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“Well, aren’t they?”
She sits up and looks me in the eye. With one finger, she gently traces my lips. I grab her hand and kiss her tiny fingertip.
“Now if you wanted to stay forever up here, I might agree to that.” She is teasing, but devastation floods through me. Stay orgo? Is the fated bond a blessing or a curse? Could it possibly be both? How do I know?
I can’t. And I fear it’s going to tear me apart from the inside out.
23
MIRA
The weather is foul. A spring storm has turned the snow to slush, and the day is broken and fractured by the shafts of lightning forking down from the heavens. The world feels like it is splitting in two as the thunder rumbles across the sky a mere moment later.
I’ve put it off as long as I can. I’m already late for my shift. Dragging my hood up over my head, I slip through my front door and into the teeth of the storm.
Within ten paces of my apartment, I am soaked to the skin and frozen to the bone. A sharp gust relieves me of my hood and the hat beneath. I grab frantically at them, but my hat flies away into the dark looming sky and my hood instantly fills with water.
Maybe I should have waited. I’m sure Satay would understand. But it’s too late now, I’m out in it. I have to press on.
With my head down, I lean into the wind. I don’t see the three guys coming until they are right on top of me. Three more fools out in the storm.
As I draw closer to them, one of them steps into my path and I stop. Do I know them?
To my shock and horror, he pulls back his arm and smashes me in the stomach with his fist. I almost vomit as the pain is so excruciating.
What the fuck?
As I’m doubled over, gasping for breath, another of the three grabs my arm and twists it painfully behind my back.
I scream. “Get off me!” But my words are lost in the wind and driving rain.
“Come on, let’s get her off the street,” I hear one of them say.
“No one else is idiotic enough to be out in this weather,” another retorts. “Let’s have a bit of fun with her first.”
“Later, man, we can’t risk it.”
Gruff hands drag me off the path. “Help!” I scream as loud as I can. “Help me, someone, please! Help!”
Terror grips my heart as my assailants manhandle me further up the remote mountain and away from any chance of salvation.
“Stop. What do you want? My boyfriend is rich. He’ll pay you if you let me go,” I try desperately.
“Your boyfriend is why you’re here,” one of them hisses in my ear. “You filthy human scum.”
My heart freezes, realizing they are Kiphian Purists. Though humans are generally regarded as bottom feeders on Kiphia, there are only a few crackpots that take it to the extreme of wanting them dead. I’ve never really had an encounter like this, but I’ve always been afraid of it.
They’re going to kill me.
I start to thrash, kicking and screaming. “Help me!” I scream into the wind.
It replies with a flash of lightning that almost blinds me and the thunder roars in my ears.
“Shut her up, will you,” says the leader into the relative silence that follows.
The next thing I know, I’m waking up in some kind of barn. There is hay around me and the scent of animals. My clothes are still drenched, but the storm outside has subsided. I lie still, frozen to the bone and shaking with both cold and terror.
Where am I? And how did I get here?
