tried to gather my thoughts. But I couldn’t do it. I always had my mother to guide me—train me about the way in which the Parduss should be led.

  “What do you think?” I asked Veynore, and he offered a wry half-smile, shaking his head at me.

  “Hey,” he pushed against me, “Don’t put me in charge!”

  “I should, just to punish you,” I teased.

  Both of our smiles faded as we heard another crack from the floating fire, turning our heads back toward the fading pyre.

  “Make me your advisor, and I’ll help you,” Veynore said, and I gave a dismissive wave. He already knew he had the position.

  While younger than me, Veynore was by far the more mature of us.

  “The position is yours,” I said evenly.

  Merenora, my mother, was the last of the eniwan for our people. The only female left. Without her, we had nothing to do but wait to die.

  “Orylis,” he cautioned. “The meet with the Gild is tomorrow. What do you want to do?”

  The reasons for the rivalry with the Gilds stemmed back to well before I was alive.

  A half-century ago, my grandmother, an Atherien, slept with Adrius, the last Dendren and Fenris’ father. A Gilds.

  My mother was the result of their affair: a bastard child. Upon finding out about my mother's existence, the Dendren's mate had my grandmother killed and my mother, along with all other Atherien, were banished to the mainlands.

  After being banished, the Atherien heard rumors that the Gild’s eniwan were dying off or turning barren. The Atherien Parduss had never had a problem with breeding. Our females never fell sick or caught whatever plague was killing the Gilds.

  So one day, an army of the Gilds came to our land and slaughtered our men: stole our women. Brought them back to the plenks as breeders.

  Decades later, I heard they did the exact same thing to another race known as the hu-mans.

  I didn’t think making peace was worth it—not after what they did to us.

  But my mother did, and I would honor her wishes.

  “We’re going,” I confirmed somewhat reluctantly: defeated. “It’s what she wanted.”

  After decades of living in the wilds, I was to be sent to Renden as a representative—correction, as the leader of the Atherien, offering peace.

  Veynore swallowed awkwardly and then offered me a sheepish grin as he counseled, “You do know this means you have to… you know… be nice.”

  “I’m not nice?” I repeated.

  “You’re… well, you’re…” He laughed. “You’re nice to me?”

  I scoffed.

  “You could stand to smile a little more,” he said, rolling his wrist.

  “Great,” I snapped. “I’ll work on being friendlier to my enemies. Got it.”

  Veynore rolled his eyes and urged, “Just try a smile?”

  With a heavy sigh, I composed myself before turning to Veynore with a lopsided, sharp-toothed grin.

  Veynore’s eyes went wide, and he instructed, “Less crazy this time.”

  I tried pulling up the other side of my mouth: a full, toothy smile.

  “More… charming,” he insisted, squinting at me.

  “Forget it!” I said, noticing that the rest of the Parduss were watching me from land. “Can I do this after the ceremony?” I said, swatting him away and making my way back to the rocks.

  It was nighttime, and the sky was a grim shade of amethyst-black. Stars shimmered above and were soon blotted out by the massive collection of campfires spread out along the rocky beach.

  I looked out over the vast gathering of Parduss and listened to the seabirds and forest creatures croaking and humming in the distance.

  It was strangely peaceful, considering the ceremony we’d just had.

  Veynore nudged me forward into the middle of the crowd, and our people looked at me expectantly.

  H’sk… I swore to myself. Veynore was right. They were all expecting something of me.

  Was I supposed to make some kind of fantastical speech to assure my people?

  The wishes of my mother will be realized. The Atherien will be saved! I’d say, and then they’d all cheer and roar.

  I inhaled sharply and began, “My mother is dead, and so with her, a legacy of peace and independence dies.”

  My statement elicited a massive cry of mourning from the crowd, some giving way to tears.

  Veynore’s eyes once again went wide, and he subtly shook his head.

  He faced his palms upward and began motioning up with them, as though lifting something. ‘Be uplifting,’ he was silently pleading.

  “Uh-but!” I yelled out, stupidly. “This does not mean the end of the Parduss! As the new Dendren, I will lead our people toward a new peace with the Gild. We will make our needs heard and together will fight to reclaim the Plenks!”

  I went on this way, assuring our people that my mother’s legacy would not be shamed and that if we made peace with the Gild, we would only do so if it made sense for us.

  The speech must have gone over well because there were cheers at the end and many Parduss who approached me afterward, pledging their allegiance to me, saying that if it came to it, they would rather die with honor than lend themselves as subjects to the Gilds.

  We wanted peace with the Gilds, but we didn’t want to live with them. Females were what we needed, though they seemed to be in short supply of those these days.

  I lay down on a patch of sand nearer to the warmth and stared skyward.

  I started to think of all the ways in which the Gilds and the Atherien were different from one another. Of all the wrongs they’d done all for self-preservation.

  The Gilds were strong and bulky, true warrior-types. They had broad wings, smaller arms, and spiky veneers with long tails and long necks.

