Jex

by Maia Starr

  “I knew you would come for her,” I heard a very deep and familiar voice say. The bar door opened and I was completely shocked by who stepped in.

  “Urtrik?” I said.

  “Ravinn, it is good to see you again. Good to see you so that I can kill you,” Urtrik said.

  I pushed Amelia and Michelle behind me.

  “I thought you were dead, Urtrik. You died two years ago. I remember Talia going through the mourning. It was very hard for her. How are you here?” I said as I pushed to Amelia further back. I whisper to her over my shoulder, “Get in the cave.”

  “Michelle,” I heard her whisper and heard their footsteps as they retreated backward.

  “Yes, my fake death. It was the only way to do it. It was the only way to join the opposition once and for all and not have anyone find out. You see my sister wanted to stay in the village because she was in love with you. Even though her heart belongs with the opposition. She was very adamant about staying in the village and pretending not to be opposition. But because I did not want her to be questioned about me, I faked my death. It was easier this way. This way I could just leave, and no one would question where I went. No one would question my sister, and I care very much about my sister, unfortunately for you,” he said as he stepped toward me.

  “Stay right there,” I said to him.

  “Or what? I am stronger than you, Ravinn. I always have been. My sister said that I am not to harm you. She only wanted me to harm the human female. But she does not have to know what really happened here. I would just tell her that you put yourself in front of the human female to save her life. She will be so angry that she will be glad that you are dead,” he said to me.

  “They are here! They are here!” Shouts came from down below in the base camp. Urtrik was startled. He was not expecting there to be a raid, and that was a good thing.

  “I see you did not come alone,” he said in anger.

  “Yes, you are responsible for this raid. We have known about this base camp for many days now. But we were going to let it go by order of the king. He was merely keeping an eye on it. But because you decided to take a human female from the village, your actions brought the entire warrior army upon you. You are to blame for this defeat that you are about to experience,” I said smiling at him. The sounds of battle exploded all around us. It had started.

  Urtrik growled. I knew what was coming. I would have to lead him away from Amelia and Michelle. Urtrik growled again and shifted into the red dragon. While he was shifting, I flew straight at him and knocked him off the ledge. He shifted before he hit the ground and his wings unfolded as he flew. I heard Amelia shout out my name in the distance.

  “Ravinn! No!” she shouted.

  But I could not pay attention to her. I hoped that she had the sense to hide in the cave with Michelle. I had to fight Urtrik, and I had to kill him. If I did not kill him, then he would kill me, and he would kill Amelia and my offspring if she was possibly carrying my child.

  I flew in the direction of the battle over the base camp and into the chaos. Urtrik followed. It was good. It was exactly what I wanted him to do. I flew low and then high. I swerved in and out of trees, nearly hitting them. Just as I wanted, Urtrik crashed into one and bounced off of it. He did not have the practice that I did swerving in and out of trees; it was something that I did for fun. But he was a large and clunky dragon; he could not do the maneuvers that I could do in flight. After he crashed, he was stunned for a second, and I hit him with my blaster gun. It did not pierce his thick scales, but it knocked him down to the ground. I had him just where I wanted him. I landed on his chest, but he had already regained his strength.

  The battle raged around us. Draqua were fighting Draqua. The village warriors were fighting the opposition. Blaster guns were shot and their lasers swept by us. It was an incredible battle, and the opposition was outnumbered. I could already tell the defeat was close. But I only had one enemy in this battle, and it would not be over until he was gone.

  The red dragon beneath my feet growled. I could see the belly of the beast growing warm and glowing. It aimed its mouth at me. It was going to shoot fire. I flew off of it and behind it. It could not move its head in that direction and would not be able to shoot fire at me. I was so occupied with getting away from the fire that I did not think to turn around and fight it. When I did, I saw it flying straight up in the air.

  “No! Amelia!” I shouted as I realize that he was going for her. If he got to her before me, he could kill her in less than a second. I took off, flying hard, harder than I had ever flown before in my life. I could see the red dragon in front of me. It landed on the ledge where I had found Amelia. It started towards the cave entrance that she was in. The belly of the dragon glowed orange.

  “No! No!” I shouted as I flew hard for the ledge. But before I could get to the dragon fire burst from its mouth. It filled the cave with fire. I could not believe my eyes. I did not get to her in time. She would not last in a fire like that. I was in such a rage. My heart was broken. I pulled my long knife from my boot and screamed, “Aagh!”

  I landed on the dragon's neck, just above his wings, and brought my knife down hard into the soft spot on the back of his neck. The dragon screamed. In seconds, it fell to the ground, dead. I stomped it over and over again. He had killed the love of my life, and possibly my offspring as well.

