Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
We swept past a doorway made of hanging fur. Heat from a crackling fire greeted me with open arms, and I closed my eyes for a moment, savoring the warmth.
A bald man in his thirties sat beside a teenage boy, both too thin, with sharp angles and hollow eyes. They crouched over a book, reading together.
The boy looked wrongly familiar. A memory tugged, unformed and unsettling. My mind couldn’t make sense of it.
“Gerald?” one of my guards said.
The man and the boy looked over, both of them examining me with equal parts curiosity, confusion, and intrigue.
“Queen Elowen says I’m to quote her verbatim, my lord,” the guard added.
My pulse skittered.
The guard’s cheeks pinkened as he cleared his throat. “Gerald, my sweet, we’re now even. Consider the oracle and her pet monstra payment for my daughter, and our bargain officially concluded. Send my sweet Iris home. But be careful. The new girl bites harder than the monstra. Just make sure she promises not to run before you remove the bindings. As you know, even in Lawless Forest, a water maiden is bound to her word.”
My world narrowed to a single, brutal point. Payment.
The word struck like a stone to the chest, knocking the breath from my lungs. I wasn’t bait. I wasn’t collateral. I was currency.
My jaw clenched so hard it ached. Queen Elowen hadn’t just arranged this. She’d calculated it, trading me like an object passed across a table. My life for Iris’s.
Betrayed! I’d known it. Known. It. Yet I’d worked with her, anyway. Fool! Never trust a water maiden. Never, never.
Gerald stood, propelled by excitement. “Another monstra?”
“Yes and no,” the other driver said, clearly confused. “It’s some kind of hybrid. Half-monstra, half-human.”
“He isn’t to be harmed,” I stated, using my most authoritative voice. Difficult to do while my teeth were chattering.
Gerald turned pensive.
The same shadow I’d seen in the farmhouse bathroom entered the hut, sucking up all the oxygen. Despite the fire, a wave of cold swept over me. My knees quaked. Be my imagination. Just be my imagination.
A slow grin spread over Gerald’s face. Did he not see the shadow? “A he-beast to pit against the beast-beast. Excellent.” He rubbed his hands together. “Prepare the arena. Have the women cook whatever morsels you managed to scavenge. Tonight we celebrate the death of our next meal and the arrival of our oracle. She’ll see what others can’t. Hidden burrows. Migrating herds. Caches left behind. She’ll show us where to find vast resources of food for months. Years!”
The drivers released me, dropped the pack and strode from the hut, passing through the shadow with a shudder. They might not see it, but they definitely felt it.
Not just my imagination. I gulped.
“You go and clean up, Thomas. We’ll finish your studies later.” Gerald motioned for the boy to stand. “As my son, you’ll host the festivities and teach the people to love you.”
Thomas. The name echoed inside my head, a hammer against rock. “Does anyone call you Tommy?” I rasped. If he was who I thought he was—or would grow to be—he would one day butcher humans limb by limb and feed them to his people.
I’d tangled with Tommy. Jasher had killed him.
“Only my friends.” The boy rushed off, passing through the shadow and shuddering as well.
Mind spinning. I had time-traveled again. I was in a trapper village. The same trapper village. Only, they hadn’t descended into cannibalism. Not yet.
A bitter laugh bubbled from me. Words followed, spilling out, unstoppable. “You’ll be thrilled to know your people do, in fact, grow to love Tommy. Especially when he brings in bounties of fresh meat.” Humans, young and old.
Perhaps Elowen’s memory serum was also a truth serum.
Gerald closed the distance. He was a little taller than me and as gaunt as his followers. Excitement danced in his dark eyes. “Fresh meat is exactly what we seek.”
The monstrous shadow moved too, coming closer. Tension stole through me.
Gerald clasped my arms and peered down at me. Earnest. Eager.
The shadow whooshed over to rest hands tipped with smoky claws on his shoulders.
Don’t stare, don’t stare.
Gerald must have sensed the intruder at last; his pupils blew wide, as if death itself had whispered directly into his skull. He released me in a hurry.
The shadow removed its hands, too, and I breathed easier.
My companion relaxed enough to say, “Your queen says you bite. Is that true?”
Ignore the shadow. Ignore, ignore, ignore. I didn’t want it to know that I saw it. “I bite, yes. But only when threatened. And she isn’t my queen.” Deep breath. “You mentioned my…friend.” I wouldn’t call him a pet. “He’s not a monstra, not really. He’s a man. If I’m to find you a vast supply of food, he must be kept safe. And at my side.”
Best course of action: Play along. I had what Gerald wanted. Well, I didn’t have what he wanted, but he thought I did, and that was what mattered. Although, yes, I did wish I had the ability to help him save this village from its terrible fate.