Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Trak’s ship rose slowly. Waves of steam poured off the silver hull as it ascended from the hot surface to the cool upper atmosphere.
Drex walked outside without a suit, utilizing this one perk of the primal form.
He was still a walking inferno, leaving burn marks on the floors and giving off so much heat, no one could get close to him.
He gazed up in confusion. Was his brother repositioning his ship? Was he running a drill on his thrusters?
Trak had said they would be departing shortly, but Madison was still on board. He tensed on a stab of panic. His brother wouldn’t kidnap her. More than likely he had forgotten she was aboard. Right about now, she was probably hollering at them to bring her back.
Drex watched, expecting to see the ship descend again and let Madison off. Instead, it continued its slow climb upward and disappeared from sight.
He frowned at the spot in the sky where Trak’s ship had been and a cold, sinking feeling crept over him. What if she chose to leave? Well, not what if. Clearly that was the case. There could be no other explanation. Madison didn’t want to stay with him.
Drex looked down at his hands, pulsing with thick, grotesque red veins that looked like rivulets of molten lava.
He was horrifying to look upon. Perhaps she had become too frightened of him to return.
But surely Anna and Trak would have explained that the primal form was a temporary state of being.
The red veins and flaming eyes and horns would go away. He would go back to normal.
He stormed back inside, through the damaged corridors. Transports were pouring back into the hangars, returning residents to their homes. Around him, cleanup and repairs had begun.
He strode to the main throne chamber, but stopped short at the sight before him. On the stone seat lay a silver necklace with a red stone. Pain bloomed in his chest. She left…
He had finally loved, and again, he lost.
“Ferias!” he bellowed. It was a broken sound.
The Sage appeared through the archway on the arm of one of her attendants, chin high and a scowl lowering her brows.
“I am blind, nephew,” snapped his great-aunt.
“But my hearing is fine. What do you want?” She sounded quite cross.
Perhaps she missed her other attendant, who was assisting with the repairs.
Or her human companion. “Madison is gone.”
Ferias dismissed the male on her arm, who left them and closed the heavy double doors on his way out. “Of course she is,” she said brusquely. “Did you expect otherwise?”
Drex blinked. “Yes. I did. Why would she leave?”
“Why would she stay?” Ferias spread her hands. “You made it clear of your intentions to send her back to Earth. Did you correct the assumption?”
“Our relationship clearly…changed,” he said. “She must have known it.”
“How?” She raised one eyebrow. “Because you told her?”
“I didn’t have to.” Flames flared from his eyes, momentarily turning his vision to flickering red. He gestured to himself. “Obviously, I care for her. My body changed to the primal form for her.”
“All she saw was you standing at Tuli’s grave, avenging those who had desecrated her shrine.” Ferias shook her regal head. “Do you honestly think she would assume that you had changed into your primal form for her?”
“I…” Drex turned away, replaying their last interaction in his head.
He had left Trak’s ship abruptly. He’d felt the heat pouring through his body and knew the change was coming on.
He had been brusque with Madison. He had told her not to watch what he was about to do, and he had offered no explanation. “Ah.”
“Yes, ‘ah.’ For an intelligent male you have been displaying remarkable ignorance when it comes to this female.” Ferias lowered her lashes over eyes that saw so much more than he could.
“I didn’t choose Madison on a whim. I knew she could show you how to love again.
What I had not anticipated was your boneheadedness.
Truly, Drex. You have utterly botched this. ”
He paced the length of the room, keeping his gaze off the abandoned necklace. “How do I get her back?”
Ferias sniffed at the charred smell in the air. “You are not doing anything in that form.”
“I can’t even send her a message without burning up the communicator.” He looked up hopefully. “But you can. Will you transmit one for me?”
“I will not, nephew.” The Great Sage tossed back her silver braids and turned away from him.
“I brought her to you once. If you want her back, you will have to travel to her. Think long and hard on this. She has the strength of a queen now, and will not suffer fools. I would advise against being one.”
Three Virilian weeks later…
“How the bloody hell was I supposed to know which female you turned into primal form for?” Trak was incensed and Drex couldn’t blame him. “I’m not a bloody mind reader.”
It had taken a long time for Drex to return to his normal form. “I was not exactly in a condition to articulate my feelings,” Drex gritted out. “It was a trying day.”
“Trying day, indeed. Try being thrown up and peed on before having your morning meal,” Trak lamented.
“Don’t ring me up hollering about taking your female away from you when she was the one who asked to leave.
” Trak had integrated some strange English terms into his Virilian vocabulary since meeting Anna.
Sometimes, it took Drex a bit to figure out what his brother was talking about.
“I didn’t holler.” Maybe he did. Three Virilian weeks was a long time to wait.
He hadn’t been able to touch a communicator without melting it, and besides, laws forbade anyone in primal form from off-planet communication because it had started a war once.
That law especially applied to the king, even when all he wanted to do was contact his brother about a female.
“We can’t come back to Virilia right now,” said Trak. “We need to be in the Homba System in two cycles to resupply Glolan rebels with fuel cells and weapons so they aren’t re-enslaved. It’s important, Drex. More important than your love life.”
He could not argue with that. He also couldn’t wait a Virilian month—or however long it would take Trak to wander back—to see Madison. “I will come to you.”
“Really?” Trak sounded amused. “You hate spaceflight.”
“I am aware,” he gritted out.
“You must care for her a lot.”
Drex kept the snarl out of his voice. “I did change to primal form for her.”
Trak grunted. “Well, you had better hope she’s still interested in you. Half of my crew is vying for her attention.”
He didn’t like the sickening drop of his stomach. “Does she…take interest in any of them?”
“Aside from my son, not particularly, but it’s a matter of time before she does. Beautiful, unattached females are rare out here in the dead of space and my crew can be very charming.”
“Tell them she is spoken for.” He winced even as he spoke the words.
“I will do no such thing,” Trak replied. “If you want her, rustle up a pilot, scrape the dust off your ship, and fly out here and speak with her, you great, bloody idiot.”