AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ipicked my fastestflyers, and we left the camp within minutes of Demos’s warning. The night was starless as we traveled over the canyon, covering the three-mile distance. I would not allow the enemy to get any closer to the camp.
We met five of Isath’s scouts in the area and twenty of their infantry flyers. The chill in the air gave away their cover. More were likely hiding, along with their soldiers on the ground. I led the attack. My blood surged as I gave the call to battle. After months of being away, helpless to defend my people, at last I was able to stand up and fight.
My troops and I finished the infantry off. Most of them we let live, though none were left airborne. "Take the survivors back to camp and detain them," I ordered. "We’ll place them in the hold in the citadel tomorrow after we invade."
Dremos oversaw delivering the prisoners back to camp. "We’re laying siege on Isath’s stronghold?" he asked.
"It’s not his. It’s time we drive out the pestilence from our home."
I wanted to break through the citadel that very moment, but it would be a careless and hasty mistake. Without strategy, we could walk right into Isath’s defenses and risk injuring civilians in the process. "Let’s sweep the perimeter up to a mile out," I instructed. "We want it clean before we head to camp. I’ll meet you near the gorge."
The troops dispersed, some taking to the north while others went east and west. I flew north and veered east, sensing an energy close by that was foreign to the planet, yet familiar to me.
Wind picked up speed, giving my wings lift and carrying an unmistakable scent. I soared over the trees in the foothills. The air grew colder and heavier with both the smell of Quareks and Isath’s forces.
A Quarek cargo pod sat on top of one hill with enemy combatants flying overhead. I made out the forms of more Racopians on the ground. These weren’t soldiers. Their wings were bound at the base of their backs, while their necks and hands were placed in restraints. The lights from the Quareks’ signature restraining collars blinked in the darkness.
My fangs came out. As long as I had breath, I would not allow what happened to me to happen to another. I summoned the fire and rage within, channeling it into my left hand. The skin glowed red as I raised my fist to give my soldiers the order to attack. Then I dove straight for the Quarek pod and slammed my fist through the first several layers of metal.
Flames erupted from the vehicle. Renegades climbed over each other to get out of the burning pod as its metal door melted into the frame. I let the renegades run straight in the direction of where my soldiers fought and subdued three enemy Racopians.
I left the pod to burn and went to the civilians the Quareks intended to steal away from the planet. My anger was already set to boiling. I was not the half-starved lost king from months before. I had no problem pulling their magnetized restraints off and breaking the ties that bound their wings.
"King Varus, you returned." A juvenile male, likely no older than thirteen, stood once his restraints were removed. His wings, still in the process of growing out to their full length, folded behind him in a show of reverence.
"Go home. Tell your family to stay inside where it’s safe."
I flew behind the civilians to guard them as they took to the air to escape. Once they were out of the area, I reversed course to return to the base of the foothills. I arrived just in time to see a winged figure fly off towards the mountains. He was flanked by an enemy soldier on each side. I knew the identity of the one in the middle from his torn, scarred wing.
"Isath."
He turned his head at my shout. His guards had their fangs bared and weapons on their hips, ready to fly towards me if I got any closer.
"Don’t run from battle. Face me."
He said nothing, though his pale eyes were fixed on me. I witnessed the disbelief in them.
"You traitorous bastard. Thought you wouldn’t see me again, did you?"
He still said nothing. Then he smiled. The arrogance and undeserved, untested confidence. I wanted to pound that expression from his face. Isath turned around. His damaged right wing made him slightly unbalanced in the air. His soldiers covered his spineless ass while he kept flying towards the mountains.
"Run like the messy shit you are. Run home. It won’t be yours for much longer."
I wanted to go after him, but I knew at least one or two of his snipers would be waiting in the mountains to clip my wings in mid-flight. I would take the fight to Isath, but I'd do it where and how he’d least expect it. For now, it was time to bring the wounded to camp. They needed the attention of a medic, and I needed my mate.
***
HARPER
While Varus and histroops were outside camp looking for enemy scouts, I prepared the infirmary in case it would be needed tonight.
A soldier from the camp stood outside the building as my first line of defense in case enemy troops stumbled upon the location. My laser rifle sat under the desk while I busied myself by rearranging the medicine cabinets in the infirmary. They were already organized and spotless, but I needed something to do to burn off my second helping of ingreberg stew and the restless energy I had after walking away from Varus early this evening.
Okay, more like marching off. Either way, his behavior didn’t warrant me to hang around.
Had I been a little too hasty in putting distance between us? He said he wasn’t trying to hurt me, that he was doing all this for my own good. But how was this push-pull dynamic a good thing? One minute we were kissing and the next he kept shooing me away as though he were going to morph into a three-headed ginger-haired hydra.
I’d seen him at his worst when my squad first liberated him from the Quarek camp. He was starved for blood, weak, and endured months of captive torture. It affected his attitude sometimes, but it didn’t make him evil. What did he think was so big and scary and monstrous about him that would make me run away?
