by Celeste Raye
“It’s enough!” one of the soldier’s called out, but Khrelan didn’t listen.
Athena scrambled for her gun and began firing wildly into the crowd, hitting two more shifters and Khrelan once more before taking off into the darkness.
The navy shifter followed after her, swooping down and grabbing her by the leg with his feet, bursting his claws down into her leg until she howled in pain and fell to the ground.
I jerked away from the shifters who held my arms and flew to her side, crouching down beside her. Blood spewed from her thigh hard and fast, her beautiful caramel skin turning a cold white.
Khrelan spat toward the ground and I could still hear his skin sizzling from the laser. I looked up at him with disgust and the only thing he offered me was a smile.
Tilting his head back, he said, “I win.”
Aurlauc
Seeing Athena was like seeing someone brought back from the dead.
There was a joy that twisted in my stomach intermingled with something rotting. I’d told her to run; told her I would find her. And now here she was, back in The Tower in worse straits than before.
Tower guards had stormed into the spire of captivity in the late hours with her, alerting everyone that they had returned the prisoner. It was like the rest of the world celebrated, and I looked on in horror.
Her mind was wracked with pain. She was so delirious, she had no idea how she had even gotten back to The Tower.
The only comfort I took in her state was that she wasn’t dead.
I stepped in to her cell and felt a sob elbow its way up my throat. I swallowed it down hard and looked over the object of my affections for cycles now. The blonde was laying on the table splayed open like a flower, blood dripping down her leg.
“It’s okay,” a human nurse said as she eagerly stitched at the flesh that had fallen on Athena’s thigh. A huge spike jutted out from the left side of her left thigh; the nurse stitched around it and waited for assistance from a shifter to pull the thorn out in one single motion.
I could feel the gravity of the room rise and suddenly there was a tense, fearful electricity in the air. I took a single breath to myself before walking up next to the girl.
“Hi,” she said weakly and burst out into a sob.
I set my jaw at the greeting and ran my hands through her red-stained hair.
Athena gripped my hand hard in hers and shuddered against the pressure being applied to her leg. And then I watched as panic washed over her entire body, for once displaying her capabilities to effectively lie as she made calm eye contact with me and in a calm whisper requested: “Where’s Vaikrand? Can you get him?”
I narrowed my brows at her and my heart sank hard. I squeezed her hand back despite my emotional protest of her request, making haste into the next room to fetch the shifter.
The red shifter and lead guard of The Tower, Kayldreon, grinned at me as I entered, Vaikrand sitting across from him. I looked between them both and felt utterly sickened.
“Aren’t you going to congratulate our little stowaway?” Kayldreon asked with the perfect mixture between crass enjoyment and spite. “Seems Vaikrand finally found a deal worth bringing him home for.”
I felt the red shifter’s words needle up my spine and I looked to Vaikrand in disgust.
“This is how you would bring her back to us?” I asked with a seething rage. I spat at the yellow shifter’s feet and scorned him. “Stay banished, I say.”
“But it’s not for you to say,” Kayldreon argued, as though he spoke for the other Weredragon in the room. “It is the D’Karr’s will that she be brought back to The Tower. Now, how did she ever get out in the first place?” he questioned in a way that said it was a warning.
Finally, Vaikrand spoke. He looked at me with pathetic, sad eyes and asked, “Is she alright?”
I felt my wings span out in a rage, my tail whipping furiously behind me in flicks as I approached the thief.
“She asks for you!” I yelled through the irony. “She must not know it was you who brought this fate on her!”
“I didn’t expect it to happen like…” Vaikrand shook his head and then looked back up at me. “Like this.”
“She asks for you,” I repeated dangerously and the yellow shifter stood and followed me back into her cell.
I could practically feel her body overwhelmed with the pain: a shared sensation that caused a tingling throughout my body. I looked over and saw that Vaikrand could feel it too.
A human nurse, Patience, attended to her. She was tall with an athletic frame. Her hair was short and dark. She was accompanied by one of the D’Karr’s personal medics, Araimal. It would be easy enough for both to remove the massive thorn from Athena’s leg, but it would be hard on her body, especially if Araimal was going to rip it out as he might a thorn stuck in some… beast.
I regarded Araimal’s eyes and leaned over the bed with a pointed gaze. With nothing more than a grunt, the orange shifter immediately relented to the reprimand: be gentle with her.
With the start of his pull came Athena’s first scream. I inhaled sharply at the sound: her squall falling into heavy breaths as Patience maneuvered the thorn slowly through her thigh. Athena clenched her eyes shut and steadied her breaths only for a moment, whispering curses before gritting her teeth and resuming a loud, painful moan.
Vaikrand was quick to reach her, regarding me with a passing disdain as he made his way to the side of the bed. Athena still had her eyes clenched shut, letting out howls of pain until Vaikrand’s hand found its way into hers.
And then she went quiet.
Her hand was weak inside of his, grabbing his fingers with all she could muster. She opened her eyes and met his: the two just staring at one another with a shared silence, which I was both fascinated with and made jealous of—the familiarity between the two that flourished even despite their environment.
