Chapter 15 Brynna
Jorusk folds his wings back, drops to the rock, and crawls back into the nest with me.
My heart’s still calming from his heated affection.
“Did you like that as much as I did?” he asks.
I roll over in the blankets to snuggle against his hot body. Jorusk wraps an arm around me and draws me close as he catches his breath. But as we lie in the nest looking up at the stars, I wonder if we’re even compatible.
“Jorusk, how is this going to work?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m a mammal. You…hatched…like a dragon.”
He tilts his head. “You have eggs.”
“Well, yeah, but...”
Jorusk shrugs. “We still work. It would not be the first Drath-human bond. Why do you think Osiris is so pleasant compared to the others?”
“I guess he is a little more of a human red-brown hue.”
“His mother was human. Infernos and wings are dominant traits.”
“What about the tail?” I catch his and guide it toward me. Jorusk takes control of it and glides it up the side of my face. “Osiris has a tail.”
“Again… I just…”
Jorusk guides me on top of him like he doesn’t want to let me go. “I want you. My Inferno wants you. Let’s get that straight. I was intoxicated by you when I first saw you years ago. I just didn’t say anything because I didn’t get a chance to. So I tried to push you out of my mind.
“Seeing you again on Eluni’s ship changed me. This stupid arrestor only confirmed what I felt. But when I finally caught your scent at the first race, I changed inside. My focus is only on you. I don’t get the sense that I could ever be with another.”
I rest my hand against his muscled chest and trace the metal plate against his skin, wishing he didn’t have to wear it. “What in stars would ever make you want a plain blah human?”
He makes a disgruntled noise. “Some think like you do. But most of us know humans have a better resistance to some toxins and infections, which many of us do not. When our Infernos are hindered, we are less than human. Same with Thorian Hunters and Amphiran Storms. Nytheralians don’t have the same power class of mating monsters as us, and they are fairly healthy, but they have heart deficiencies in increasing numbers.
Which is why many are choosing humans for their more capable hearts.
“You are not less because you are human, Brynna,” he adds, with a comforting rub to my bare shoulder. “Every species is beautiful in its own way.” He points at me. “Do not let Rykarn know I said the B-word or he will harass me to no end.”
I motion a zipper over my lips. “What happened to him, anyway?”
Jorusk chews his cheek and breathes out like he doesn’t want to say it. “His pregnant mother was struggling to run from a Neb attack. His father went back to pick her up and carry her, and they disappeared into a flash of light and a hole in the planet.”
I cover my mouth so he doesn’t see my shock. “Oh, god.”
“Osiris’ mother was alone because she lost her mate in a similar way.
Denarso took her. He never saw her again, but after all these years, she’s likely gone to Magmium by now.
Nebs hit us hard about twenty years ago, stole from Talhuskins and our kind.
That was before we fled our masters on their ships while they were wasted over a celestial holiday. ”
“DIA said you crashed on the Talhuskin homeworld, and Mother Cinuska found you.”
“Yes.”
“What about Sidius?”
“Talhuskins made an example of Sidius’ parents, who led the rebellion.
He is a few years older than I am. Vryskas doesn’t talk about his childhood.
All we know is we found him with Talhuskin claw marks all over his body out in the forest below the royals’ cliffs.
So we’re certain he has a similar story to Sidius.
But I think Vryskas got at least a swing in there.
His knuckles were as bad as his body. But it’s like he doesn’t remember. ”
“Too traumatic?”
“That’s what we all think, too.”
Jorusk grows quiet as he rests on his back, carefully adjusting his wings.
He seems to prefer them almost tucked against his sides with the talons of his thumbs crossed above his head.
Vryskas, from what I remember, kept his wings close too, though paired at the top.
The others all let their wings sit comfortably behind their shoulders, thumbs out like they’re ready to attack.
Even Osiris. But Jorusk and Vryskas keep them tight, like a human protects injured limbs.
I find a fresh scar in a fold of the wing closest to me and run my fingers over it.
Jorusk turns his head and looks over at me. “You know a lot about us now. But I feel like I still don’t really know where you’re from. A farm, but…there aren’t detailed records of you despite advanced human cataloging systems. And your kind record everything.”
“In the cities.” I think back to life on Earth up until I turned twenty-one.
“We have drones and machines to help with everything.
They run on the satellite systems, so they can till, seed, and harvest crops without human error.
We were one of the last natural holdouts, still trying to keep oil and grease out of the fields by hand seeding, weeding, and harvesting.
“Regulations slowly took over, and we had to adapt to operate. My sister hated it and married off at her first opportunity. My brother got hired at a commercial farm down the road and died during an equipment malfunction.
“Then my father got sick from all the fertilizer dust in the air over the years, so he asked for my help. We engineered a low-VOC system that changed the market. Manure, the summer dust, and the synthetics that some farmers add were causing liver damage in long-term exposure cases. It ended up taking my father’s life, but not before we had to sell the farm, and my mother died in a cybernetics manufacturing accident. ”
I wish I could forget the memories, but lying on Jorusk’s hot chest is comforting.
“Our sleazy neighbor tried to pull some legal shit at the end and steal the credits from the sale of the farm from me. I fought back and won my case at just twenty years old. The judge made him pay my legal fees. So I packed up everything I had left, all my seeds and credits, and my stack of farming journals, bought Gypsy Star, and followed my dream of farming freedom.”
“How do you farm freedom?”
I slap a hand over my face. “I meant…”
“I know what you meant. But I wish it were possible to farm freedom. I would be a regular customer.” His smile is sad and distant. “So do you think you could tolerate a nest like this? On occasion. We mostly sleep in human-style beds now.”
“Yeah, it’s cozy. And the view reminds me of campouts with my family when I was little, looking up at the stars, feeling safe and filled with hope for the future.”
“Is that how this makes you feel?”
“Yes.” I press a kiss to his chest and soak in the feeling of his body next to mine. “That was before regulations increased and made it so that only corporate and government farms could operate. We sold everything for a pathetic amount of money and tried to move on.”
“Have you?”
I think again about our campouts and how Jorusk’s scent reminds me of a campfire.
“We were happy once when life was about our family, tradition, doing good for others, and we were all together. It seems unfair to spend so much of life in misery. But I think there needs to be a balance. I don’t want a utopia. I want to be where I’m needed.”
Jorusk takes my hand and draws it to his lips. “You are. More than you know.”