Page 1 of Scorched By Fate

ONE

SELENE

Not all of the seven-foot-tall dragon men in Scalvaris were my type, especially not the one picking his nose with a wickedly sharp claw in the stall across the way.

The River Market stretched out ahead of me, loud and screaming with life—sometimes literally from the winged children running and flying wobbly around. Stalls packed with strange, deadly looking objects twisted along the stone paths, each one shouting for attention in ways that only reminded me how far from Earth we were.

Blades gleamed, crystals pulsed, and tangy-smelling smoke curled up from corners where food vendors flipped something that didn’t look remotely edible. But this was life on Volcaryth—a mess of fire and survival. You didn’t get to be picky.

I'd say we were the opposite of picky. Not a single one of us hadpickedthis planet.

“Look at this!” Rachel Voss’s voice cut through the noise. She stopped at a little stall draped in faded woven fabric, pointing at a series of pendants strung from a beam. “Am I wrong, or would this one match Kaiya’s glassesperfectly?”

Kaiya frowned at the pendant and then at Rachel. “They’re not a fashion statement. They’re prescribed lenses.”

Rachel laughed and rolled her eyes. She nudged me lightly with her elbow. “I don't remember anything in med school that prevented matching accessories."

Kaiya adjusted her thick glasses, clearly unimpressed. “What's the point? Now if you wanted to talk about the biodiversity of the materials and their potential similarities to?—”

“Nope,” Rachel interrupted before I could even open my mouth to weigh in. “There will be no science babble this early into the day. It’s against the law.”

“I must have missed that one,” I said dryly. "And I think we've broken enough laws over the last three months." The dust was still settling from Orla and Rath's rather explosive mating and the sickening show they'd had to put on to prove themselves.

This earned the start of a grin from Rachel and an unimpressed sigh from Kaiya. I wasn’t sure if I was proud or not for managing to keep the mood light. It wouldn’t last long anyway. Not with Vega here.

She didn’t have to say anything for me to know tension was brewing. With Vega, you couldfeelit first, like that second of silence after someone pulls a grenade pin. I clocked her pacing two stalls ahead of us, posture impossibly rigid. Still, I caught up to her. She'd made the effort to come out and be social.

“This is going to blow up in our faces,” Vega muttered darkly. She wasn’t looking at me as she spoke, but her voice had that razor-edge of judgment wrapped in thinly veiled exhaustion. “Those weird acolytes won't stop staring at us.” She used her head to gesture further up the path to where three Drakarn in yellowish robes were not-so-subtly watching us shop.

Kaiya exchanged a glance with Rachel before pushing her glasses up her nose again. “They can watch us all they like. We're not doing anything wrong."

“Last I checked, we don't get to decide what's right or wrong,” Vega said. She glanced warily at the yellow-robed acolytes. One of them—an older male with dark bronze scales—muttered something to his companion, and they both shifted, like they were debating whether to approach us. "They’re not just watching. They’re waiting."

Rachel scoffed. "Waiting for what?"

Vega scowled. "An excuse."

Rachel rolled her eyes and ignored her. “Say what you want,” she said to Kaiya and me, her tone dipping into a teasing smirk, “but Drakarn biology does seem to kind of be working for some of us. Do you think their wingspan?—”

“Seriously?” Vega hissed, spinning around to face Rachel like she’d just set fire to her common sense. “I’m over here worrying about execution orders, and you’re busy ogling their damn wings?”

Unflustered, Rachel crossed her arms and tilted her head, smirking lazily. "I hear it's not just their wings."

“You’re unbelievable,” Vega grumbled, rubbing at her temple and clearly weighing whether or not she could strangle Rachel before any Drakarn noticed. If they would even care.

“Enough.” This had to stop before they could land any more barbs. “We're not fighting in public.” There were only ten humans in all of Scalvaris, on all of Volcaryth as far as we knew. We had to be a united front, or they'd tear us to shreds.

Rachel smirked again but didn’t push it further. Vega, on the other hand, scowled harder before turning and stomping out of the market, her steps brisk and just shy of furious.

Kaiya fell in step beside me as we continued deeper into the rows of alien wares. Her fingers twitched, as if itching to grab a sketchpad or start dissecting every new sight. “For the record,” she said, her voice carefully neutral, “I’d still like to understand the biological implications.”

I laughed under my breath. “I’m sure you can add it to your growing list of scientific obsessions.”

Kaiya ducked her head, a hint of a blush creeping up her cheek. "I am a xenobiologist. I've spent my life studying alien life. This … well, I never expected so much hands-on experience."

"Hands-on experience?" Rachel asked, a mischievous sparkle in her eye. "If you want hands-on with one of Scalvaris’s finest, I’m sure I can arrange an introduction. I bet that guy over there has a tail for days. Very aerodynamic, I imagine."

“Why do I even try to have a serious conversation around any of you?" Kaiya muttered, her blush deepening as she adjusted her glasses for the third time. If she pressed them any harder against her nose, they'd probably fuse to her face.

---