  The Atherien dragons were slick in appearance: snake-like, more adapted to speed and water. Our tails had fins on the ends, as did our wings.

  When shifted to a human form, we still had tails and pointed fins under our biceps.

  The Gilds were commonly navy, white, and gray or black.

  The Atherien were aqua blue, green, yellow, and other colors better suited to something that lives in nature.

  All of these small differences that I thought were so important seemed meaningless now that we needed their help.

  Chapter Three

  Theren

  Waking up was just about the worst part of my day. Not only did it signify a day of bruises, planning, and stress ahead, but it meant I had to leave the warm comfort of my bed with Hazel.

  She had been assigned to me months ago now, and I had spent every day waiting for her arrival feeling heartsick. It was like I already knew her, somehow.

  My parents were young. Most Parduss were centuries old: they were just a few decades. When I was just a few years old, my mother died of the eniwan illness, and my father died
in the Earth raids. So it truly wasn’t until I met Hazel that I knew what it was really like to love something—to have something for myself.

  I watched her as she slept: beautiful creamy skin and heart-shaped lips that seemed even more swollen and kissable in her peaceful slumber.

  I didn’t always have the time to devote to her, but when I did, I made sure her every need was cared for.

  Even so, I worried what trouble she might get into while I was gone. It felt like every time I turned around she was in the mainlands: endangering herself in the wilds all because she liked the colors.

  As much as I knew I had to leave, I couldn’t help but kiss her: waking her out of a sound sleep with eagerly moving lips.

  “Good morning,” came the girl’s honey-sweet tones as she pulled her lips from mine. “You’re not leaving already, are you?”

  “Unfortunately,” I said to her as I took my arm out from underneath her. Humans were so strangely groggy in the mornings. At least Hazel was.

  She sat up sleepily as I tried to leave and slipped her arms under mine and wrapped them around my chest from behind.

  “Stay,” came her usual ask.

  “I can’t,” I said and peeled her fingers off my bare chest. Adorably, she flopped back down in the bed and stared up at me.

  “Honestly, you should just skip it,” she said with a sleepy smile.

  “Skip it?” I repeated, teasing. “Just skip it?”

  Finally, she opened her beautiful hazel eyes to me. Her namesake. Stunning beads of brown with a ring of jagged green spikes on either side staring up at me.

  She began to giggle. “Uh-huh. Stay in bed with me today. All day.”

  Her laughter made me smile. She had that effect on me. If any of the other warriors could see me at home with her… I would be mocked for the rest of my life.

  Hazel had become… everything to me. I never thought there would be a day where fighting for her would be more important to me than fighting for my people. But every time I was sent out to hunt or fight or gather, I now thought about how I was doing it for her, not for the Parduss.

  Coming home to her was like putting my soul to rest. It was something I had never experienced before.

  “Stay in bed all day,” I repeated, crawling back into the bed and pushing myself on top of her.

  “And what would we do then?”

  “Oh, I’ve got plans for you,” she teased, running a hand up the back of my head. I leaned into her breath and kissed her large lips, pushing a hand down between her legs.

  “This is what you want?” I said, and she shook her head, though pressed into my hand anyway.

  She turned her face from me, but I could see her hiding the hint of a smile. “No,” she said.

  “Liar,” I whispered, and she laughed. “I want to stay. But we have to meet with the Atherien today, and I have to discuss our terms with the Dendren.”

  “You did that yesterday,” she said, meeting my eyes.

  “Hazel,” I said firmly, bringing my hand to a stop. “I do this for you.”

  “No you don’t,” she snorted. “But it’s fine. I’ll just… entertain myself in other ways!”

  “Stay out of the wilds!” I laughed, finally peeling myself away from the temptress in my bed and walking toward my armor. “Hazel, I mean it.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she waved me off. “I’ll pick you up a souvenir.”

  “I will pick you up and lock you in this room if I find out you went to the wilds: do you hear me?” I said, spinning on my heel and offering her a stern look.

  She crawled onto her belly and laid on the bed facing me: naked body on my sheets with her backside round and exposed, making me hard. “Lock me in this room and make me your sex slave?” she asked seductively, propping her chin up on two hands.

  I let out a moan, setting my jaw as I looked down at her. I could see her breasts pressing hard against the bed, creating alluring cleavage that she wouldn’t otherwise have.

  “No,” I managed to stammer out.

  She snapped her fingers and rolled onto her back once more, tickling index down her flat navel and in-between her legs. “Too bad,” she said.

  I had fought in wars with other species, other planets; I had fought beasts in the wilds to bring home food for our people. I went to war on Earth and had been sawn through by blades more times that I could count.

  But all it took was one tempting human to reduce me to a defeated mess.

  “You’re going to be the end of me,” I said, and she straightened herself out, pulling the covers back up over her body and settling back into the pillows for what would surely be a few more hours of sleep.