Vaikrand? My mind was puzzled and I winced at the sudden realization.
Of all the Weredragons she could have used to get her closer to leaving Dobromia… she chose him? A petty thief? It didn’t seem long ago now that Tredorphen and I had done all we could to get the yellow shifter banished. And here he was. All he had to do was look at her and her whole body was instantly calmed, as if with a switch.
“You this desperate to see me?” the yellow shifter gave a wry smile and squeezed her hand.
She offered a weak smile.
“Well aren’t you sweet. But uh, hey, next time how about we just call instead of putting on this whole performance, huh?” He wrinkled his nose. “Less bloody that way.”
I felt my stomach flip with fury. He was just going to pretend he wasn’t a part of this?
Her eyes grew heavy as she looked up at the shifter, tears brimming against her lashes as she whispered, “Come here.”
“Athena, no,” I said firmly and strode toward the pair. “You don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Leave us,” Vaikrand seethed, and I shoved him out of the way with my side.
Athena cried out again and reached for him. I watched with a furious rage as the yellow shifter leaned down to her face, squeezing her hand as if an unspoken exchange of strength were occurring between them. She groaned through gritted teeth as the spike was finally removed from her leg, the spike falling down to the makeshift mattress as Araimal lacked any further use for it and thus released it from his grips. The orange shifter reapplied pressure to the wound as Patience finished stitching the girl.
The gradient of pink and red from her shirt, and blood mixed with it was like the sunset: like a sunset on the water, shaking and unclear.
“Listen to me,” I said, kneeling down to Athena and taking her hands into mine. “He did this to you, Thena. He’s the one who sold you out to the shifters. To save his own skin.”
The blonde looked at me as though she barely comprehended what I was saying and narrowed her eyes scornfully.
“What?” she asked groggily: angrily.
�
�You’re delirious,” Vaikrand said smoothly, slipping in between us once more.
“You…” the blonde winced and looked at me, searching my eyes as deeply as she could.
“Vaikrand sold you out,” I enunciated and her eyes went wide.
Her hand slipped quickly from the yellow shifters and I smiled victoriously. With what strength she had left she looked down at her wound and then back up at Vaikrand, her eyes hollow.
“You sold me out,” she said to Vaikrand, slow words moving from her lovely lips.
Vaikrand glared at me and I felt a smirk form at the corner of my mouth. He locked his gaze with mine and stormed out from the tiny cell. So long as it was in my power, he would not be able to turn his back on Athena and then stick around to reap the benefits of her capture. Not on my watch.
Vaikrand
“Good job with the girl,” Jakartez said, shaking my hand and baring his claws to me. He was a representative of the D’Karr. I took this as a very good sign.
“I didn’t mean for her to become wounded,” I defended slightly and the shifter laughed and waved me off as though an explanation wasn’t necessary.
“The D’Karr is very pleased with you. Pleased to hear what you have to say.”
Yeah, I bet, I wanted to say. Instead, I smiled like the coward I had become.
The D’Karr had been nothing but prideful at my returning the girl. I had a plan, I insisted to him, but first I would have to go through a proving to get him to see things my way.
The purple shifter led me through the entrance of The Tower and watched me closely as we ascended to the top of the spire.
As far as I was told, Athena was the public enemy. She was the unbreakable human with information they needed. I had finagled my way to visiting her; telling the higher-ups that I had the perfect information to make her succumb to our wishes. Which they quickly obliged.
The Tower was just as I had remembered it from so many years ago. I stepped up the stone staircase and relished the feel of the cool stone against my bare feet.
I felt the air coming in through the spire windows, humid and breathless. It smelled like the air that used to form around the fields back when we had real crops. I took it as a good sign, at any rate, that maybe things were about to change. After all… there was a shift happening between myself and Athena that I felt good about, if I could get her to listen.
I stepped up to Athena’s floor and halted before I reached the entrance. I swallowed hard, hoping for a gracious reunion. A chance to explain myself.
I saw Aurlauc in the corner of the rounded room. He stood against the far wall and watched my human with careful, soulful eyes. His expression made me sick.
He loved her. I understood now.
I didn’t like it, but I understood.
I nodded my head in recognition and caught eyes with Athena, her blonde hair dampened to her forehead from the heat. My eyes glanced down to her leg and traced the shape of her wound with my tongue against the roof of my mouth.
Whipping my tail to the side, I approached the cage, half expecting her to come up and greet meet, half expecting her to come up and slap me.
Instead, she stayed firmly planted on her mattress.
“I wanted to see you,” I said desperately, watching with embarrassment as Jakartez widened his eyes, laughed, and left the room.
“Oh you did, did you?” she said, toneless, never making eye contact with me.
“I…” I bit my lip and looked over to Aurlauc awkwardly. I approached the cell door and wrapped my hands around the bars, feeling the cold, slick moisture against my palm.
“You, what?” the blonde said harshly, limply, staring lost into her blankets, picking lazily at the stray strands that had bunched together at the corner. “You love me?” she asked, blue eyes staring fiercely at me now. “You need me? You want me?”
