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For my part, I now inhabit a cage on the dais next to Kain’s throne. I have been here for three full days, and my captivity is designed to be a humiliation. I must relieve myself in a tray, which is removed through a slot and replaced, and when I eat, it is from the scraps of Kain’s plate. He does not follow a vegetarian diet.
One would think that I’d not see Kain all that much, given he is alpha and can do as he pleases. But Kain seems enthralled by the throne and does not want to leave it. He is like a small child with a new favorite toy. Or a power mad psychopath laboring under the misapprehension that the chair itself contains some magic.
“I’m surprised he is taking so long to come,” Kain says. “I want to be sure he sees me on this throne when he does. I want him to see me sitting in the seat he was groomed for, my feet on the pelt of the father who terrified us all.”
I am also surprised that Azlan has taken so long to come, but for different reasons. I am starting to fear that he may not come; perhaps it is not worth it to him. I hope the cubs are being fed and growing strong. I hope so many things from the restrictive, almost constrictive cage.
“Perhaps you could get your guards to notify you, and then you don’t have to keep sitting there,” I suggest.
I don’t really give two fucks if Kain sits on the throne so long it grows into him, but I do know that my survival probably relies on ingratiating myself to him.
“I could,” Kain muses. “But many of the guard are still loyal to my father, even though he was a nasty tyrant.” He rubs his feet along his father’s pelt. “This fate was too good for him,” he muses. “I did what Azlan should have done years ago. What anybody should have done years ago.”
Kain, it seems, really needs someone to listen. I’m not stupid enough to feel sorry for him, but I can tell he does not have any true allies or family. He has those he dominates, and those he fears.
“When I was but a cub of ten or so, just as my mane had begun to grow, this piece of shit took me out to the pride lands and left me there,” he says conversationally. “That is what he did to all his sons. Did Azlan tell you that?”
“No,” I say softly, not wanting to break his flow.
“Azlan is the reason I survived a single day out there. He was a cub of twelve. He had been on his own for some time, but he was smart and resourceful, even then.”
Does Kain know he’s praising his brother? I don’t interrupt him.
“Azlan showed me how to hunt small prey effectively, and how to get water from the dew. He showed me how to survive like an animal survives, because that is what we had been reduced to. I was much beloved of my mother, and thought she would surely come for me, but she did not. He prevented her from doing so. In the female quarters, there are thick collars and even thicker chains attached to the beds, so a mother might be bred and made a mother again.”
He sounds deeply bitter, and I do not blame him. Males are worth nothing in this society if they are not alphas. They are abandoned and left to die, if they are suffered to live at all.
“Azlan did what he could out in the pride land,” Kain says. “But many died. Sometimes they were left out, already too badly wounded to save, or sometimes an injury would lead to an infection we had no way to cure. My formative years growing from cub to man were spent struggling to live and seeing many fail that same struggle.”
They are certainly doing much better now than they were. The pride land is still a very basic place to live, but there is impressive tech, compared to my asteroid home. Especially the ships.
“How did you get the ships?”
He looks at me as if he’d half forgotten I existed and laughs.
“We stole them. Azlan, Nyan, Skol, and I cut off our manes and crept into the city one night dressed as females. There is a mighty shipyard beneath the city, you may not have seen it. We crept in, and we each stole one ship each, not knowing at the time that they were designed to function as one. But when we did find that out, it made sense. We’ve always survived together.”
It sounds like he misses his brothers. None of them have followed him here to the throne. I know for a fact Azlan has no interest in becoming the new Leonidas. I wonder if they might just let him languish here, a mad king on his father’s throne.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Kain glances over at me, then lets out a little laugh at the fact he is worrying about telling me anything at all. “Of course I can. You are caged.”
I nod with a little smirk of agreement.
“I am not even interested in females,” he says. “I prefer to lay with males. For a while, I thought that was part of the reason my father rejected me, but it was not. He never knew that about me. He never knew anything about me.”
“So why did you take the females?”
Kain shrugs. “Tradition?”
“But the cubs…”
“They hid the bloody cubs, from what I hear. I didn’t want that to happen, but the guards were following Leonidas’ old protocols, and so…” He shrugs. “This is what tradition gets you.”
“Then why didn’t you just order the females released…”
“Why didn’t you do this… why didn’t you do that?” Kain puts on a high-pitched whining voice that I suppose is meant to be me. “You ask a lot of annoying questions.”
“Sorry,” I say, not wanting to push Kain too hard. He is being useful to me, even if he doesn’t intend to be. “I have learned more about Azlan from you than he ever told me.”
