by Ryan Muree
His vest pocket wiggled.
Raz must have woken up, missing all the excitement and drama as usual. For a nocturnal, gliding kurimolle, he seemed perfectly content only waking for feeding times. He’d have to wait.
“Stay still, friend,” he whispered to his pocket.
He jerked his arms to test his freedom, but they were locked in place. Some warrior he was. Raised with a karten stick in his hand since he was old enough to hold things, top warrior in his village, and it meant nothing, absolutely nothing, in the face of these… these… things.
He glanced around to get his bearings. How many turns had it taken to get to this point? Had they deliberately built this like a maze? All he found was gold walls and endless corridors. It was horrendously opulent. Etta and the chief would kill for a place like this.
He grunted in their grasp. “Where are you taking me?”
“Your room,” the one holding the rope said.
“My room? If I get a room, then why take my shoes? Why drag me? Why force me?”
But she didn’t respond, and neither did the ones dragging him, or the ones behind him.
They turned a corner down a dark hallway, too dark to see anything, and stopped. One of the hideous creatures pulled open what sounded like a metal gate and stood aside. Beyond the opened gate was an even darker space, save for the two beams of moonlight barely streaming in through small holes in the ceiling. Their idea of a room left much to be desired.
He was tossed inside and landed on the cold, muddy ground. His palms skimmed his surroundings. The more information he had, the better off he was at finding a way out. Smooth stone bench, stone walls, stone floors. The same stupid stone everywhere, except for the gate.
He spun for the metal bars, and it was immediately slammed shut and locked.
He gripped the cold cylinders and shook with all his strength. Fairly solid. “We have wildly different definitions of room, beast!”
But his escort and some of their lingering entourage walked away, leaving him to his dark, not-a-room imprisonment and a gaggle of creatures staring at him.
When he got home—if he ever got home—Maur would pay. The spirits had better save him or he’d make sure his brother would be cleaning stalls and waste ditches for weeks. Stupid enough to steal. Stupid enough to get caught. Stupid enough to get abducted by these things.
He sighed and leaned against the wall. And he had been stupid enough to trade his imprisonment for his brother’s.
“Could I get some water, at least?” he asked.
But the watching and whispering creatures didn’t move.
Great. The others understood him. Why not these? “Do you understand my words?” he shouted.
Nothing.
“Hey! Can you not hear me?”
“They hear you.” The owner of this new feminine voice rounded the corner and stepped into the edge of the sconce’s firelight. “They’re just not used to hearing the insults. They’re much better at giving them.”
It was another one of them—maybe. With this low light, it was hard to tell.
“Girls, I’ll take care of it,” the voice said.
“Who gave you permission?” one of the gigglers cut.
“Who do you think?”
After the small group scurried off, he pressed his forehead against the cool metal. “Who are you?”
This new one was too far from him to make her form out clearly. Maybe she was their ruler. “Are you the leader of this place? The-the queen, they called it?”
He barely caught the light reflecting off her brown-green robes as she walked to the far side of the hallway, picked up something round and empty, pumped some sort of mechanism, and then returned to the bars.
Finally close enough to see her, he peeled back.
The girl-thing from the hallway. The one that looked somewhat... human.
Even up close, she wasn’t as revolting as the others. Her hair had a tinge of teal at the roots, but it fell to her shoulders in a normal, human auburn color. The red was accentuated in the faint moonlight. Her eyes weren’t bulbous with slits for pupils, either. They were larger than humans, definitely, but she had normal shaped pupils, dark lashes, and crystalline teal irises. Her scales were barely noticeable. They were a pale teal, too, and they were small and sparse along the exposed parts of her body.
“You’re not like them,” he said.
She placed a bucket on the floor outside of the bars.
“Were you kidnapped, too?” he asked. “Did they turn you into one of them?”
She lifted a cup from the bucket and passed it shakily to him. Was she scared?
“Drink,” she ordered.
He took it and sniffed it.
“Why would I go through all the trouble of pumping the water and lugging this bucket over just to poison you? If I wanted to kill you, I’d just eat you.”
He jerked his gaze from the cup to her.
She bit her lip and dropped her gaze. “I was—W-we don’t eat people. That would be crazy.”
No. Scaly reptilian women in a secret fortress in the middle of a jungle was crazy. “Well, you kidnap men and imprison them for doing nothing. That’s pretty close.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I doubt this cell is worse than eating you, but I can suggest it, if you’d like?”
Her smirk was almost attractive. Almost.
