AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I still do not understand why this being, above all, deserves so much scrutiny, but I’m not one to deny myself my fundamental needs, even if they have evolved.
I turn around to face her, standing as tall above her as I can, then looking down at her from above, widening my eyes and baring my fangs once more.
“Tell me why they’re after you,” I say. “I’m through with your lies.”
9
ARIELLA
Iam shivering under the wet clothing which Zyranth drenched in the spring. The shirt is ill-fitting and the parts of it that the spring managed to cleanse are stained pink, but I am liberated now that my shackles lay broken and separated on the floor beside me. I still do not understand this creature. I’m not sure if I ever will.
All around me are the dull roars of distant monsters in this cavern, accompanied by the steady drip of water from the ceiling to the cavern floor.
He demands an explanation for why I was in the Dark Market, and I hesitate to tell him why, for five years, I have been bound there. In his eyes, I see a deep awareness growing every passing moment, but there are some aspects of human nature I don’t think he understands, regardless of how obvious they might seem to me.
“The reason they’re after me is that I belonged to them.”
Confusion crosses his features, dimly illuminated by the natural light. Somehow, standing in this cold clothing tightly bound to my form and dripping still, I feel more exposed than I did before.
“You belonged to them?” he asks me. There’s a trickle of blood running off the side of his maw from an earlier kill, and I try to avert my eyes. “In what sense do you mean that?”
A rising anger announces itself in his voice, and I’m not sure whether I’m the cause or something else is.
“You know how humans –”
“Humans don’t get along with elves. I understand that,” he says, his growing impatience and irritability obvious. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Several years ago, they took me from my home and killed my father,” I confess.
It’s the first time I’ve really admitted it out loud before. For these past several years, I have been moving from one place to another without much thought, just accepting my circumstances and dealing with them however I can.
I’m somewhat surprised by the shock on his face. I had assumed that he had an understanding of how this worked.
“I was in the market square because the dark elves see me as their property,” I say.
But beyond the look of surprise, there is still a layer of confusion.
“So these dark elves take you as their property,” he says. “To what end?”
I shrug. I never thought I’d have to explain the slave trade to somebody before. Zyranth is a cruel beast whose origin I don’t understand, and he terrifies me still, but there are also aspects of him that are definitively childlike.
“Well, sometimes, humans are used for their strength, assisting in labor tasks,” I say. “But I was being used as a breeder.”
“A breeder?”
“Once somebody purchased me, they were going to have sex with me repeatedly until I bore them children.”
Chills run down my spine as I think again about what I am running away from. It’s another thing made more horrific by being spoken aloud.
“And this sex would be against your will?” he asks. “They would force you to have sex with them?”
I nod.
“And those scars, the ones I didn’t give you?” he asks. “Were those given to you by your captors?”
I simply nod again. Beneath the surface, I can see the rage forming in his mind, brightening the golden sheen of his eyes and tensing his muscles.
I try to wrap my brain around his anger. A creature whose existence is devoted entirely to killing and eating prey, including humans like me, has objections to the way in which I was held. To other people harming me.
