by Celeste Raye
“Right...” I felt all the moisture drain from my mouth. “Maybe it's sort of, like... when you say you've claimed me. Maybe you could explain that to me, and we can mix and match our cultures,” I gushed unsurely.
He ran his hand down my arm softly but never met my eyes.
Suddenly I felt like such an idiot.
“It means you are mine,” he explained tersely, as though I were arguing his point.
“Right,” I nodded. “But how do you feel about me?”
He looked down, and his hand stopped moving. “I feel that you belong to me,” he repeated sternly, as though I should have accepted the explanation the first time.
Just days ago I thought that was the most romantic phrase in the world... but that seemed so far away now. Now it almost felt like a threat.” You are mine”. The words hung in the air as our eyes met.
“What happened out there?” I squinted at him and felt a chill crawl across my body, raised skin marking its ghostly path.
His eyes flicked to mine with such intensity that it made me sick.
The wild shifter set his warm hands overtop mine and then slid his palms up to my shoulders, settling there. “You don’t ask me that,” he said evenly.
“Tredorphen,” I said firmly. “Talk to me.”
In an instant of rage, the shifter slammed me against the wall behind us so that I felt a shock rush through my core. I shook under his grip and looked up at him in terror. “I said don’t!” He shouted, an echo of a roar coating over his deep voice.
He immediately released me, and he set his jaw with embarrassment.
“Marina, I am sorry,” he said in a low, sincere tone, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
Immediately, he turned and made his way to the door.
I froze as he left me there, pressed against the stone wall behind me. His aloofness struck me with the force of a hand but even more painful. I felt too stunned to move and too angry to go after him. This must have been what past boyfriends felt like when I raced out the door after an argument.
Only this time, I didn't know what we were arguing about.
My mind screamed for me to do or say anything to keep him from going, but as the oversized wooden barricade slammed shut, I knew it was too late. My body ached at the thought of being away from him, but obviously, he didn't feel the same way. Not anymore.
Maybe Athena was right. I had become my worst fear: a stupid girl. I'd given my body to a stranger when what I should have been doing was focusing on my mission. I'd fallen in love with the idea of this protector, when in truth, I wasn't sure if I knew anything about Tredorphen. Not really. A single tear slid down my cheek, despite myself.
I had to speak with my sister.
I steeled myself, pushing away from the wall, and grabbed my things before heading out the door with a familiar slam.
Marina
I marched up to our makeshift research center and cursed the fact that Dobromia didn't have a transportation system. Made irrelevant by the fact that their planet's inhabitants had wings. Lucky them.
I shot a breath up through O-shaped lips to blow my bangs off of my forehead. I brightened only when I caught sight of Athena bustling hurriedly outside of the cave. Her soldiers were close by, as well as Peter.
"Athena!" I called, stopping her in her tracks before she rushed off with gun in hand.
My sister looked over at me with her careful, structured jaw and I could tell she was clenching her teeth. Her thick brows furrowed as I approached.
"I was coming looking for advice but..." I stammered. "Looks like you're having a pretty rough day."
She swallowed hard and licked her bottom lip, carefully choosing her words. I could see from the damp skin around her eyes and the bloodshot lines that swam from her gray irises that she had been crying.
"What's wrong?" I asked, reaching my hand to her arm. She didn’t respond, and I turned to follow her eyes, both of us watching as Peter approached.
“Hello, handsome,” I greeted him as I usually did, a touch of flirtation lingering in the air until I caught sight of his expression.
If he felt anything warm or kind toward me, he wasn’t about to express it. He gave me a cold stare, fury washing over his face as he looked at me. He was fully dressed in his thick armor and equipped with a handful of different laser weapons.
"What's going on?" I asked again, now looking between the two cautiously.
"It's the ship," Athena said weakly, desperately trying to stay angry. "We got a call last night."
"What is it?" I asked with deeper concern. "What happened?"
"It's you and your damned decisions, Marina. It's this whole damned place," Peter spat, approaching me without any of the fondness I'd grown used to from him.
"What happened?" I repeated, now growing furious as I took a step back from him. "As your commander, I order you to tell me."
"That's rich," Peter scoffed.
I looked back and forth between them, and they exchanged a look that asked whether they should let me in on their secret. Their silent communication sent a shiver down my back. "What?"
My sister gave Peter pleading eyes, and she shook her head so slightly I nearly missed it. "They're dead," Peter spat, tossing the tablet roughly in my direction. “Our entire crew.”
“Impossible,” I stated coolly. “What happened?”
I stared down at the tablet, swiping through the video footage. We had made sure to keep in contact with them through a portable security system to let them know where we were and how the mission was going on Dobromia. Just as they would inform us of their progress on Ceylara.
My mouth fell open in shock as I played the video, security footage recorded after an emergency call came in from Dominic, one of our longest serving soldiers. The dialogue was muted, but I watched as the screen depicted the shifters invading our ship and thrashing their way through our resources.
Tredorphen among them.
I swallowed and the screen shrunk into four different cameras throughout the ship. I watched as the shifters flew through the rooms, grabbing our men and whipping them against the walls, shouting things to them.
