by Maia Starr
“Yes, that is true,” I said.
“So what is it? Don’t keep me in suspense. What did you decide?” she asked.
“I want to stay here too. I think that I love him, that I am in love with him. I want to be with him and create a family with him. I know that it is dangerous here, but so is Earth,” I said smiling.
She jumped over to me and gave me a big hug. “I am so glad. Now all three of us want to stay. You and Phoenix and I we are all now part of the Draqua population,” she said.
“Yes, that is something, isn’t it? I never thought when I arrived here that I would be making this my permanent home. It is almost hard to understand how things changed so fast for me,” I said.
“Yes, but just think. You can do as much work as you want here. There is much to learn for the both of us. I am very excited to try to analyze and understand all that is happening here. It is miraculous,” she said.
“Yes, that is true. That does get the scientist in me very, very, excited,” I said laughing.
“So, should we tell the king then that our plans have changed and we wish permission to stay here among the Draqua?” she asked.
“Yes, but I think that we should wait until Dekario gets back. I would like to tell him first before we tell the king. He might take offense of the entire village knowing this choice before he does,” I said.
“Yes, that is a good point. The same with Kavik, as he is also a warrior and they can be quick-tempered, if you have not noticed,” she said arching a brow at me.
I thought about how he raged into my hut when he found me with Commander Triq and said, “Oh yes, I do know. I have seen as much.”
“So, for now, we keep all the news between us three. They should be returning soon I hope,” she said as she poured me a glass of water with a slice of fruit.
“I think you are right. They have been gone long enough. Not that I know how long these missions take. It will be hard to live with them doing their warrior assignments, but I guess it is just like being married to a soldier on Earth,” I said suddenly feeling an extreme longing for the father of my child.
“Cheers to us, the new mothers of the Draqua hybrid and residents of Kelon. We have become aliens,” Luka said holding up her cup of fruit-infused water. I held up my cup and bumped it against hers. It was a defining moment. We had decided that the rest of our lives would be lived out far from Earth and with a strange alien race. Still, I knew in my heart that it was right. Now I just had to wait out the hours to tell Dekario what I had decided and hoped that he wanted me as his long-term mate out of love and not out of the simple necessity to create offspring. It was something that worried me in the back of my mind.
Luka made me stay with her until very late. She wanted to make sure that I wasn’t getting too dehydrated if the nausea came back. But it had mostly passed. She would place her hand on my forehead every now and then to check my temperature. She was definitely in doctor mode most of the time. It was adorable.
Later that night I could not sleep after saying my decision out loud. My heart was racing from the anxiety of telling Dekario. But I was still happy about it. I laid in my bed with the open window allowing the ocean breeze to caress my skin and hoping that the crashing waves would put me to sleep.
Then out of sheer happiness of being in love, I started to sing a little lullaby. Then I put my hands on my belly and sang to the child that was living there. Tears came to my eyes as I had the first experience of truly acknowledging that I had a child inside of me. It was the first time acknowledging that at some point this child was going to come from me and be an actual being that I could talk to and care for. It would be my heart. I laughed as I thought about this.
“So unreal,” I whispered as I rubbed my belly in soft circles. Then I continued to sing. I felt very calm, and it was just what I needed. I started to drift off to sleep as I felt this overwhelming sense of joy. I could not wait for Dekario to return. Then, as if I had willed him to me, I heard a thud. The sound was distinct and woke me up. I knew that sound all too well by now. It was Dekario landing on the veranda outside the hut. I sat up and smiled. “Dekario,” I whispered.
I jumped out of bed and fixed my hair. I took a sip of water and then pushed my cloth into place under the sheer blue dress that I wore. I was so happy that I would not have to wait at all to tell him. He was here, and I was going to tell him, and then we would make love in celebration. I longed for him to touch me and kiss me. I moved to the door and opened it with such momentum and a smile. But I was not prepared for what was on the other side.
“I see you were expecting me,” Commander Triq growled at me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked in anger but trying to hold in my fright.
“I came to finish what we started,” he said as he stepped toward me. I stepped back as fast as I could, retreating into the hut.
“Get away from me,” I said.
He laughed, “Don’t think that I don’t know that Dekario is not here to protect you this time. I know all too well.”
“How do you know that? He is here. He went down to the village to gather some food. He will be back any second,” I tried to be as convincing as I could be.
Commander Triq laughed a hardy laugh that sent chills up my spine. His dark eyes looked crazy to me. I wanted to hurt him. I looked around the room for something to defend myself. There was a small knife on the table near the board I was using to cut fruit. I slowly stepped sideways as I kept my eyes on him.”
“I know this because I have him. Dekario is not here on Kelon. He is not coming to rescue you. You are mine,” he sneered at me.