He took a sip. The water was fresh, cool, clean. He gulped down mouthfuls, letting it spill down his vest. He passed the cup through the bars. “Another. And no, I’d rather not be eaten.”
She inhaled deeply, refilled the cup, and passed it back. He gulped half of it down as quickly as he could and set it down on the floor.
“You’re not the queen?” he asked.
Her eyes followed carefully as he pulled Raz from his pocket. “No, I’m not the queen. What is that?”
“My pet. He’s a kurimolle.”
She leaned in, her head practically against the bars.
A stupid mistake. He could grab her and slam her head into the metal. Take any keys if she had them. Worst case, he could use her as a hostage. The others might have been strong, but this one was clearly not a fighter. Had she been, she would have never been so foolish to get this close. Taking advantage of her would be easy.
“He’s so interesting,” she said. Her eyes glittered in the soft light as she watched Raz drink from the cup.
“Who are you?” he whispered. “What are you?”
She clicked her tongue. Was it forked? Or human, too? Her pale lips were human enough. Her teal gaze lifted, and she quickly leaned back. “I’m Nida, and I’m not anyone important, actually. So, if you want out of this cell, it wouldn’t be a good idea to hurt me. I also don’t have a key.”
He almost grinned but fought the urge. “But you know the queen?”
“Yes, she’s my sister. You apparently stole something from us, so she won’t set you free, either.”
He huffed and helped Raz climb back into his pocket.
“But I can get you out of that cell,” she whispered, “if you agree to help us.”
CHAPTER 4
Nida hadn’t wanted to go to him. It was Drathella who’d forced her into it. “You’re human,” she’d said. “Get him to calm down and act civilized before he meets Brynn, and it’ll save our skins.”
Brynn wanted the perfect human for a mate, and it had cost them precious time. If he could just play nice, if humans were capable of that, then Brynn would accept him for the hatching ceremony. Her new sisters would be born.
She swallowed, inspecting his features in the light. It was dim, but she saw enough, and he looked nothing like she’d expected.
He should have had red eyes, fangs, blood-stained clothes. But he had none of that. He was just… dirty. Being dragged by her sisters through the jungle would do that.
He was tall. Taller than her, at least. He looked strong, too. His musculature was evident on his bare, scaleless arms. Smooth as the Tialan stone. If he wan
ted to kill, he could. Her sisters were right to tie him as they brought him in.
Instead of red, his eyes were green—the color of lithera vines. They softened when he saw her. She hadn’t imagined it. He had nothing but rage for her sisters when he’d been screaming down that hallway. He had been full of fury at the sisters staring and giggling at him before she had sent them away. But when he’d looked at her, his eyes had changed, shifted.
His short, shiny, dark hair glowed in the moonlight from the pits carved out of the stone ceiling. His jaw, sharp and prominent, commanded her attention when he spoke.
The humans were detestable, and her sisters hated needing them, but they weren’t fools. They knew a good-looking human when they found one. And Brynn, when she saw him, would not give him up. She had been obsessed with the last queen’s love, and instead of using any regular human, she’d demanded a human that didn’t exist—a nice one.
Nida took a deep breath, still admiring him through the bars. Every inch of him suggested human strength. From the thickness in his hands to the toned muscle at his shoulders. He wore pants cut just below the knee, exposing thick, calloused feet and chiseled calves.
What had Ascara said about the previous god’s gifts?
She shook her head.
“No,” he said.
She refocused. What was his response for?
That’s right. She had told him she would help him if he helped them.
“I don’t make deals with my captors,” he snarled.
She blinked. A week in this cell might change his mind on that. Of course, telling him that probably wouldn’t help him ease into the idea of being nice to Brynn.
“You’ve not heard the deal,” she said.
He shook his head. “First, I have no reason to trust anything you say.”
When the younger sisters were being particularly stubborn, it helped when she got on their level.
She picked a spot to sit on the floor slightly farther away but across from him. “That’s not how this works, and we’re not the distrustful criminals—”
“I’m not a criminal, either!”
“Who stole from our garden?” she asked.
“My-my brother.” His palm went to his face.
“And who took his place?”
“They were going to kill him!”
They wouldn’t have, but he didn’t know that and had volunteered to sacrifice himself for his brother anyway. She smiled. Maybe he was a nice one. “We don’t kill—”
“But they—”
“I think they were probably just trying to force you to take his place. They mentioned you were considerably more attractive than him…”
He swallowed. His eyes wandered a bit until he shrugged and cleared his throat. “Then what is my punishment for my brother stealing?”
