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His ear flicked, and a disgruntled look crossed his face. “I have decided that I do not fancy having a female with me any longer if you are just my prisoner. It lessens the moments I enjoy with you, knowing that you are there only because I captured you. I had intended to release you after we concluded our bargain, but now I wonder if you would stay.”
“I… I need to think about it.” She placed her hand on his as a look of disappointment shuttered his expression. “But only because if I stay, it will mean forever for me. I can never go back home if I willingly stay with you. You have freed me in so many ways, but I must make sure that it is the right decision for me.”
A faint smile curled his mouth, and he inclined his head. “Of course. If you are not eager to flee me when all is said and done within the court of the human king, then I would be pleased if you would remain with me as my guest while you think it over.”
She wrapped her arms around his thick neck and hugged him, loving his warmth and hating the brutal collar pressed between them simultaneously. She couldn’t wait to free him once more and toss the damned collar into the sand. It was wrong to her on so many levels that they were going to be entering the city, with Samir tethered to her like a beast.
“Do not fret, Abby,” he rumbled soothingly as he scooped her up and tucked her against his chest. “Rest. I will wake you when it is time.”
Sighing softly, she nodded and snuggled against him, the tempo of his heart thumping beneath her ear, slowly working its magic as she drifted to sleep.
She would lose everything by staying with him… but how much did she really have? And was what she truly had worth sacrificing the happiness with her monster?
The two choices before her danced within her mind, showing the alternate futures that lay before her. One where she was a huntress, alone except for her crew and hunting dangerous things within the depths of the woods as she always imagined that she would do, and the other where she was nestled within him in their comfortable cave. Perhaps they would have a brood of offspring. But in her dreams, she saw her hunting by his side, protecting the people who depended on them when not passing their days comfortably together. It was that future that gave her a sense of contentment and warmth deep within her heart.
Perhaps the decision wouldn’t be so difficult as she imagined. She hadn’t decided by far. She wasn’t even sure what she felt for him was the sort of love to base one’s future on, but she would figure it out and then give him her answer. Even if it took her a few years living as his guest in his cavern to work it out—would that be so bad? He was a monster—and he made no pretense of being particularly human-friendly. He was, in fact, in possession of very violent tendencies. But never once did he use them against her beyond chasing her in pinning her in place, which was more foreplay between them than anything. And gods, how she wanted to be with him.
Abby smiled in her sleep and rubbed her cheek against a soft pelt of fur, a rattling purr carrying her deeper into her dreams where he waited to take her on new adventures.
The city was justas busy and alive with foreign sights and sounds as Abby remembered, but this time, it was fraught with a different kind of energy. The populace shied away from them as she walked with her leashed manticore down the main street that ran through the city to the palace, rising above the public buildings on the other side of the market. Despite the distance the people kept from them, they watched fearfully, as if they expected at that moment that Samir would break from Abby’s control. This was despite the precautions that they took to render him harmless in appearance and for which they had carried a bag across the desert filled with the bindings she tirelessly attached at his insistence before getting within sight of the city.
Smaller manacles bound his arms and legs as he prowled on all fours to keep his stride checked. There were short chains running between his bound wrists and another between the manacles on his legs and both chains were connected in turn by a longer chain so that he had no hope of successfully running or leaping. There was also an enchanted golden band that ran across his mouth, held in place with a leather strap, stifling his fiery breath and blocking his ability to bite. Even his tail was bound to his back, where it couldn’t inflict damage.
He was rendered as helpless as possible, and still people stared at him as if he were about to strip their flesh from their bones. It annoyed her more than it ought to have. She knew people were afraid of monsters and had every reason to be—elsewise her family and many other hunters wouldn’t be necessary. But her hand tightened on his chain as her teeth gritted tightly together as they made their way down the street.
She noted that word appeared to spread rapidly of her arrival because the moment she stepped out of the market, an armed escort surrounded her, blocking off the crowd while making a show of forming a barrier to protect the populace from “the beast.” This much she knew from the bits of language she could decipher shouted from the guards, warning people to remain back for their protection, that they had arrived to secure the beast and bring it before the king for the reckoning of the gods. It was not the first time Abby heard of a king being referred to as a vessel or even a half-divine descendant of a deity, even if it was used to justify their absolute authority no matter how deplorable they were as a ruler, so she kept her expression flat as she followed the men who took positions in front of her.