I stopped in my tracks. “What do you mean you have him?” I was terrified of what the answer was going to be.
“I have him chained up. He was dumb and came snooping around me and my work. He should not have done that. Now I have no choice but to kill him,” he said.
“No!” I screamed. “Don’t touch him.”
He laughed and said, “Funny, he said the same thing about you when I mentioned I was coming for you. He did not like that one bit. I liked making him squirm by telling him that. But first I promised him a show. I promised him that I would take you back to Tiok with me so that we can perform in front of him.”
“I would never let you touch me like that in a hundred years. You will let him go, and you will leave us alone,” I said as tears formed in my eyes and fell down my cheeks. I could not believe that Commander Triq had Dekario, and probably Kavik too. This meant that I would never get to tell him that I was pregnant with his child. He would die not knowing what we had created. That thought burned a hole in my heart. No, I could not give up. I was not alone in this tree, and I was not going to let this psycho dragon take me without a lot of commotion.
“You have no choice. I will touch you if I want,” he said as he lunged toward me. I ran as fast as I could to the table and picked up the knife.
“No! Phoenix! Luka! Help! Help!” I screamed over and over at the top of my lungs. Commander Triq stopped in his tracks and growled at me. Then in a flash, he shifted into full dragon form. He was not hybrid, he was full dragon, and as it stomped toward me, I was filled with fright. I was screaming as loud as I could.
“Reena!” I heard Phoenix shout in the distance. I was relieved to know they had heard me. But suddenly I was in the arms of the dragon. I tried to slice it with the knife, but the hard dragon scales simply bent the knife. Whoosh! He flew straight out the window with me in his arms. I was still screaming, trying to wake up the village. The dragon growled. He knew that my screaming was a problem. We flew over the port, and I knew that he was trying to get to a ship. But my screaming had caused many warriors on the port to stir and come out onto the launch pad. The dragon saw this and roared as he flew fast straight up into the sky so that my screams would go unheard. This frightened me.
Then he moved out over the ocean away from the village. “Stop! Put me down!” I shouted as I kicked as hard as I could. The dragon
roared again. He was not happy about what was happening. I knew that he had wanted to take me to Tiok and that planned had been foiled by my screaming. By now Phoenix and Luka would be in my hut. Maybe they even saw the black dragon taking me. They would alert the king and there would be forces launching to search for me. I only hoped that the dragon didn’t kill me by then. Right now I knew that he was making up his plan as he went along. But where were we going? We had flown in a direction that I had never been in before. The few times I had flown with Dekario, we always went over the ocean that was in front of the village beach. This time we flew over the interior of the island and off the edge of the backside over the ocean. I was frightened that no one would find me in this direction.
Then I saw a dark black cone sticking out against the night sky. It was massive and jutted out in a conical shape that reminded me of a volcano. It sat on a small landmass that was dark and covered in jungle. Commander Triq flew high over the cone, and once he was on top of it, I was shocked at what I saw. It was a volcano, but it was inactive. The inside of the cone was filled with light. There was a lot of activity going on. It was a mix of fully formed dragons like Commander Triq, and non-shifted Draqua.
“What the hell?” I whispered. The dragon flew down into the cone and landed on a large ledge. He set me down on my feet and moved away from me. I took this opportunity to look around. There were about fifty Draqua that I could see on various levels of ledges. This was a working base, or at least that was what it looked like to me. I saw a couple of ships parked in several areas. The Draqua themselves looked to be at work in daily or nightly activities. Some were sleeping in hammock-like large leaves, and others were cleaning weapons.
I suddenly realized that this must be an opposition group. Why else would they be out here like this? I had never heard Dekario or any Draqua in the village talk about an outpost in a volcano. This must be a secret. Whoosh! I felt a burst of wind. I turned back to Commander Triq to see that he had shifted out of dragon form. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“What is this? Why did you bring me here?” I spat the words at him.
He stomped toward me with anger in his eyes. Whack! He backhanded me across the cheek. The blow nearly knocked me off my feet. I grabbed my cheek as the pain shot through me.
“Your shouting made me bring you here. I did not have a choice. If you would not have yelled like that we would be on a ship back to Tiok and to your damn Dekario. Instead, you foiled that plan for me. I had no choice but to bring you here,” he growled at me.
“Good. I am glad I spoiled your plans. You thought you could just barge in and take me without a fight. That is not so. As you see, you have underestimated me. You know nothing about me. I am a smart human female and if you had realized that you would have stayed away from me,” I glared at him.
“Yes, a smart human female that has forced me to put her in more danger than she knows,” he said as he looked out over the volcano interior.
“What are you going to do with me? Take me back to the village now,” I narrowed my eyes at him.
