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I try to throw my hands into the air, but they’re shackled together. “Exactly! That’s what I was saying! I’m not from here, I shouldn’t be here, so you all should just let me go.”
None of them pay attention to me.
Suddenly, a very alarming thought crosses my mind.
What if mencanget pregnant here?
“Sent by the heavens?” one of them says. “By one of the Great Lords?”
More murmuring.
The leader strokes his whiskers. “If that’s the case… He’s worth even more money!”
They all cheer. Slimy hands grab me and pull me back in line. I shout in surprise as someone pokes me in the ass with the tip of their sword.
“Get walking, star man,” they say.
Star man. A David Bowie song starts playing in my head. Things are getting real. There’s no getting out of this. Terror creeps up my spine, and there’s only one thing that I can think of at that moment—Jeff. God, I can’t believe I’m never going to see him again. Never going to feel his hugs or laugh over stupid memes, or talk about the movies we hate… I miss him, that idiot who isn’t even my fucking boyfriend. I want nothing more for him to somehow just appear and save me from this nightmare.
“Oy, look!” one of the frogs near the front says, pointing up at a tree. “There’s a cat up on the branch.”
Sure enough, I see Alyx perched like a raven watching the procession with his green eyes, his tail swishing back and forth below him.
“A snack.” The frog rears his head back, readying to unleash his tongue and snatch Alyx right off the branch.
Before I can shout a warning, the frog snaps forward. Iwince as his tongue blurs through the air. It strikes the branch where Alyx was just a moment ago, sending leaves fluttering down from the tree. Alyx has hopped away. The frog struggles—his tongue is stuck to the branch.
The attack happens so quickly I don’t even register what’s going on until three of the guard frogs standing around me drop to the ground with knives jutting from their backs. The rest of the group breaks into a panic, and the lead guard is shouting to get them under control. The stuck frog is pulling on his tongue, eyes wide in panic. I shout in surprise as something bright flashes past my face and severs the frog’s tongue in the middle. He stumbles and falls over one of his pals, croaking in pain. There’s a knife stuck into the tree. I fall to my knees in the mud and try to make myself as small as possible.
Get me the fuck out of here!
I know I should be running for it, but I’m terrified that whoever this new threat is will send a knife into my back the moment I try to escape.
But then I turn and see Alyx is still perched on the branch. He’s licking his paw and watching all of this go down without a care in the world. Kalistratos, I realize. That’s who’s kicking these slaver frogs’ asses.
Another one drops lifeless into the mud with a wet smack, and the rest scatter quickly. Only the leader is left. He spins around, holding his sword out in front of him like a microphone. My heart jumps when he spots me crumpled in the mud. I try to get up and out of his reach, but histongue snags my arm and hauls me to him with shocking force. The edge of the sword is pressed against my neck.
“Show yourself!” he croaks. “Or I’ll kill him!”
“Put down the blade,” I hear Kalistratos say, and then he appears in front of us out of the forest like a lion coming out of tall grass. He’s no longer naked. Bummer. If I’m going to die here, having an eyeful of hot naked man would be the way to go. His body is wrapped in a faded orange tunic that comes down to his knees and is bound up at the waist with a belt, and there’s a kind of leather bandolier or satchel tied across his chest. How he managed to stay hidden in the intense green of the forest is beyond me. It seems impossible.
“How about a deal?” says the frog.
“I don’t make deals with slave traders,” Kalistratos replies, and without slowing his pace, he draws another knife from the bandolier.
Jesus Christ! The guy is going to get me killed. “Hold on!” I stammer. “I should get some say in this, right?”
“Fuck you!” the frog bellows, and he shoves me forward at Kalistratos—or where Kalistratos was.
But he’s gone. Vanished.
As I stagger around, I see the footprints impressed into the mud and Kalistratos appearing in front of the frog in what looks like a plume of fire that appears andvanishes faster than I can blink. The frog doesn’t even have time to react. It all happens even before I hit the ground. The cold flash of Kalistratos’s knife, a grunt of pain, and the sword falling from the frog’s hand.
“Phoenix…” the frog wheezes. Then it falls face first into the mud.
Kalistratos wipes his knife on the back of the frog’s tunic and sheaths it before coming over to me. He holds out his hand, and I stare dumbstruck up at him. His eyes are startlingly bright, like the color of new pennies. This guy… He’s not human. It’s not just the eye color or the teleportation shit, there’s just something about him. Like, an aura. I can’t explain it; I justknow. And there’s something more, a strange feeling I’ve never experienced before. He’s hot. But it goes so much deeper, and it confuses the hell out of me. Where is this feeling coming from, and how is it something I didn’t even feel with Jeff?
I try to put words to it but come up short. I grab his hand, and he pulls me up. I’m suddenly aware of how absolutely filthy with mud I am.
