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My mouth opens and closes to answer, but no words come out. His statement has shocked me to my core. He runs back towards me and reaches down, grabbing me underneath my arms and swiftly lifting me over his shoulder. My head falls down, my arms bending, placing the palms of my hands against his lower back to steady myself, but I still feel like a ragdoll as he spins around and sprints off once again. My cheek brushesagainst the side of his furled wing and I’m instantly reminded of a peach.
The high-pitched screeches and snarls of our pursuers sound closer than ever. I really want to raise my head and have a look at how close they are, but I’m scared at what I might see.
I can hear Phalon panting, his efforts to outrun them sounding like he’s running at full capacity but struggling to stay ahead with the extra body weight slung over his shoulder.
Then in the next moment, I’m knocked from Phalon’s shoulder and tumble through the air, the ground coming up fast. I land hard and the air is forced from my lungs, pushing out through my gaping mouth.
There is a sound of flesh pounding flesh from behind me and it sickens me to the stomach. I know without looking, our pursuers have caught up with us and Phalon is now taking the brunt of their ire.
“Get the female Koda! Lynch and Flax. You take Phalon. Zoar is going to be so ecstatic we have found him, and so fucking delighted we have an extra surprise, as well.”
Phalon’s voice comes out in a croak as he gasps for air. “Don’t fucking touch her.”
Sharp claws dig into my shoulders and turn me over. That’s when I get my first look at more alien men the same as Phalon. I gasp when I see pure evil. Physically they are no different to him. They are all tall. All with furled wings and the same pewter grey skin. All cut to shreds like the statues of the Greek gods I’d seen in a museum one time on a school trip. But that’s where the similarity ends. Their faces are scrunched up showing puckered lines on their brows and cheeks. Their black eyes soulless and their fangs protruding, reminding me of demonic vampires from vintage horror movies.
A strangled squeal comes pitifully out of my mouth and then I turn my head and empty the very meagre contents of my stomach onto the beautiful blue leaves covering the ground.
The Badligon standing alone growls. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, spittle stringing from my lips. “At least now we won’t have to gut her.” The others laugh and I baulk.
I’m torn from the ground and once again thrown over a shoulder. I punch at my captor’s back, but I’m a kitten up against a mountain lion. My thumps are pitiful and bounce pathetically off his rock-solid body.
I hear Phalon groan as he’s man-handled by the other two Badligons, and raise my head to see him being dragged in between two of them, his head lolling forward as he hovers between consciousness and blacking out.
“This way.”
The one who appears to be in charge of the others is walking ahead and the Badligon holding me follows.
The pace is slow, and my eyes begin to see coloured dots in front of them as blood pools in my head. I fight to stay conscious myself, and just as we enter a clearing in the forest I pass out.
It’s cold wind blowing against my face that wakes me up. I flutter my eyes open and instantly grimace at the pain in my shoulders. Looking up I see a Badligon above me, his wings flapping hard. My stomach turns over when I realise I’m up in the air again, only this time with just the grip of the Badligon’s talons on my shoulders being the only thing stopping me from falling to my death.
Camping my eyes tightly closed again, I fight the urge to dry heave because there’s nothing else to come up.
A few minutes later, it’s as if the sunlight is slowly being turned down with a dimmer switch outside my eyelids. I fling them open to see we are entering a cave.
Panic rises in my chest as we begin to descend. Unless I’m a worldclass rock climber, there’s no way of escaping the bowels of this cave unless I’m flown out again, and the only one who could do that is Phalon, but the last time I saw him, he was being dragged behind me in the forest.
My breath gets caught in my throat and my stomach tightens as I wonder about his welfare. But I can’t ponder on it for long because I suddenly feel a solid surface beneath my feet.
The talons gripping my shoulders uncurl and I drop to my knees groaning in pain, unable to raise my arms to feel if my skin has been pierced because they are so numb.
A clicking noise catches my attention to my left. I peer into the dimness trying to see what’s approaching. A filter of light from above casts a tubular glow in a diagonal glow line to the ground directly where the noise is coming from, and I watch the space where the light touches the ground. I’m shocked to see the noise is long talons tapping the smooth surface of flat stone on the ground.
My eyes are wide as they follow the talons up thick legs, a ripple of abs and large chest to the squashed features of another Badligon. A thud behind me stops me from studying it further as I twist my torso to see what made the noise.
When I see it’s Phalon’s crumpled and bloodied body, a squeal of shock escapes my throat. I think he might be dead. His chest rises up and down and I almost cry out in relief.
“A female.”
The icy words send a chill running along each vertebra in my spine.
Chapter 6
Phalon
“A female.”
I lay on the ground and continue to act like I’m injured. They gave me a good beating back in the forest, but I can take punches and kicks for hours, an empty stomach is my weakness. But when I hear the interest in Zoar’s voice for Felicity, my muscles tense and I slowly get to my feet.
