He sits beside me. I can see the bulge between his legs bunch upward. Yep, he likes my attention a lot.
He pulls my wrist to his lap, his dirty fingers and split nails curling around to hold tight. Drawing the knife up, I look at the rust and blood painting the shiny surface. I force bile back down my throat.
“Don’t eat it,” I say, head heavy.
“You’re nothing like I expected.”
“You’re not what I expected.”
“Come with me.” He is suddenly dragging me into the shadows, away from the others. I cannot breathe.
I try not to panic. A girl who likes him wouldn’t panic over being alone in the dark with him.
“You want to be mine?” he asks. “I’ll keep you.” I can smell the death on him, his unclean flesh and putrid breath rolling down my skin.
His hands come up to my chest, my body jerking when they both paw softly at my breasts.
“Small. They are small.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no, I like them.” He opens my cloak to expose my dress. It’s a dusty lilac colour, the king’s hue, but he cannot see any colours in the dark. “I’ve never been with a girl who wanted it before or was alive.”
Shit. My throat burns with bile.
Even as I try to remain calm, my body shakes violently. I’ve never been touched by a man before. My hands won’t move, but I think I am supposed to do something.
To touch him.
All I can do is steel my spine and let him fondle, but when his breathing becomes rough and his hands too firm, I blurt out, “I’ve never been with a man.”
I hope that he will slow down, but his hands continue to work on removing my dress; I block out the feeling. Bare, rough fingers slide along my skin; I concentrate on breathing.
Disgusting lips move to mine, meet mine. A tongue pushes in, and I twist my cringe of disgust into a moan of false enjoyment. But when the hard length between his legs presses against me, I stumble backward and hit a wall.
“Wait,” I pant, exhaling his horrid breath from my mouth and inhaling clean air to replace it.
“Okay!” He huffs. “I’ll cut it off first.”
“Cut into the fat, too,” the words spit out, “make sure it’s all gone. Then put it down the drain.”
“You’re a wild girl.”
I sob. “Then we can be free.”
“I am free.”
My hands shake. “We can be free together.”
This might keep me alive, might make him defend me against the others, might… give me time.
Or that piece of me might float down the drain. I don’t know what I’m doing. I grab my forearm, displaying the tattoo, twist my head away, and close my eyes.
A cold blade presses in and slides under my skin, curling the flesh and fat from my muscles, burning a trail so intense it sends violent noises up my throat.
I try to keep quiet, but it hurts, and a real groan crawls along my tongue before I can stop it.
I quickly mutter, “I’m sorry.”
But it is too late.
“Wait. What the fuck?” One of the men is awake, but we are still hidden in the shadows of the large room. “Where is she, you damn fool!”
On a mission, I grab the slice of flesh, perfectly removed—a strip branded by The Trade—and move to the drain. I squat, shoving it between the grates. It disappears under the building and out of sight.
Fat is less dense than water… It might float. It has to float. Float all the way to the dam or irrigate yards that are managed by Trade men. They will see the sigil; they’ll alert someone. It is a wildly arbitrary plan, but it is all I have.
I look down at my wrist, a shiny strip missing, the raw, bloody flesh screaming in the exposed air. My head spins. I lose my fight against the nausea. It swoops in, my muscles loosen, knees buckle, and I drop straight to the floor.
“Your tongue can’t be trusted, little girl. Let’s take it off for you. It gets you in so much trouble.”
His threat rattles between my ears moments before a black silence swallows my world.
Chapter Five
Rome
Odio screeches above me.
Blood mists the air. On my right shoulder, orange first-light filters through the dark skies.
I stride across the dry range littered with twitching bodies, using my steel-capped boot to push them from my path.
My hood flaps in the wind.
Arid, hot air cuts across the sea from the north, carrying the scent of death, decay, and victory. Air that travelled The Strait, picking up the sharp notes of fish and boat oil. The invaders made it to the shore at Breaker Ledge, such a remarkable feat. They should be proud.
Only to be killed on the desert sand.
Holding my automatic rifle, I stride up the hill wanting the epic view of carnage. My thigh muscles burn, my lungs rattle. It’s been a long night.
“Spare me,” a weak voice says, and I stop halfway up the rock. The tip of my boot dusts the side of a Common man’s face. Eyes wide with terror, blood flowing like a fountain around a bullet in his throat, but still very much alive.
I hover, giving him a final breath before I step onto his head, popping his skull against the hard red crust of The Cradle. “Meaningful Purpose starts in the womb.”
I reach the top of the desert plateau, the wind threatening me, but I am too fucking big to be swept over. To be thrown backward. To be controlled.
I look out over the desert range, through the sand-mixed gale, and distinguish the grey shapes that represent bodies. Hundreds of them. And further in the distance, their cargo ship wedged on the shore, cutting the red sand open. Everything is red in the waste.
Moments ago, screams of pain, automatic rifles running and rattling, and wails for aid pierced the atmosphere. A continuous thunderstorm of chaotic noise.
Now, silence rides the wind.
Only the phantom of war stirs.
“You’re wounded, Sire.”
I touch my shoulder, feed my fingers through the leathers to a warm, wet spot and poke it. I barely feel the bullet hole, not above all the other senses sparking with action.
I smile coldly. Perhaps, I’ll leave it there. Like my father did, claiming all the silvery lead inside his body like trophies for his tissue.
“I am fine.”
“But it may fest—”
He stops midsentence when I turn to face him. Him—a random member of my Guard wearing a full mask to help him breathe through the gale. The sand would fill his lungs like an hourglass.
Staring directly at him, I breathe deep, the thin films of skin in my nostrils vibrating, filtering the sand and air. I was designed for this world. “Did you speak?”
“My apologies, Sire. I only wish to serve you.” He salutes me, and ducks away with his rifle clutched to his chest.
Alone again, I take another moment but feel the presence of an old friend quickly approaching.
Odio’s wings flick sand and debris around us, further clouding the atmosphere. His talons hit the red crust, and his left wing touches my thigh. A greeting.
Giant creature.
His beak drips with blood, slithers of flesh dangling, slapping his face in the wind.
“Beautiful,” I say to him.
“You’ll need that seen to, boy.”
Kong.
My brows pinch.
At least my Guardian respects me enough to only call me boy when we are alone, though, I do not care for it under any circumstances. “Did we lose many to these rogues from Ruins H?”