Chapter 8
I strode into my vorazka, my home, frustrated and tired, knowing something was off but not what. The humans were up to something, but I didn’t have answers and their presence here, except for my three captives, was like vapor.
Sliding a sparkling decanter from its place on my office shelf, I poured myself a heavy glass.
“You’re back.” Thyra’s soft voice had me turning. My shoulders relaxed at the sight of her, and I offered her a small smile. She came to me and pressed her wing into mine in greeting. She glanced from the alcohol to my face and tilted her head, studying me. “Nothing?”
I grunted.
“Zyvar said he’s been to see the young human female. Maybe he has something that would be helpful.”
At this point, I doubted it. I narrowed my eyes. “I heard that you came across the male and engaged with him.” Her wings twitched but she held her chin up. I sighed. “Thyra, they’re dangerous.”
“Are they?” she asked cautiously. I growled, but she held her ground, gaze unwavering.
She knew how to deal with me, knew how much I loved her.
I grumbled in my chest and took a swig of the spirits imported from Slolik.
They had the best alcohol. Yes, think about that and not your sister making friends with the enemy.
According to Vuldrex, my head steward, Zyvar, too, seemed to have softened toward them after his numerous attempts to communicate with the female called Tatiana.
I should have dragged them both with me when I left four days ago.
I would not allow them to continue into danger, even if they were upset about my decision.
“I forbid you from speaking to him. He is an enemy, and I won’t have him deceiving or hurting you.”
“We barely spoke. He only knows a little of the intergalactic tongue.” At my glare she breathed a heavy huff through her nose. “He helped me with the currency translations and amounts for our latest sales.”
My eyes sharpened on her. “You gave him private information?”
“Of course not. He saw my notes when I went to see the humans for myself. He picked out the universal numbers I was using and had the equation done in moments without knowing the full context.”
“How did he get your notes?” I hissed out, my ire rising. What kind of foolishness had been allowed to go on while I was gone? Zyvar would hear about this. In my absence he was in charge, including keeping my sister out of trouble.
“I pulled out my tablet thinking we might communicate better in writing,” she said calmly. “The point is that they’re not as awful as they have been painted to be. Let’s not lower ourselves to the level of our enemies.”
I growled, low and deep, to express my displeasure.
Thyra crossed the room and placed a hand on my arm. “Arrazyl. Don’t let your anger blind you. That’s all I ask.” She smiled that angelic smile of hers that reminded me so much of our mother and made it hard to be properly angry at her. “I trust you’ll do the right thing.”
Zyvar stepped into the room and she greeted him before disappearing into the hallway.
He glanced at my drink. “Should I even ask?”
“That alarm we got saying there was something unidentified moving in the eastern part of our territory was accurate, but we couldn’t find a thing.
I know the humans are trying a new tactic.
” The fact bothered me like fire to my wings.
I swirled my liquid and took a sip. “The burning question is whether the three humans we captured have a hand in it.” I hardened my expression.
“And don’t think I take it lightly that you let my sister interact with our prisoners. ”
“Did you speak to Axar before you left?” he asked, not directly answering me. I would let his dodge go. For now.
“Yes. She didn’t even try to get them to help her escape. She just let them touch her and listened while they talked to her, though there’s no way she could know what they said.”
I leaned against one of the columns arching over my open balcony doors, staring out into the starry darkness.
Movement flicked in the darkness now and again, my vorpyrren finishing up their day.
“The question is whether their goal is to stay here to cause some kind of trouble or if she really was just kind to two small-winged rapscallions who went where they were forbidden.” I said.
Their mom’s wings had fluttered all over the place when she’d heard what had happened when I’d gone to talk to them.
Kyvar trilled before saying, “the female has plenty of reason to tell us what we want, especially when we brought her brother in. Her face…” my thalrikar hardened his jaw. “Perhaps she’s telling us the truth, that she’s not anything but one of their scholars.”
“Is that why you spent so much time with the young female?” I arched an eyebrow at him. “And allowed my sister near them?”
“No one spoke to the leader, as you instructed. I thought we might be able to get something from one of the others. If they’re spies, they’re very good ones. Or,” he said cautiously, “they’re just scholars. They even seemed disturbed about the deaths of the nolykh.”
