“I get they have to limit those that come here,” I say. “Or they'll run out of room. But I just... I want my parents to have this. The things I have to do with Cael and Alaric is a pittance. I sell my body and mind every day back at home, anyway.” I begin to chew at my fingernails. The excitement in me wells, thinking how close I am to talking to my parents. Melantha picks up on it and grins.
“I can't explain what I have with Yuna. She's...” Melantha sighs. My friend's not one for revealing those intimate feelings. So few of us are. “I thought I knew what to expect with relationships and sex. I thought sex would be terrible if it wasn't, well, normal sex. She proved that shit wrong. Cos it's not about getting a dick in there, yunno. It's about the feeling and intensity behind it.”
“Sounds more like making love,” I say. Such an archaic term. Yet it's still powerful, even today. “Not that I know much about that or anything.”
To my surprise, Melantha actually blushes. It's a fainter red than mine, but noticeable enough on her olive skin for me to grin. “You okay there, Melantha?”
“Fuck off.” She pretends to swat at me. “I'm fine. Though... I dunno. It can't be that. Ain't supposed to happen.”
“Who says it's not?” Now I fold my arms, a little surprised by her statement – even though it's exactly what I've been thinking about the situation. “Anything can happen. Anywhere, any place. Maybe we have that whole Beauty and the Beast thing going on. Can't help but grow attracted to those we live with, if they don't treat us like shit. Doesn't change the fact we're captives... but at the same time, we're not really captives. Are we?”
Melantha chews on her bottom lip as she digests the information. One finger threads through her long brown hair.
You know, I always used to think that Belle was such a horrible role model to have in fairy tales. Like, she becomes a prisoner in a castle, is locked with a grump of a beast and somehow learns to like him despite the way he treats her and the way he threatened her father. He doesn't deserve the love at all, really, but somehow it happens. Now I wonder if there's some unfortunate truth in something like Belle. Perhaps we learn to love as a survival instinct. To make our situation better.
And perhaps being in this place, it was inevitable that I'd learn to like Cael and Alaric in their own ways. It's maddening, in a way. Not knowing if I like them for who they are, or simply because this is how I'm choosing to adapt to survive. My body certainly did that. It allowed pain and pleasure to mingle together to become something orgasmic. It allowed me to anticipate every session, and thirst for contact.
“Maybe I do love her,” Melantha says. “Can't say I know what that feels like, though.”
“Guess we'll find out.” We give each other a small smile. Yes. We're trying to survive in our own corner of the world.
I close my eyes for a moment, thinking of the two shifters who waltzed into the auction, argued over me, and bought me over a personal vendetta and desire to exist in each other's lives again. Cael being the vendetta, Alaric desiring to be with him.
One gives me an image of sunshine, along with his easygoing smile and nonchalent attitude. The other has a dark cloud above his dark head, and a grave expression upon his face, as if he's never laughed before in his life. What contrast those two have. One that has laugh lines wrinkling about his mouth, and the other is perfectly smooth, perfectly serious. I can imagine having my hands wrapped around Alaric, feeling his chest expand and contract. Feeling the life bleed in him.
I can also imagine the heat of Cael's breath, and the way his dark hair slicks fast from his efforts. The way his eyes seem to make everything else in a room cease to exist, and they're the only things that matter, the only things worthy of your attention.
I wonder what I must appear like to them. Am I sexy? Do they look at my red hair and want to run their hands through it? Do they see my lips and want to kiss them?
I hope so. It's nice to be wanted.
Not so long after we sit and talk about this, we prepare to go to Tarek and Roxy's place, with drots to pay him, since they don't give usage of the phone for free.
I'll finally be able to speak to my mother and father, Siobhan and Roland. I'm scared now something going to drop on my hopes and crush them into a miserable pulp, but it's not enough fear to stop me from pushing forward anyway.
We have to crunch through freshly fallen snow, taking in the crisp air of the mountains. It has that icy freshness about it that I can't explain. It hurts and vitalizes at the same time. Snow falls from the air in tiny feathery flakes. I tuck my black gloved hands in folds within my coat, which is of a puffy white cool, and has that faint smell of dampness about it, which is unpleasant to the nose. Melantha's wearing brown leather under her black wool, and she appears pretty bad-ass. We hold each other's hands as we slither down the thin pathway that leads to the pink bricked house cover to Tarek's cave.
The excitement becomes something tangible, and when we finally make it through the door, we meet the weasel-like Tarek, who instantly reaches out clawed hands for our drot offerings. We hand them to him, and his wife users us towards the single most glorious thing I have ever seen. An honest to God smartphone, rigged up to an improvised charger, with electronics poking out of the wall near where their main electricity generator is. It's a HTC model, though it could be some brick from the 1980s and I'd still love it. I yearn to touch it, but hold down on my desire enough to let Melantha make her call first.
I've waited this long. I don't mind waiting a little longer.