Samir did not appear to even react to the guards, not even when Zayman finally joined them at the palace gates. A look of shock appeared and disappeared on his face as his gaze briefly appeared to search someone out before returning to her. Abby’s gaze drifted away from his displeased expression, noting the considerable height of the palace walls and the luxurious greenery and gardens just inside in contrast to the rougher buildings, signs of suffering among the populace, and the open vulnerability of the city beyond them. It seemed that the king was well fortified against anything that the desert could throw at him—including his own people.
Zayman edged in closer to her side, opposite from the manticore, drawing her attention back to him—and Samir’s sharp glare as well as he leaned in with an unwelcome familiarity, though he didn’t notice. “This is not what we agreed upon. You were not paid to fetch a monster, but to do what your people do—hunt it.”
“I saw an opportunity and took it. A generous king will reward someone well who can bring him fabulous sights,” she murmured.
Zayman scowled but sighed, his eyes rolling upward. “As it happens, you are correct, and the king is beside himself with a chance to include a fabled manticore to his menagerie.”
Abby made a non-committal sound, choosing to ignore the part about the menagerie. She had said she would show the king sights, not that he could keep them, but that seemed like a detail that she would be wise to keep to herself for the time being. Instead, she watched avidly as he waved away the guards and gestured for her to follow him as they proceeded beyond the gates and along a path paved with literal gold through a courtyard garden to the ornate palace rising at the center of the royal complex.
The elegance of the courtyard gardens was breathtaking and yet they were filled with flowers that she recognized from the northern lands where the weather tended to be temperate and wet. Fat roses bloomed, forming long, graceful hedges, and she wondered in passing just how much water to keep the heat from killing them. The lush scent of the flowers mingled with other fragrances from the numerous flowering plants that were displayed in fine urns and rode up trellises. It was a fantasy garden of delights that she was certain likely hid away more than one courtier absconding with their lover. She was suddenly glad for Zayman’s company as her escort. She certainly had no interest in coming across any trysts. Although she considered herself far from a prude, it was just one other thing that lent to the carefree decadence of her surroundings that made her distinctly uncomfortable. It was as if no one within the walls had a care for anything happening beyond them and she found that highly concerning.
“His majesty Vincent Decort has a great love for splendors,” Zayman continued dryly. “He spares no expense on his vast gardens, as evident before you, nor on his menagerie off the west wing where he explores his various entertainments.”
“I see,” she murmured. “And is his majesty expecting us or…”
“He has cleared his schedule for you,” he interrupted sourly, his lips pinching as if he were sucking on one of the lush lemons hanging from the citrus trees, their branches of which they were currently passing under. “Nothing competes with his love for his entertainments.”
“I see,” Abby murmured as a twinge of uncertainty struck.
If he valued his amusements over his affairs of state, she suddenly had a bad feeling that the king would be less than willing to release Samir even after she presented his offer. If he insisted on adding the manticore to his “collection,” there was little doubt that things would get volatile quickly. Samir was willing to be humbled by removing his defenses to get his audience with the king, but he would not take kindly to being caged like a beast. The manticore’s thought seemed to head in a similar direction because the chains binding his legs rattled louder and his steps became warier and more resistant the closer they got to the palace door.
“We aren’t meeting him in the menagerie, are we?”
“No, thank the blessed gods,” Zayman retorted, his nose wrinkling. “The king may love his collection, but he at least spares his loyal subjects from being subjected to the deplorable stench of his beloved creatures. We will be meeting him in the throne room.”
The throne room, it turned out, for all of its extravagance and obvious indulgences put on display and enjoyed by the courtiers, was nothing short of chaos. Laughter filled the room along with the overly sweet smell of the burning, sticky residue gathered from the sap of the sweetwell weed. A woman, clothed in nothing but gold chains fastened ornamentally around her wrists, ankles, belly, collar, and head, lay stretched out on a table in the middle of the room as men drizzled a thick, honey-like substance over her sex and breasts. The woman’s pupils were blown out, likely due to the sweetwell, and she seemed oblivious to the raucous laughter or what the men were doing to her as they rubbed the liquid onto her breasts and between her legs.
“What… what are they doing?” she whispered.
“Impromptu entertainment,” Zayman casually replied. “The manticore has some semblance to a man and monsters are known to have a fondness for honey and milk like many other creatures that came to our land during the collision. In short, they want to see if the manticore will feast carnally upon the woman and take his pleasure on her before devouring her whole.”