  I jumped off of the dead dragon and ran to the entrance of the cave. “Amelia! Michelle! Amelia! Amelia!” There was no answer. The cave was smoldering as flames slowly went out. There was a lot of stuff in the cave, and I could not tell where Amelia was. I moved a bundle, but it was just a burnt mattress. I moved over to the table that had been kicked over. They were not behind it. I searched every inch of the cave for their burned bodies. I did not think the fire was hot enough or burned long enough to burn them to dust. Finally, I realized that they were not in the cave. I came out of the cave and looked at the bar door; it was wide open. They had escaped. I was so relieved. I flew past the door and followed the rock path down the ridge. “Amelia? Amelia?” I said over and over as I flew looking for her. I did not see her. I got down to the ground of the base camp. The king and my father were taking the prisoners. The fight was over. We had won.

  “Father, where is Amelia? Do you have her?” I asked.

  “No. Did you find her at all?” he asked.

  “Yes, I found her and another female. But I left them in the cave in order to fight Urtrik,” I said to him.

  “Urtrik?” he said in shock.

  “Do you mean Urtrik, the brother of Talia? The Urtrik that we thought died two years ago?” the king asked.

  “Yes, the same. It seems that he faked his death in order to be with the opposition. According to him, Talia is also with the opposition. I am sorry to say that. Please do not punish her harshly. I think she is merely a Draqua female that is scorned by the fact that she cannot produce offspring and that human females are taking the love of the Draqua males. She is young and misguided,” I said, hoping that Talia could be changed. I still had love for her even though I was not in love with her. I did not wish harm on her. I understood where she was coming from and how much it must hurt.

  “I will see to it when we return,” the king said.

  “But where is Amelia? She has another human female with her. We must find them,” I said.

  “I will come with you, son. Let us find them,” my father said.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AMELIA SANDERS

  It was absolutely terrifying when I saw Urtrik walk onto the ledge and speak to Ravinn. He had been planning this all along. He took me in order to lure Ravinn to the spot. So when I saw them fly off together in a brutal fight, I could not believe that it was happening. The red dragon scared me. He wanted me dead, and he wanted Ravinn dead in order to avenge his sister's broken heart. I ran to the ledge and watched as they fought all the way down to the ground of the battle.

  “Holy crap. Look at all of these dragon men. T
hey are all trying to kill each other,” Michelle said in shock. I looked at her and realized that I had a responsibility to her. I needed to get her out of there. She had been through enough, and I could not linger and put her in danger simply because I wanted to make sure that Ravinn was okay. He was a fierce warrior, and I knew that he could take care of himself. But I also knew that Urtrik would return to this very spot to finish me off.

  “Come on. We have to get out of here. The red dragon will come back, and he will try to kill us. We cannot be here. Come with me, Michelle,” I said as I grabbed her hand and let her toward the bar door that was left open from Urtrik coming in.

  “But where will we go? There is a crazy battle down there. Maybe it is better that we stay up here away from the shots from the blaster guns.”

  I could see the fear in her eyes. Where could we go? We could not go down to the battle and then just hoping not to get shot or taken by another opposition dragon. Then I remembered. I had been there before. I knew the island.

  “I know exactly where we can go. I know of a cave where we can hide that is on the other side of the island. Follow me, and I will get you there. Just stay low,” I said to her.

  “All right, Amelia. Let's go,” she said. We ran out of the prison cell and down the rocky path along the rock wall. The battle was chaotic and all around. We had to duck and stay low in order not to be hit.

  As we ran along, I thought about what Ravinn had told me. He had confessed his love to me, and I was not expecting it at all. I know that I cared for him very much, but I did not know if I loved him. It was scary to think of such a thing. How could someone that irritated me so much be the male I was in love with? He was an alien, and I was a human. He could shift into dragon form, and I was just your basic human female. We did not match together. It was a lot to think about and at such a time of danger. But I did know that when I was with him in the cave, I felt like he was making love to me, and not just mating with me. It was a lot to take in, and I had to admit that I felt some sort of relief of him telling me that I was the one that he wanted. I had spent so much time hearing him say that he did not want me that eventually I grew to want him to want me. Now he had admitted that, and it felt good.

  “Which way?” Michelle said to me. I looked around. We had to get onto the beach and into the water. It was the only way.

  “Over there. Do you see the shoreline? We are going to make a run for it and dive into the water. Then follow me,” I said to her. She nodded in confirmation. She was very frightened. I grabbed her hand, and we ran down from the path and across the battle, trying to stick to the wall of rock as much as we could.

  Splash! We made it into the water. I swam out far and deep. I looked beside me to see Michelle swimming with a lot of energy. I motioned for her to follow me. We swam along the shoreline, and there was a rock formation in front of us.

  “There!” I shouted. I swam into it. Michelle followed me. Soon we were shielded from the battle. We were in a grotto of sorts, swimming along the tunnel with a bit of sunlight filtering through. When we emerged, we were on the other side of the island.