My brows rose as I watched the video of Khrelan questioning our captain with such hatred before driving his claws through the man's stomach.
I nearly wretched. I pressed my eyes closed in disgust as the video continued to play and stared back down only briefly.
"No," I said with a breath.
The video continued on the same way: the endless slaughter of our crew and the final robbery of our food and ships resources. I watched Tredorphen's beautiful form as he rifled through luggage and person effects from the crew.
My stomach turned with repulsion as I imagined him taking the items back to his grotto. The beautiful cave I gave my body to him in, surrounded by treasures. He had said he found them in wreckage sites... I set my jaw in fury. He was a killer.
Our crew, the men and women I had known for years, were wiped out in the matter of one hour. For what? Food?
Goosebumps riddled my body with no end to their tingles, and I felt as though I could float up above my body and watch myself through different eyes. See the dim expression on my stupid face. My insipid walls of trust as they crashed down and stabbed me in the face with their shards. My punishment for being so foolish.
It had all been a set-up.
I held the monitor out toward Peter and shook my head numbly. "I can't watch this."
"Well," the redhead scoffed, "maybe if you were actually leading your team instead of spreading your legs, our men wouldn't be dead right now."
I raised a brow to Athena and grit my teeth. I winced until I could feel the creases below my eyes and a sob crawled up to my throat but never released.
"You told him?” my voice barely registered.
"I had to," she said firmly, whipping her hair out of her face with a single flick of her head. "One of us had to start taking this seriously, and I knew it wasn't going to be you."
&
nbsp; Tredorphen. This was why he was being so distant. My hands began to tremble violently as I stared at the tablet that was still in my hand before dropping it to the soft flora below.
"It gets worse," Athena said lowly, her eyes finally showing some mercy to my torment. "A lot worse, actually."
I stared numbly, and my eyes barely met her gaze; I was a fool.
“They’ve taken the girls,” Athena began to cry, tears spilling hastily down her soldier’s visage as her face crumbled into despair.
I could barely feel a thing.
“They’re locked up in some tower,” she sobbed. “The shifters said they’ve claimed us as their own. They’re not letting us go until we tell them how to get to the Earth.”
“If they let them go,” Peter added, cursing profusely as he kicked against the ground. “What are we supposed to do now? We have no means to get back! Our people are captured and who knows what they did to our ship back on Ceylara.”
I swallowed and stared with a glaze over my eyes.
Athena stared at me as though she were desperate to say something. She pressed her lips thin. “I stole their ship,” she said eagerly. “We have to get the hell out of here. Come with us.”
I shook my head. “Not without the rest of us.”
Peter and my sister exchanged a grave expression. They wanted to object, I could feel it. But they knew I was right.
“You guys will hide near the rock walls overlooking the Serpent Sea. You know where it is?” I asked.
My sister, chin quivering, nodded, and Peter set his arm around her.
“I can get access to the girls,” I said shakily. “Tredorphen has told me about the tower. He has access to the lock.
“Let me go with you,” Athena begged. “I have a plan. Let me go in with the girls and protect them.”
“No!” I spat.
“Let me go in there, please. Then if, you know, no offense, but if it doesn’t work, then at least I will be there to look out for them.”
“Athena, no,” I said forcefully. “I got us into this, and I’ll be damned if my little sister is going to clean up after me. If I can pretend I don’t know what’s happening, I can grab a magnet that unlocks the doors after he falls asleep and I can let the girls out. Then we can meet you by the ship.”
Athena set her hand against her forehead, and Peter let out a shaky sigh. Neither said a word, but I knew they heard me. Without another word, I took off running in the opposite direction.
“Marina!” Peter called, and I turned back hastily, my breath heaving in the night air in plumes of yellow.
He raised the handle of a rifle to me and gestured it in my direction.
“No,” I shook my head. “It’ll look too suspicious.”
“Are you sure?” my sister asked, and I nodded.
“Marina,” Peter asked, softly now. “You’re just pretending, right?”
I didn’t know if he said the words just to hurt me or if he truly questioned my allegiance. I took his hands into mine and looked him in the eyes as I said, “I swear to you.”
His gaze flicked back and forth from my eyes, and he nodded. With one swift movement, he leaned in and kissed me, his firm lips pressing into mine with an unusual familiarity. Like it was always meant to be like this.
My eyes filled with tears as his lips parted from mine.
“Be careful,” he said.
My heart raced as I made my way back down the steep caves, the hundreds of stairs it took to reach the bottom. I faced the stares of the hungry Weredragons who looked at my curves as though they were something to be wrecked: devoured in one hungry bite.
I waited in Tredorphen's unit and sat on the bed impatiently for hours, my heart never ceasing to pound and beat out of my chest as my body ticked and flinched at every noise.
My voice ached to scream and cry and curse myself for being such a fool, but my mind kept me calm. Collected on the outside.
As I heard Tredorphen enter the room, I had to steel myself to act the way I had when we first met. To use charm and excitement and let it wash over the incredible feelings of rage that I felt as I saw his face.