He laughed. “That is not possible. You will never see that village again. I have no choice but to see if I can use one of these ships to get to Tiok, but it will not be easy,” he muttered under his breath as though he was thinking out loud to himself and not including me in the conversation.
Then he turned and looked at me. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed as he used the pressure to direct my body. “This way, damn human female.” He turned me, facing the wall of the volcano interior. I noticed then that there was an arch opening in the rock wall. He pushed me through it. There was a long hallway and switchback stairs that went up and down the interior of the volcano.
“Down the stairs,” he said. I was scared of his destination. Was he taking me to a place to be alone so he could violate me? I would kill him if he tried. But to my relief, that was not where we were going. He kept telling me “down” every time we came to a new level on the stairway. We were going all the way down to the base inside the volcano. When we emerged, I noticed just how much activity was going on. As I walked further in, the Draqua warriors stopped and looked at me. They glared at me. My presence was not welcomed here, and I realized then that this was definitely the opposition and they despised human females. If they found out that I was pregnant, they would kill my unborn child and me. I held back tears and stood tall, trying not to give my condition away.
“Commander Triq! What the hell is this?!” a booming voice shouted. I looked over to see a massive Draqua warrior stomping toward us. He had long gray hair and was obviously an elder Draqua, but still strong and menacing. His stark green eyes made him look very primal.
“Captain Hicium, I had to bring her here. I had no choice,” Commander Triq said. It was then that I realized that this other Draqua was in charge. Captain Hicium was obviously angry at Commander Triq, and that made me feel very good.
“No humans allowed! You know that rule just as clearly as everyone else does. Now we know that you have been working on the inside and bringing us information. You have been our link to know what is going on inside the village, but lately there have been rumors about you, and now you show up with a human female!” Captain Hicium shouted.
“What rumors?” Commander Triq growled out the words. I took this time to slowly sway my body sideways. I was trying to remove myself from this argument as it looked like these two could be going at it at any second, and I had my child to think about. I had to protect my child at all costs.
“That you have been taking up the Aeriwana Draqua breeding program that we abandoned years ago. That your missions to Tiok have not just been for the king, but for yourself,” the Captain said, pacing back and forth in front of Commander Triq like he was a lion preparing to attack.
“And what proof do you have of these lies?” Commander Triq growled again.
“There is no proof, which is why you are still alive. But those rumors do not look good in light of you bringing this human female here now. This is precisely what we are against,” Captain Hicium said.
“I told you I had no choice. My departure in my ship was compromised in the village, and I had to make a quick getaway,” Commander Triq said.
“Compromised because you decided to steal a human female? That is very unwise, Commander Triq. You have put us all in danger now. They will be looking for her. They always do. Now she knows too much. She cannot go back there. We have no choice but to kill her,” Captain Hicium said.
As soon as he said it, my heart dropped to my stomach. This was it. I was going to die here. These Draqua were opposite of the village Draqua, and they hated humans. We were the problem, and I was going to lose my life because of it.
“No. Not yet,” Commander Triq sneered.
“Oh, I see. You want to have your way with her. You are truly not opposition, are you, Commander Triq? I do not know why you are involved with us or what else you have intentions of doing if you are willing to take this human female to bed. We despise humans. Or have you forgotten?”
Commander Triq was breathing hard and pissed off. He was glaring at the Captain. I was in complete confusion. This Captain was saving me from being taken by Commander Triq against my will. But in return, he was going to kill me. I was not safe with either of them.
“Lock her up in the cells,” Captain Hicium said.
Commander Triq growled at the order. Two Draqua warriors stepped to my side and grabbed my arms. I did not struggle. I went quietly and willingly. This at least would buy me some time. I would be locked away from Commander Triq, and the rest of the Draqua here despised humans, so I was not in danger of being violated by them. It was the best thing for me and the baby at the moment.
“This is your punishment, Commander Triq. Maybe now you will learn not to make this mistake again. You will not have your treat of this human female. All this trouble you went through to bring her here was for nothing. I do not have time to deal with her now. We will deal with her later. For no
w,” he turned from the Commander Triq and shouted, “prepare for possible invasion! It is possible Commander Triq will be followed by the king’s warriors. We must be prepared! This is not a drill! Go now!”
Every Draqua warrior went into action, and it was then that I saw many more of them flood out from the inside of the volcano. There were much more than the fifty that I thought there were. Shit, I thought. Now the king’s warriors will be flying into a trap. Dekario, come to me. I need you.
CHAPTER TEN
LIEUTENANT DEKARIO DUNDRA
“Take the ship. Fly her straight,” I said as I unbuckled my belt as we flew into Kelon.
“What? Why? What are you doing?” Kavik said as he grabbed the wheel piloting the ship.
“Get her to a thousand feet. I’m getting out,” I said.
“Are you insane? Can you not wait until we have landed the ship?” he said.