  “How did you know that was there?” Michelle asked as she climbed onto the shoreline.

  “I found it when I was hunting for shells when I was here before,” I said to her. “I had found that tunnel and I could see that it went all the way through to the other side of the island even though I did not swim through it,” I said as I climbed up onto the shore with her.

  “Follow me. There is a cave over here. We will be safe in there until the battle is over,” I said to her. I led her to the cave. As soon as we walked in, my memory moved to the night that I spent with Ravinn. I imagined myself in the sand with him on top of me. It was a very pleasing vision. As soon as I thought about it, I realized that I wanted it to happen again and again. We sat there waiting while I thought about Ravinn and how I felt about him. We did not need to wait long.

  “Amelia? Amelia are you in here?” I heard Ravinn say.

  “Yes!” I shouted as I ran out of the case and straight into his arms. He stood there with his father.

  “Are you all right? Where is Michelle?” he asked as he looked over me.

  “I am all right. Michelle, you can come out,” I said to her. Michelle came out of the cave. I looked at Ravinn and said, “Are you all right? Are you hurt? What happened to Urtrik? I thought he would come back to kill me,” I said to him.

  “He did. If you saw the cave that you were in, you would know that he meant to kill you. He set fire to the entire thing. I am so glad that you were not in there. I thought I lost you,” he said, hugging me.

  “I thought he might come back for me, so I knew we had to get out of there. I had to keep Michelle safe. She did not deserve any of the harm Urtrik wanted to do to me,” I said to him. I looked up into his gray eyes. He pushed my hair out of my face.

  "Of course you thought of Michelle; you have a good heart, little human with fire hair,” he said as he pulled me to him and kissed me.

  “How did you know that she would be here?” Ravinn’s father asked. I looked at him and blushed.

  “Because she knows of this cave. This was where we stayed when we came on your foolish errand,” Ravinn replied.

  “There you are,” we heard another voice say. We all looked up into the sky to see the king fly down toward us. There was a large number of warriors with him, but not all of them that we saw in the battle.

  “I see you found the humans,” the king said.

  “Yes, I found my Amelia. This is the human female Michelle that has been missing since she first arrived on Kelon,” Ravinn’s father said.

  “Michelle, it is an honor to meet you. I am sorry for everything you have been through. This is not what we meant when we decided to take you from Earth and bring you here. I promise that from here on out you shall be treated with the utmost respect and care. I will take you back to my palace myself where you will be well fed, and looked after. I have many questions for you about what you saw while you were here on this island,” the king said.

  “I understand. I am ready to go,” Michelle said.

  “Ravinn, the battle and the prisoners are in the hands of my commanders. I believe it is time we took these humans back to the safety of the village,” the king said.

  “I couldn't agree with you more, King,” Ravinn said. Then he scooped me up into his arms.

  “I will take the human Michelle,” Callisto said as he held his hands out to Michelle.

  “Good, take her to the palace,” the king said. Callisto picked up Michelle in his arms.

  “I am ready,” Ravinn said. His father nodded at him. Suddenly, Ravinn flew into the air. We were out over the open ocean heading back toward the village. I never thought that I would be so excited and grateful to be returning to the safety of the village. I could not wait to sleep in my own bed. I could not wait to figure out what was next for Ravinn and I. But as the village came into sight, I could only think about one thing: Talia. She was still on the island, and still was heartbroken. I did not know how Ravinn was going to deal with the situation. I began to grow nervous.

  “I am taking Michelle to the palace,” Callisto said to Ravinn as we flew over the shoreline and beach of the village.

  “I am taking Amelia to her tree hut,” Ravinn responded to him. Then they parted ways. Callisto flew in the direction of the palace while Ravinn flew with me in his arms. I buried my head into his chest, feeling the strong muscles and safety there. I let myself relax into him. Then he landed on the veranda outside my door. He opened it and carried me inside. I was relieved to see it. It felt like home to me. He laid me down on the bed.

  “How do you feel?” he said as he moved to the table and poured me a cup of water. “Drink this. You have been through a lot,” he said, handing me the cup of water. I drank the entire thing in one gulp.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am very very hungry. I am also still thirsty,” I said, handing t
he cup back to him. He smiled and poured water for me once more and gave it back to me. Then he went to the shelf and started to cut up some fruit.

  “What about you? How do you feel? You have just been through a battle. You just slayed the dragon. I am worried about you,” I said to him.

  "That? That was nothing. I have been through many battles, and I will be through a lot more than that in time. I am fine. It is you that I worry about. You are so fragile and vulnerable,” he said to me.

  "I am not that fragile,” I said.

  “You might be more fragile right now than you think,” he said in a strange manner.

  “What do you mean?” I said confused.