I flicked a wing in acknowledgement of his continued defense of them. “It could explain why they left her. She’s of less value to them than their fighters.”
“You’ve been unwilling to cause the female physical pain, so now that we have the other two secured in a more comfortable place, perhaps coaxing them would produce better results. Even if they’re not combatants, they might have information they don’t realize would be useful.”
Or they did realize it and were purposefully keeping it from us. I gave him a sardonic look. “So you spent these last days coaxing the young female?”
His wing twitched and I withheld a smirk. “Tatiana seems innocent.”
“She won’t be for long if you keep spending all your time with her.”
Kyvar’s expression didn’t change, but after growing up with him the flash in his eyes told me there would be retribution.
“Why haven’t you put more pressure on their leader, truly?
It’s not like you to allow an enemy to get away without being physically punished.
Especially when it could lead to information you want.
” He knew I couldn’t bring myself to hurt the female.
It was a weakness I needed to be careful of.
When I said nothing, he continued. “Perhaps it’s because she has such a sweet smell? Like a female in her prime for mating.”
A growl rose from my chest unbidden. His knowing eyes flicked away at my glare. It was not his business if she had a sweet fragrance, if she was ready for a male to claim. She was mine. My prisoner, mine to do with what I pleased. And that didn’t include other males talking about her in such a way.
Kyvar couldn’t conceal his smirk. No one else would get away with what he does. But we’d been friends since we first tested out our wings, and he is my thalrikar, my right wing.
I shook off my irrational annoyance at what he said and went back to the topic at hand. “If they’re that useless even to their own people then we have no need for them.”
Silence descended for a long moment. Tension radiated off Zyvar. I echoed it.
“If it’s true, then they’ve been discarded by their own people. Surely execution is not the only thing we can do with them.”
“We’ve killed their kind before.” I reminded him.
“But if we’re right, then they’re non-fighters. Like those we leave behind in the safety of their homes. It isn’t right to slaughter them. We kill our enemies, soldiers in battle, soldiers we’ve captured. Not weak humans who can’t fight.”
Internally, I agreed with him. Everything in me rebelled at the idea of slicing through the female’s neck, seeing the human’s strange red blood spurt from the wound while the light died in her eyes.
I ground my back teeth. Usually I didn’t care.
I was a warrior, a leader to thousands, I did what needed to be done for myself and my vorpyrren.
“If we don’t kill them, do we leave them on the ledges as prisoners of war?
They likely won’t live long if we leave them exposed to the elements, they’re too delicate.
” My question was rhetorical. I already knew what I wanted to do with them.
“She did offer something that could be of value. To teach us about their kind.” I had brushed it off before, what did we care about their culture?
But the more information we had on our enemy, the better.
“We should test her first, to see if she is indeed what she keeps claiming.”
I glanced at him as a slow smile curved my lips. “Good idea. She will be surrounded by our vorpyrren. We can watch her closely and she won’t get anywhere should she try. I will take her out of the interrogation chamber tomorrow.”
“About that.” Zyvar’s left wing twitched and I knew what was coming.
“You moved the other two from the ledges?”
“As you said, they would have died staying there, and I didn’t want that to happen while you were still deciding what to do with them.”
I rumbled deep in my chest and watched him in my peripheral vision. “What were your interactions with the younger female like?”
His gaze came to rest on me and then flicked back to the darkness.
“I believed I could get further with her if there was information to be had, but she is timid and gentle at heart and it took coaxing to get her to open up. When she did she talked nonstop but of course I couldn’t understand her.
She even tried to draw pictures to help me understand.
She drew the three humans at what looked like an educational institution, them talking to what looked like humans in uniforms—likely someone from the Consortium because they like their matching outfits so much, and them on the spaceship.
It seems like there were ten scholars and then the officers and two ship captains that came here. ”
Finishing my drink, I turned to face him. “I trust your judgement, Zyvar. But they could be part of a scheme to get close to us to hurt us. Remember not to let your guard down with them, no matter how innocent they seem.” I paused. “Or how pretty they are.”
His eyes flashed, but he inclined his head and tapped his wings once in acquiescence. “I will always put you and our vorpyrren first.”
I tapped a wing to the floor in agreement and left for my suite. I would rest and deal with the female tomorrow.