Colorless

33 - Lackluster

Kaden's wings ached from disuse. His slender body lacked its usual grace, and he found even the simplest movements clumsy and strained. 

"Humans," he cursed.

In his arms, cradled against his torso like a sleeping child, he held her. Her body was cold. She had a hole through her chest that still dripped toxic, black blood.

When, after hours of nonstop flying, Kaden found the woman he'd been searching for, he landed, or rather crashed, onto the sandy ground. He let go, and the body fell.

Scarlett—with a face so similar to Raleigh's—screamed in horror at the sight of her sister's mangled corpse.

Kaden waited until she had quieted. "Tell your father our contract is complete." He stretched his wings once again and propelled himself toward the sky. When he looked back, he could see a little dot on the beach which was the same teal color as Raleigh's hair.

With his wings returned and the contract no longer leashing him, Kaden expected to relish in his freedom, weightless at the shedding of his burdens. Yet no joy accompanied the whip of his wings. No relief could be found at the power of his muscles or the colorful sheen of his feathers. Even the sight of the islands—as vibrant and magical as ever—were dull to his eyes.

For as much as Kaden moaned about his situation, as degrading as it was to be a slave to a human and treated as a bodyguard to a little child, Kaden had been content. He'd had a purpose. Something at least to entertain himself with.

Now, he had only his wings.

Kaden swooped lower in the sky, angling himself toward the mountains on an adjacent island. Those mountains, red and orange stone jutting out of a turquoise sea, had once served as his home. 

Kaden dropped lower until he skimmed the tops of the waves with his scales. The ocean smelled of salt and iron, and it made him long for past times. He shook his long hair out and rolled onto his back, and he laughed up at the cloudless sky. "I should go back and kill them," he said to no one. He barred his fangs into a dangerous smile. "They would deserve it."

No one responded.

He spun himself close enough to the island to pluck a red stone from the beach and then flew off across the ocean, back toward the bleak and colorless mainland.

The rock crunched between his jaws. It sharpened his fangs and coated his mouth with the taste of sand and metal. Kaden grinned.

His wings took him across the ocean and over the land with incredible ease despite his lack of practice. He could smell better, see further, and was altogether far more powerful in his true body than his human one.

Yet despite that, when Kaden landed on a tree branch with a gentle whisper of leaves, he transformed his body. The scales on his long torso morphed into skin. His wings folded into his body, colorful feathers melting away. His arms shrank back down, and his tail unwound from the limbs of the tree.

Kaden sat on high, watching Cyran attack an innocent tree with his weapon. The blue tip of the staff was transformed into a pointed spear, and Cyran stabbed it repeatedly into the bark until the tree trunk shone with oozing sap.

Kaden could smell the sweat of Cyran's skin and the blood on his knuckles. He could hear his ragged breath. He could see the wet sheen of tears on his face.

Cyran was still a child, Kaden thought. So emotional.

Raleigh had been the much the same.

He slid further down the tree branch and winced as the bark scraped and snagged at his human body. Perhaps he should have grabbed something to wear. His other clothes had torn and shred in the process of his transformation and were likely scattered in pieces across the countryside. As uncomfortable as he found his true body, at least it didn't have such a glaring weak spot like external genitalia. Kaden adjusted himself.

The fool below him had morphed his weapon into an axe and sliced through the bleeding trunk with a single, clean sweep. The tree came down with a crash that shook through the forest floor and up all the way to where Kaden was now comfortably settled.

Had Kaden any desire to reveal his presence, he would have granted Cyran a sarcastic round of applause. Instead, he contented himself with picking sand from his fangs and silently judging the boy as he broke down into manic sobs.

People did embarrassing things like that when they thought they were alone. Kaden scratched at the inside of his nose.

He tossed a silver object in the air and caught it again in the palm of his very un-talon-like hand.

Cyran remained a pathetic mess for some time. He spent nearly an hour hunched over with his head in his hands and curses streaming out of his lips between crazed sobs. If Kaden was a better man—or a man at all—he'd have felt some sympathy for the boy.

It reminded him of Raleigh after she'd lost her partner. She'd been just as much of a mess.

Kin had helped her through it. Raleigh would have kicked his ass if she knew he'd abandoned Cyran. Kaden grinned at the thought of Kin getting his ass kicked.

The silver twisted around his slender fingers.

Kaden soon began to grow bored of Cyran's break down. What did Cyran have to be so sad about anyway? He barely knew Raleigh.

A flash of red caught Kaden's eye. He looked down at his chest, surprised he hadn't seen it before; her blood was so vibrant against his white skin.

It must have happened when he'd been carrying her. He wasn't close enough to get blood on him when she'd been stabbed. He really hadn't been close enough to do anything. He wondered briefly if she'd died before he reached her.

Then he pushed those thoughts away.

Being sympathetic towards humans was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place. He'd never be accepted home again if they knew.

"I want her back," Cyran said between heavy sobs.

Kaden thought that talking to oneself was a pretty pathetic thing to do.

He twisted the now deformed piece of silver into a ring. It had looked much more natural on her wrist than on his. Then again, his lack of clothes and oddly-shaped body made everything he wore look unnatural. She had far more human proportions—not that that was in any way a good thing.

He grinned at the memory of her fruitless attempts to seduce him. As if there were anything about Raleigh for him to be attracted to.

She was even more of a fool than Cyran. At least Cyran had something to offer Raleigh when he was fawning over her. Raleigh had nothing that Kaden desired. And even if she did...

Kaden's transformation was swift, and he was gone before Cyran could glance up.

There was nothing healthy about what he was doing. He had to go home. Even if his sons hated him, if his clan banished him, he had to return. It did no one any good to be thinking the way he was.

She was gone now anyway.

Still, Kaden looked back toward Cyran. Humans were fascinating. Stupid and naïve and tasty, yes, but he couldn't bring himself to hate them.