I replayed the scenes in my mind like a section of a movie: the way his hands crushed around the necks of my friends. The way he disposed of them without a second thought. He was truly a beast.
Yet, as he approached me with a soft tone and silky, sad eyes, I couldn't help but crumble ever so slightly. Surely the man in front of me now couldn't have been the same monster destroying the Vulcana.
And if he was... then we were truly at their mercy.
I swallowed and smiled at my shifter, reached my hand out to touch his as he extended his arm toward me.
"I'm sorry," he said, sounding pained.
"Me too," I said easily. "I didn't mean to..." I raised my hands to the air and laughed at myself. "I was being, you know, a girl."
"Marina," he said intensely. "I do... love you."
I'd longed to hear those words for weeks. And now they meant nothing. Or, I wished they meant nothing.
I wasn't sure what to believe anymore. All I knew was that it was my responsibility to get my crew the hell off this planet.
"There's more," he said slowly, his tongue creeping over his lips as he watched.
"Can it wait?" I asked in my most sultry voice. I leaned back on the bed and spread my legs to him, moving my hand over my most private places and smiling at him wickedly.
He pulled himself closer to me and hovered over top of my body before pressing his weight into me, grinding against me. I let out a loud, pleased moan and scraped his back with my nails forcefully. It felt good to get my aggression out in one way.
The shifter carefully removed my clothes and lavished my body in the same way he usually did, thrusting into me slowly and quickening his pace.
He licked up the side of my neck and breathed into my hair. He put his hands on either side of my body before scooping me into his arms and standing. I steadied myself with his shoulders, his muscles barely flexing as he held me up, his erection still throbbing inside me.
I grinded into it, making sure my breasts pushed into his chest as my body bounced and writhed against his. He held me still, gripping my torso as he began pounding into me while I yelled out in ecstasy.
But there was nothing thrilling about it; not this time.
He felt amazing, as usual; filling me up from side to side, but there was an emptiness in the act that left me hollow. Waiting on his finish like a ticking time bomb.
This was a mission and nothing more.
I howled out a fake orgasm, my first with him, and he soon followed. I stayed wrapped up in his grasp for minutes and minutes after he had exited my body. I wrapped my legs around his sensually, and in turn, he wrapped his wings around us like a protective force field.
"I do love you," he said again, testing out the words. "I want nothing more than for you to stay here forever with me."
"I want that too," I cooed.
"You do?” he asked, taken aback. "But... your research."
I swallowed hard, wanting to scream. "I'll abandon it," I shrugged simply, smiling as I nuzzled into the crook of his neck. Now sitting on him, I backed away only slightly. "What about your resources?" I asked.
"That is a problem," he said painfully.
"I'm sure you'll find something," I smiled.
He nodded.
"Or," I said; this was the tease, "maybe I can find a way to get you back to Earth. We have plenty... more than enough," I quickly corrected with a flirtatious laugh. "We'll just... have to work something out."
His eyes searched mine and glistened with moisture in an instant. His brows furrowed as he inspected me. Emotion scrawled across his face: guilt, or something else I couldn't decipher. For a moment, I wondered if he would tell me everything. But he didn't.
"Thank you," he said.
He leaned back on the bed so that I was laying on him, curled up in his warmth like so many familiar nights. I could tell
by his breathing that he was dozing off. Within the hour, he was fast asleep. I knew that the shifters slept hard. Or at least Tredorphen did.
I knew this from all the times I had tossed and turned in his company, unable to sleep well in someone else's bed, and he hadn't so much as flinched.
The room grew safe to leave, yet a selfish part of me stayed a minute longer than I should have. I relished his scent and the comfortable familiarity of being close to him, wrapped up in his arms. I pretended, just for a moment, that it was just as it was before. We were in love. We were happy. We knew each other.
Then the reality flooded back that none of that had been the truth.
We played the long game. He won.
That was the reality.
I pushed away from him slowly, timing my movements to his breathing. Soon I was off his bed and throwing my clothes on as quietly as possible.
He'd shown me the contraption used to open the gates of the tower: a sight he had shown me for scenic purposes, or so I'd thought. It was a device that worked something like a magnet, unlatching the tight door and gaining access to the prison within.
I tiptoed to the table nearest the bed and searched with shaking hands until the gadget appeared before me like magic. I grabbed it and felt a sickness wash over me. I opened his front door so slowly I thought I might never get out.
My breathing quickened as I looked back at his bed of furs and hovered halfway between his apartment and freedom, frozen in the doorway. I waited to see if he would waken.
Then I ran.
Tredorphen
My eyes shot open: slits of what used to be circles. My senses were heightened: ignited like fire. I could feel she was gone. I had claimed her, and now I could no longer feel her.
My body shot out of bed, and I raced toward the door. She was gone.
My thoughts raced over to Khrelan and whether I should suspect him of taking her. He told me he would be in charge of taking the women to the tower. Was Marina to be included in the pack even though I had already claimed her?
I searched my senses, the bodily connection I had made with her, and I could already start to feel her. My eyes darted toward the immense rock staircase that led out of the caves, and I bellowed a screech that echoed throughout the whole cave.