“Imprisonment in this moldy cell and little to no chance of getting out after the ceremony.”
If she could convince him to be nice, to get along with Brynn, and to willingly participate in the hatching ceremony instead of by force, Brynn would give him better living arrangements. Brynn would have a mate… And my sisters will be born.
He could fight for his freedom after.
He crossed his arms. “A ceremony? What is it exactly that you need help with?”
She bit her lip. “Our queen, along with her mate, uses Life Weaving to bloom our new sisters to life. If you agree to help in the ceremony, you will be given better living arrangements until then, and you can fight for your freedom after.”
He blinked and shook his head. “If I agree to help, I get out of this cell and freed?”
“Out of this cell for now and freed after.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You’ll stay here and have a much harder time convincing her to let you go after the ceremony.”
He squinted his eyes. “So, no matter what, I’ll still have to be part of this, uh, ceremony?”
No human had ever been forced before, but they were running out of time. Brynn either liked him and accepted him, or she didn’t, and he’d be forced.
She imagined it would require lots of rope to force him into the ceremony. Brynn would be miserable, which meant they all would be miserable. She glanced down at her fingers.
“And in order to participate in the ceremony, I have to be the queen’s mate?” His voice hitched. “You mean we—me and her—?”
“No!” She waved her hands at him. “No, no. You’re not really mates. It’s done through Vigor. You know, energy? It’s what gives Water Shapers the ability to pull rain and Fire Breathers the ability to ignite anything. No one but the queen knows all the details. It’s a private thing they’ve handed down from queen to queen. But she uses Life Weaving to grow our next generation in the sacred ceremony. Do you understand Vigor?”
He lifted his chin. “I’m familiar, but I’m not able to use mine.”
That didn’t matter. Everyone had Vigor, even if not everyone could use it. “You don’t have to. She’s the greatest Life Weaver out of all of us. She can use it.”
He shook his head. “This is crazy. You realize what you’re saying sounds absolutely crazy, right? Why not just use one of the males of your kind?”
“We don’t have any.” She shrugged. “They died out ages ago when the queens and their mates were… actual mates. This has been the only way we’ve been able to continue.”
He scratched his chin with the back of his thumb. “So, my punishment for sticking up for my brother and saving his life is to become some mate with a beast to make more beasts?” He snorted.
Beasts. He had screamed that down the hallway. It still stung. They were life-bringers, caregivers of the wild. They were far from beasts, but her arguing that point probably wouldn’t help. “It was admirable to trade places with your brother.”
“I thought I was saving his life. You’re saying I just saved him from a marriage.” He sighed. “Marrying Etta is just as bad.”
“What’s an Etta?”
“No. Never mind.” He ran his hands over his face.
“If it makes you feel any better, the previous human males volunteered for the ceremony and fell in love with our beautiful, powerful queens—”
“I don’t believe you, and I couldn’t care less. I have my own people to worry about.” His hands moved to the top of his head. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
Neither could she. His brother had committed the crime. He and his brother had been the savages. Her sisters could have done anything they’d wanted to him, but they didn’t.
She pressed her lips together. “It’s not forever. And you stole the fruit from our future generations. Their food. That’s a crime—”
“We didn’t know.”
“Ignorance is no reason to break into someone’s home and steal—”
He groaned loudly. “We’ve been over this! It wasn’t even me, it was my brother. He got caught by you—you things.”
“And you chose to take his place.”
He crossed his arms and leaned back.
For a predatory species, he was very concerned about not being perceived as a common thief. He shouldn’t have cared. Surely, he had bigger, more terrible things he’d done.
“I understand that we’re not ideal mates to you, but Brynntial, the queen, expects, at the very least, a civilized human. She’d be willing to give you a chance.”
He laughed. “Civilized human? She wants a civilized human? That’s rich. Tell me again how much your kind needs me, and then insult me some more.”
Her nostrils flared. Her ancestors had been able to breathe fire. If she could do the same… “Do you want a better room or not? You can stay here if you’d like.”
He jumped up and paced the cell. “How do I know this isn’t a trick? Your sisters are probably going to eat me, aren’t they?” He stopped to pierce her with his gaze, his jaw clenched.
Could her ancestors roar, too? She wanted to. “We don’t eat people. Who do you think I am?”
Hands on his hips, he gestured at her with his chin. “You’re just as likely to be like the rest of them. Terrible, disgusting… Who do you think you are?”
Someone desperately trying to find a mate her sister will accept so that my new sisters will be born. “I want to get you into a nicer room.”