  She grinned. “I know.”

  “I’ll be back tonight,” I said, and she didn’t say anything more, just closed her eyes and went back to bed.

  That single interaction kept my interest all the way back to the council chambers. Usually I enjoyed my morning march down the vast, glass hallways and larger-than-life rooms in the Dendren’s courtyard.

  Today, the entire walk to the expansive council chamber was a blur: my mind replaying images of Hazel—her smile, her breasts, the way she could tease me about nearly anything in the whole world.

  I was in a daze, instructing and being instructed by Fenris on the best ways to handle the truce. How I was allowed to do as I saw fit with the Atherien if myself and Pash agreed that the deal didn’t feel right.

  Soon Fenris was removed from the premises, and it was just the council and our many human females left waiting to meet the Atherien, who we were told had just arrived.

  My mind should have been fixed on my nerves: how this meeting would shape our future as Parduss. Instead, all I could think about was Hazel slipping a finger inside of herself and smiling devilishly up at me.

  I swallowed awkwardly as the Dendren’s advisor, Pash, came up next to me.

  “Whatever you’re thinking about, stop it,” came a stern warning from Pash. “Merenora is dead,” she said sharply, speaking of the Atherien’s leader—the ‘rebel queen.’

  “What?” I asked, snapping my attention to her.

  “Just wait,” she raised her brows incredulously, “They’re sending her son, their new leader, to meet us.”

  “Really,” I said lowly and stared down from the dais at the crowd of people entering the room. “How… odd.”

  Pash and I weren’t a fan of one another, though we got along fine when it came to doing our duties for our leader. Unlike Pash, I had always been loyal to Fenris, even back in the days when his father was still alive.

  Fenris had been removed from the line of succession once he had taken up with a human female before it was an acceptable practice. They were still together.

  I never thought of it as any form of treason. I was jealous, in fact, back when he first met his partner. He opened the way for the rest of the shifters to take on human females as lovers and had already contributed four dragonlings to our population through his very fertile partner—Alecia.

  As a loyalist, I never questioned the suspicious nature of his brother, father, and sister’s murder so many years ago now. The murders that led him to gain the Dendren throne.

  In fact, it was my great belief that Pash herself was the one who poisoned them, save for the late brother Scashra whom she was rumored to be in a secret relationship with.

  She wanted Scashra to take place as leader with her at his side.

  That was my theory, anyway.

  We watched as the Atherien Parduss lined up and filled our council room, each taking a respective seat in the semi-circle audience chairs. Their leader and his representative entered last with lack of ceremony.

  I could feel my heart speeding up a little: the thoughts of Hazel finally falling aside as I brought myself back to reality.

  “Here they come,” Pash said in a hushed sing-song tone as the oversized metal doors were finally shut, signaling the beginning of a new era.

  Pash stood next to me: white hair tied back
into an oversized braid, wearing regal robes that fell regally behind her tall, slim body. She jutted out her square jaw, unimpressed with the company, and offered me an incredulous look as one of the Atherien announced their 'Dendren's' arrival.

  The fact that they had used such an honored, and taken, title was of the highest disrespect. It fed back into old feuds about the Atherien bastard child believing she had the right to rule over us.

  The boy walked in looking arrogant but lost. He was tall and built, but not nearly as broad or muscular as our own warriors. He had furrowed gills down the sides of his neck that drew my eyes almost immediately.

  “Azara,” I greeted and gave a formal bow to the man and his company. “And welcome. I am Theren, and this is Pash, representatives standing in for the Dendren of Renden.”

  “Azara,” the boy said in turn: his voice more gravely than I had expected.

  His mouth moved in such a strange way, I thought, almost like he still had a dragon's beak even in human form. “Orylis,” he introduced himself and gestured to the dark, intimidating warrior next to him. “This is Veynore, my advisor.”

  I nodded toward him and sat up at the right hand of the raised platform that held the Dendren's throne.

  Orylis and his advisor stood down on the floor below us. “Let's begin,” I instructed, and they looked up at me expectantly.

  Orylis had deep amber eyes, snake-like, with short brown hair that almost seemed dull in comparison to the bright aqua color of his scales.

  For once, Pash and I had something in common: both equally surprised that the Atherien had sent their leader to such a meeting.

  Clearly, they weren't as paranoid as some of our men would have been about sending the Dendren into potential danger.

  ...or as paranoid as Hazel.

  Even she had brought up almost immediately that this meeting could have been a trap. Lucky for the Atherien, it wasn't, but the fact they hadn't considered sending a representative instead of their master showed they were either entirely foolish or entirely desperate.

  Fenris, our Dendren, hadn't been so brave.

  The rows of semi-circle chairs on the other side of the room were filled to the brim with a collection of warriors, representatives both human and Parduss, and all of the pregnant females we could gather. If we were going to establish a truce, we wanted them to see that we had much to offer in terms of procreation.