Keldor held me through it all, murmuring soothing endearments laced with reassurances and vows of eternal fealty. He brushed lingering kisses along my brow, my cheeks, the throbbing pulse at my throat as the memories at last began to ebb, the deluge reduced to a steady trickle. When I could draw an even breath at last, I gazed up at my mate with eyes that shimmered with unshed tears of pure wonderment and hard-won understanding.
"I was...I was an artist," I rasped out in an awed murmur, my mind struggling to realign the pieces into some semblance of cohesion. "A lettering artist, specializing in calligraphy and hand-drawn typography. It...it was my passion, my entire world before..."
I trailed off, unable to give voice to the life-altering events that had swept me into the cosmos' searing embrace and deposited me on this uncharted world until Keldor had found me. Recounting the harrowing tale of my abduction, of the hell I must have endured aboard that slavers' craft, seemed like desecrating the sanctity of our celestial bond at that moment.
Perhaps, one day, when the wounds didn't feel so raw, so visceral in their intensity, I would share those memories with my mate. But not now, not when his searing devotion was the only truth keeping the tempest at bay.
"You were an artist of words, then?" Keldor rumbled, his smoldering gaze searching mine with a tenderness that mademy heart constrict. "One who shaped the universe's silent poetry into something beautiful and profound for all to witness?"
I nodded, the lingering ache in my mind easing infinitesimally as I lost myself in the scorching certainty of his presence. "Something like that, I suppose. Though it was hardly a cosmic endeavor, at least back then."
A faint, wistful smile curved my lips as more fragmented recollections surfaced. "I did love it, though. The way the words could blend and flow together into something greater than their individual parts. It was...an escape of sorts, I think. A way to lose myself in the artistry and find some semblance of peace amidst the chaos."
Keldor regarded me with an inscrutable look, one that conveyed he understood the inherent desire to carve out one's own sanctum from the relentless press of the world better than I could have fathomed. Of course he did - this mighty dragon warrior had been doing just that for longer than I could comprehend, forging his own dominion on this desolate, uncharted world light years from the home that had been brutally stripped away.
"And did you find that peace, my Ella?" he asked softly, brushing the backs of those wicked talons along my cheek in a scorching caress. "In your artistry, in the shaping of words into something sublime?"
I leaned into his touch with a tremulous sigh, drawing strength from the primal heat that sempre to resonate from his very core. "Sometimes," I admitted with a faint, rueful chuckle. "I think Sutton was better at that than I was."
Sutton. My best friend, my kindred spirit in all things, art and life. The one person whose laughter and spirit could pull me from the darkest recesses of my melancholy and make the world seem just a little brighter, just for a little while. Until the day she had simply...vanished without a trace, as if the universe itselfhad reached out and plucked her from existence without rhyme or reason.
I could still recall the anguish that had gripped me in the aftermath of her disappearance, the endless questioning of what I could have done differently to save her. The guilt, so profound and suffocating, that perhaps I hadn't been as good a friend as she deserved, that maybe if I'd been more attentive, more vigilant, I could have protected her from...whatever cruel fate had befallen her.
We had been sisters in every way but blood, united by our passions and our unbreakable bond of friendship. And then, she had been ripped away, leaving me unmoored and cast adrift in a reality that no longer made sense.
"Ella?" Keldor's voice cut through the cyclone like a blazing beacon, his searing touch anchoring me to the present as he gathered me into his arms once more. "What is it, my mate? What anguish grips you so? Tell me, let me ease your suffering in whatever way I can."
"Sutton. Her name...was Sutton. She was my best friend." My fingers dug almost painfully into the sinuous scales adorning his chest as the words continued to tumble forth in a torrential rush. "One day she was there, so full of life and endless potential, and the next...nothing. As if she'd never existed at all. Just...gone without a whisper of reason or explanation."
The anguish that gripped me in that moment was every bit as profound and suffocating as the day I had finally accepted that my dearest friend, my sister in all the ways that mattered, would never be returning to me. It was a loss so visceral, so devastating, that it had rented my world asunder and left me cast adrift.
"I searched for her for so long," I confessed in a tremulous rasp, my words laced with a soul-shattering anguish that transcended the eons. "Followed every lead, called in every favor from anyone who might have information, but it was asif she had ceased to exist. Kind of like I imagine people now think happened to me. You don't suppose she could have been kidnapped by aliens even those few years earlier, do you?" I asked, giving voice to the harrowing notion that had taken root in the back of my mind.
If such nefarious forces were scouring the galaxy for human females to enslave and exploit, who was to say Sutton hadn't suffered a similar fate to my own? The thought made my heart clench.
Keldor regarded me with an inscrutable look for a weighty pause before responding. When at last he spoke, his deep timbre resonated through me.
"Anything is possible, my Ella," he said, cradling me closer.
His calloused palm cradled my cheek in a searing caress, his smoldering gaze searching the endless depths of my own with an intensity that resonated straight into me.
"I cannot say for certain whether this Sutton suffered a similar fate to the one that swept you into my embrace," Keldor continued in a low rasp. "But I can vow to you here and now that I will use every connection, every favor and resource at my disposal to unravel the truth. If there is even a whisper of your dearest friend's presence on this side of the galaxy, I shall find it and pursue the lead."
A tremulous exhalation escaped me as I absorbed the profound magnitude of his promise. Reaching up, I traced the sharp ridges of his jaw in a path of hushed reverence and sheer wonderment.
"Thank you, my Keldor," I whispered fervently. "You do not know what it would mean to me to discover what truly became of Sutton after all this time. Even if the truth is...unpleasant, at least I would have closure. A way to let go of the endless questioning that has haunted me for so long."
Chapter 11
Ella
I meanderedthrough the lush gardens surrounding Keldor's lair, my fingers trailing over the velvety, alien flora with a sense of childlike wonder. The vibrant blooms and foliage swayed in a gentle breeze. It was all so breathtakingly beautiful, yet utterly removed from anything remotely resembling the plant life on Earth.
Pausing beside a towering fuchsia plant, I traced the delicate, gemlike petals with an exploratory caress. The iridescent blooms fairly danced beneath my fingertips, as if responding to my touch. A sweetly exotic fragrance wafted through the air with each caress, raising delicious frissons of pure sensation along my scales. Even thinking those words still took me a moment to wrap my head around.
So many changes! Yet nestled in the back of my thoughts lingered a faint, persistent twinge of...not regret, per se, but a yearning for something my transformation had seemingly overlooked.
"You seem pensive this morning, my Ella."
