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Else, the Dark Ones would simply take.
Zai’s fangs ached to penetrate a pulsing vein filled with hot, sweet blood.
The stranger would do rather nicely. Though he was clearly not Pure, he wasn’t quite human either.
He was somethingmore.
Zai couldn’t determine exactly what he was, but he smelled and moved differently than humans. He also looked and was built like an Immortal. Almost as tall as Zai, broad and leanly muscular despite his youth.
He looked like a fighter, and none of the humans were fighters. They were cattle and sheep when they were docile, rabid dogs when they were mean.
But taking the stranger’s blood would be breaking Zai’s personal rule, arbitrary and stupid though it was.
What Dark One restricted his kills to only aggressors and villains? Who subsisted only on an animal diet and resisted his bloodlust at every turn?
An exiled, contrary, soft in the head ex-Hunter, that’s who.
In answer to the human who still waited upon him, Zai simply shook his head once. The human scuttled away quickly as he and the stranger took their seats.
They didn’t speak as they waited for their food and drink, both of them scanning the establishment for any sign of danger or threat.
Zai was secretly relieved that the male didn’t chatter nervously. Calm under pressure was a trait he admired.
The human returned shortly with another servant carrying trays piled with a veritable feast. Zai waited until they left to dig in, clutching one large roasted pheasant leg in his hand and ripping into it with his teeth.
When the stranger simply looked at him, as if awaiting his permission to do the same, Zai gestured with his drumstick to have at it.
The young man’s eyes lit up with relief and barely-suppressed hunger as he tore into the food ravenously.
They ate in silence for a long while, simply focused on filling their bellies and wetting their gullets. Zai debated whether to stay in the establishment for the rest of the day until nightfall, or to head back out.
It would be risky, this close to the citadel, to rest in a crowded place. While he kept his mark of exile hidden within his cowl, there was always risk that he might be discovered.
The punishment was death.
He was taking an enormous risk by coming back here.
It had been two decades since Queen Gaia’s demise in an ultimate battle with Elementals. Two decades since he’d made his miraculous escape from the torturous hell she’d consigned him to for betraying her.
In the intervening years, a new millennium had turned, ushering the rule of a new Dark Queen—Ashlu Da-ni-gal. Gaia’s daughter by an unknown sire, since the Blood Moon Queen had never taken an official Consort.
By all accounts, Queen Ashlu was less brutal and bloodthirsty than her mother. But then, she was still growing into her reign, still trying to ascertain who her allies and enemies were. That Dark Ones ruled supreme over all living beings was still a given, and Pure Ones were still at the bottom of the power pyramid.
If Queen Gaia still lived, Zai would have thought a lot longer and harder about coming back to the capital.
Ultimately, he would still have come.
He must do this. He owed it to his own sense of honor and justice, what little conscience he possessed, however misguided it might be.
It was all he had left.
“Thank you,” the stranger said, finally breaking the silence.
“You didn’t have to stick up for me or share your feast. You have my gratitude.”
Zai grunted, gnawing on a large bone, crunching into the marrow.
He didn’t need anyone’s thanks. He didn’t do it for the stranger. He did it because he had trouble reining in his stupid instincts.