I looked to Aurlauc once more and then back to Athena’s eyes.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
Athena stood then, walking up to the bars calmly and giving me a once over. “Really?” she asked slowly. “So all that bullshit wasn’t a rouse to make me feel sorry for you? For me to let my guard down so you could sell me down the river and get back in with these people?”
She laughed, but it wasn’t funny.
“Athena, no,” I pleaded with some annoyance, reaching my hand through the bars to touch her. “What must you think of me?”
“What do I think of you? You gave me up, you son of a bitch!” she screamed through her tears and tried ravenously to punch me from behind her confines.
I grabbed her arms, and we grappled for some time with difficulty as she pulled me closer to the bars, slamming my body toward them with the full weight of her.
Then she slapped me, hard, and wrestled for her laser pistol that hung at my side. I grappled against her hands, pushing her back and trying in vain to stop her tiny arms from scrambling through the bars. My heart jumped as she managed to catch the grip of the weapon and rip it from my belt. I grunted with effort, and she backed far into the recesses of the cage, gripping the weapon as she cocked it toward me.
I could see the pink hue light up from within the barrel of the gun as she aimed it square between my eyes and pulled the hammer back, her finger hovering over the trigger like a cornered beast.
Her grip was solid. I stared down the barrel of the gun and ran my tongue along the roof of my mouth. I knew she was a steady shot. But inside I was trembling so hard I could nearly hear my heart thumping outside of my body. We locked eyes. She must have wanted me to look scared, but my expression was unreadable: stoic. I didn’t raise my hands nor my brows. I just stared at her, watched her reaction with complete understanding.
Then I saw it. The hurt.
“Athena!” Aurlauc yelled through gritted teeth. Obviously, he thought he was doing her a favor by letting me into The Tower, and now she was putting the silver shifter in jeopardy, again.
The silver Weredragon stepped close to the bars and raised his hands to Athena and we both watched as tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Just, stop!” she screamed, warning us both back with another shake of her weapon. “You used me,” she looked at me.
“I didn’t,” I said. “And if you would just listen, instead of being your stubborn self, you could actually hear what happened!”
I waited for her to put the weapon down but she didn’t: just grit her teeth at me and nearly snarled.
“Athena, they were going to kill you!” I screamed, smashing the side of the bars with my now throbbing hand. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Fly away,” she enunciated furiously.
“Athena, I claimed you. I stayed to defend you. I did and said whatever I could to get you safe and you still fight against me?” I flared my wings out before her, splayed up against the back wall of the narrow cell. “I’ll not be held responsible like a villain!”
I loved her and did what I was supposed to do to save her, and now she hated me for it. I felt a rage rip through the pit of my stomach, and I spun on my heel, whipping at her cell once more, denting the metal with a loud slap.
“You did it for you,” she literally spat.
Then I felt the fire well up in my throat and it was all I could do not to release it in my furor. Instead, I let out a wild dragon’s cry. “I did it for you!” I screamed. A roar: a screech that pierced the room followed by a deep, echoed cry that found its way to every wall in the small tower, reverberating through the floors.
A deafening silence followed between us, and I wanted to take it all back then. The roar, the whip, and the moment I ever thought to betray her.
“What now?” she asked quietly, an emotional fury still living on her words. She looked up me and watched my eyes as they watched her gun slowly being lowered.
“Now we find a way to get you out of here.”
Her eyes searched mine and she finally set the gun at her side. And all of a sudden she looked entirely too b
roken for my taste. “You scared?”
I shook my head. “No.”
She watched my eyes, tears escaping hers and slowly crawling down the sides of her face. “Because you don’t care what happens?”
“Because I know what I’m doing,” I said firmly.
“And you believe that?”
“When have I ever lied to you?” I asked.
I winced at my wording. The sentence was delivered with a sting, the harsh and pointed implications of our relationship suddenly reopened. She closed her eyes and exhaled a small cry, shaking her head at me and whispering, “I don’t know anymore.”
I stared down at her, blood and flesh replaying in a still frame over and over in my mind. “I know what I’m doing.”
She nodded, eyes closed and still crying, relenting to my words with all the belief in the world. Her eyes opened, stained red from sleep deprivation and warm air and suddenly I realized how strange it was to be this close to her face, the way her breath smelled; how striking her eyes looked.
“You’re so beautiful; it’s not fair,” I tried to whisper.
She didn’t respond to the sentiment, just crumbled into a heap on the floor, pulling her legs to her chest. I’d broken the defiance in her, and I hated myself for that. But I was going to make it right.
Athena
Weeks passed with me locked in The Tower—the cage I had referred to as ‘Old Familiar.’ Aurlauc didn’t understand the reference, but he seemed to smile each time I brought it up.
I had spent days and days healing in my cage, unsure where to go from there. Clearly, I wasn’t good at running away. And most of all… I just missed Vaikrand. As disgusted as I was with him, it felt strange not to spend my days with him. His company was the only real comfort I had ever found on Dobromia.
And then he became the downfall of it all.
“What’s going on?” I asked Aurlauc and his eyes quickly flicked to mine with mischievousness.