Melantha shakes as she dials in the number she never forgot, and holds the tiny black phone to her ear, waiting. There's no certainty that her dad will even answer. He might be sleeping or at work. Same with my parents, since just because it looks like it's afternoon her, doesn't mean it'll be afternoon there.
Melantha's face lights up when someone answers her end. I can't hear what she's saying. I didn't want to intrude, and now I regret that decision, because I'd really like to eavesdrop on all that. Her expression turns from elated to a scowl. This must be the part where she has to lie, or risk everything by telling the truth. Tarek is sat nearby Melantha in the small study room, which has a desk with traditional quill and ink, and a document scribed in that black ink, still fresh from earlier writings.
Now I begin to fret. It's bad enough I'm doing this behind Cael's back right now, but worse if I've spent ten thousand drots, only to get a dud call.
Still, I tell myself that this is what I've been waiting for.
Melantha gets off the phone after only a few minutes. I expected her to be talking for longer. Her face is twisted in a kind of sadness, though it doesn't look like regret. She strides over and hands the phone to me, and I cradle it reverently. I can access the internet from this. Message my friends on Facebook, find out what's happening in every day events, if a new war has started or a new boom in our economy.
Instead, because I know I don't have that much time, I browse my Facebook after signing in for my mother's phone number, because I don't know it by heart. When I locate it, I let it ring. My mouth is dry, along with my eyes, though they're several blinks away from sudden tears. My mom's less likely to be working, since she does part time jobs. My father's shifts tend to go up to fifty plus hours a week. I can only hope they're just an hour or so behind time here. The phone rings into voicemail.
I shut it down before it reaches voicemail and try again. This time, after seven rings, there's a click on the other end.
“Hello?”
I savor her voice for a second, closing my eyes and smiling. She has that sharp tang with her words. I took after my father more in the way I speak, “Ma. It's Bronnen. I'm alive. I'm okay.”
There's a deathly silence on the other end of the phone. Then, with a shuddering gasp, my mother goes “My little baby? It's really you?”
“Yeah. It's me.”
“Oh my God. What happened to you? Where did you go? We've been looking for you for months.”
Months? Is that
how much time has passed. I bite my lip.
“The police said we shouldn't keep our hopes us. But... you're alive!”
“Yeah. It's a long story ma in what happened to me, but the thing you need to know is that I'm okay. I don't have long to talk to you – but maybe I'll get another chance soon. I love you. I'm sorry it took so long for me to speak.”
“I love you too. Your father will be thrilled to hear this. But... you don't have long? Are you in trouble? Oh, baby, tell me. Tell me where you are, and we'll come get you.”
“No, ma. I can't. I'm not in trouble. In fact, ma – I've been out of trouble for a long time.”
“Are you being threatened to say this? Are you in danger?”
I realize she likely won't believe me if I say otherwise. Because nothing else makes sense, if I'm phoning, but I'm not coming home.
Because I know now, in listening to her voice, in feeling that knot unravel in my chest, what I want to happen.
I don't want to leave this place. I don't want to go back to civilization. Hearing my mother's normal, concerned tone, knowing that she knows I'm alive leeches all the tension out. I become like liquid, flowing with tight emotions, yearning in a way to just ooze through the phone and appear on the other side, and to give her a gigantic hug and kiss.
Am I selfish, for not wanting to return back? Perhaps. Definitely. Doing this benefits me more than it benefits my parents. And they're still going to leave with a sense of unease, because I'm refusing to tell them where I am. But what's important is that they know I'm alive. And maybe one day, I'll be able to talk to them in a more relaxed atmosphere.
I think I understand why the shifters refuse all contact now. It creates pain. There's the pain of never talking to your loved ones again, and then there's the pain of hearing their voices and knowing that you can't go back. I wonder if all the dragon shifters know we humans would make this choice in the end – swapping our stressful former lives for ones where we have a different kind of freedom, a different kind of beauty. Like those monks in Tibet, or the nomads that roam the mountains, living frugally and without the same pressures we have.
“I hope to speak to you again soon, ma. But I want to tell you one thing. I'm happy where I am right now.” It's both truth and lies wrapped up in a neat sentence, but I won't let her understand the true conflict that rages in my soul. “And I'm figuring things out. Learning to live my life the way I want to. Give my love to father. Tell him I'm okay. Love you. Bye.”
“No, wait, please, tell us where you are, I miss you –” I end the phone call.
I hoped to have made a decent resolution with my mother, letting her know I'm alive, that she doesn't need to worry about finding me dead in a ditch somewhere.
But now I realize that no kind of resolution would ever have been achieved. Of course they would yearn to have me back, to find me at all costs. Tarek watches me from the side. He listened to both sides of the conversation, to make sure us humans don't go too far with our words and put the mountains in jeopardy. He gives me a curt nod. Looks like I didn't break any rules of his.
“It's not easy, is it?”
“No,” I reply, not wanting to say anything else on the matter. A sly smile then curls over his lips. I don't think too much of it, until I leave the room – and see Cael Spiden. Sitting with Melantha and Yuna. Melantha appears mortified, and when Cael rests his gaze upon me, there's fury. Tarek strolls behind me, the smile widening his lips.
“You betrayed me,” Cael says.
Oh shit, is what I think.
Oh fucking shit indeed.
Chapter Eight
“Actually, my prince, that's not what she's done at all,” Tarek says smoothly. He has that oily, ingratiating voice that nauseates me, and I glare at him sharply. Likely he told the prince I was coming here, the moment he knew who I was.
“Oh? But she called. She went behind my orders. She broke what little trust I placed in her.”
“And I've told you before, my prince, that you can't possibly expect your humans to forget about the things they've left behind. They'll do anything to get into contact. And the longer you deny them this fact, the more likely it's going to build up until it bursts. It's natural for a captive to want to escape at some point.”
Cael's face colors, twisting into a kind of lethal darkness. I feel that anger emanating from him in waves, and sweat. I don't want to be a target of that anger. And I don't think it's entirely fair for him to act like that either.
“I should shut down this operation,” Cael hisses. “It's illegal.”
“Yet you agreed to come over here, and you knew about it beforehand. Tell me, Cael. How would you feel, if you were taken from the ones you love, forced to marry a stranger, and never speak to those you love again?” Tarek folds his arms, even as his wife smiles primly, clearly proud of her husband.
“It doesn't matter. It doesn't make this right.”
“It's not sustainable, Cael. Sooner or later, we'll have women dying when they try to escape. We've had it plenty of times before. Out of every one hundred women your clan might get, sixty to seventy of them attempt to escape and die in the process. All because they're never allowed to let their loved ones know they are alive. I give them conditions when they come here. They can't reveal where we are. I eavesdrop on the conversations to make sure they comply. But for the most part, you'll be surprised how much better people are for doing this.”
Cael lets out a huff of irritation. “I don't care. Bronnen, you're going to go back to Alaric. I don't want anything to do with someone who sneaks behind my back.” Then the shifter sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. Calming himself down. When he speaks again, it's less harsh than before. “I'm sorry. I'm... I don't take very well to when someone... goes behind my back. I don't want you to go.” He stares at me now with those brilliant amber orbs of his. It's the first time I've heard him admit something even close to liking me beyond the sessions he shares with Alaric.
“I didn't betray you,” I tell him, though my hands tremble slightly. I can brush away anger easier than some, but it still leaves fear churning inside me when I see it within him. “All I wanted was for my parents to know I'm alive. I didn't want them to live with that uncertainty. I've told you this before. You refused me every single time. And it's hard to truly enjoy myself here when I have them occupying the back of my head. Like... if it was my daughter or son, I'd be devastated for the rest of my life.”
Yes. I'm not usually one to think of children, but I know that if I was in my parent's situation... I'd probably fall into some hard drinking habits to try and forget. I don't think I'd be able to cope. “It's too cruel,” I finish. “I can't do that to them.”
“But now you jeopardize our way of life,” Cael says. “There's a reason why we can't let you do this.”
“I didn't tell them. I didn't say anything about where I was. Who took me. Just... I'm alive, and I'm okay. That's all.”
Cael stares incredulously at me for a moment. Yuna, who had at first been wearing a stormy expression, also softens her gaze. She glances between me and Melantha, who is stiff on her side of the table, as if ice coated her veins. She thaws out a bit when Yuna reaches over to grab her hand.
“Why?” Cael shakes his head. The bafflement in him is clear, and it makes my heart ache. Almost as much as seeing Melantha and Yuna so close. I didn't think seeing these things would make me feel like that. “Why wouldn't you tell them where you are when you have the chance?”
Tarek snorts, but doesn't say anything. He sits there on his leather armchair, with one leg crossed over the over. There's a small wooden seal statue next to it. It's so random, that I find myself looking into the carved eyes, before giving a shrug.
“I actually like it here.” My throat clogs up when I say that. I was going to admit that I liked being here with him, but the words stick, and never find their way out. Admitting that would be akin to saying I like him more than my parents, and it's wrong, somehow. I shouldn't ever say thos
e words. Yet at the same time, my heart does this peculiar lurch, leaping out into my throat against my will. This seems to happen to me more and more nowadays.
Cael now appears at a loss for words. He twitches one foot uncomfortably, and scratches the back of his head. I follow the motion, trying to pinpoint his mood, trying to guess what must be churning in his brain. I think I know what he thinks of me, when he doesn't associate me with betrayal. But I think he doesn't know what I think of him. Then, he says, “Perhaps you better come with me now, Bronnen.”
Tarek scowls, but Yuna makes a slicing motion with her throat, warning him from speaking. I follow Cael silently, leaving the place, unsure what he's making of my words. Does he accept them, or does he want to ream me in a private setting? I'm not sure what he intends, but I'm nervous for the whole walk back. He doesn't bother to shift into dragon form, so I'm left to stare at his wide back, which seems to expand as we keep moving. It expands until it covers every last part of my attention.
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