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He tilts his horned head, soft white hair cascading over his shoulder. His chiseled expression is that of a man, but little else in the way of anything human can be attributed to his form. Three sets of wide wings are folded against his back, and his body is the size of the biggest orc I’ve ever seen, perhaps bigger. And when I look down, I recall flashes of what lay beneath his flowing robes.
“You’re real.”
“Did you think I wasn’t?” The question is hard, almost accusing. There is no room for patience as he sets down a sack that was tossed over his broad shoulder. “Why are you not in bed?”
I can feel a deep tremor in my core, and my eyesight blurs. “No. No, no, no,” I sob, grabbing fistfuls of my hair and trying to drag some reality from my scalp. “It’s not – It’s notreal, it can’t be…”
A powerful hand grabs my wrist and yanks me forward. “Quit this madness.”
He forces me to look up at him, but I can’t maintain his multiplied gaze. A scream escapes me, not of my own volition, and my whole body seems to lose its strength all at once. He lets me go, and I shrink into a trembling mess at his feet.
Tears chase down my cheeks, and I can feel the press of his disappointment.
But I can’t control myself. I thought he was another hallucination brought on by the heat of the desert, not a creature, amonster, that took me to his hovel and had his way with me. The flashes of memory rise to the fore, and I remember his serpentine tongue between my legs and his – “Oh, gods… what did Ido?”
“Nothing I didn’t demand of you.” I can feel his shadow come over me. “You are my pet now. So, quit your howling.”
I’m still shaking my head when I feel the press of a boot against my side, then it rolls me over and presses hard against my sternum, so I’m pinned between this monster and the stone. If he wanted to, he could crush me without much trouble.
The air rushes out of me as I squirm beneath him. “Please. What am I doing here?”
His nostrils flare as if my question irritates him. “Are all humans squawking imbeciles?”
I catch hold of his boot in a vain attempt to catch my breath when he releases me all at once, then moves away as if the conversation has bored him. He turns his back to me in exchange for the sack that he throws atop a flat surface to rifle through.
I sit up, feeling ill, and clutch my knees to my chest to still the quavering in my core. “What are you going to do with me?” I ask, daring to glance at the shelf full of skulls. Will I be added to his collection? The thought sends me reeling into myself again, spiraling until the whole room is spinning with me.
I catch myself against the stone floor. “Please, just tell me the truth.”
He ignores me for his own task.
“Whathappenedto me? Whoareyou?”
I glance up at his powerful form, the strong cut of his back beneath soft flowing robes, and notice the twitch of his wings when he glances over his shoulder. “I am called Peliel.”
“Pel-iel,” I echo, finding my voice through chattering teeth. “I only want to go home.”
“This is your home.”
Each breath is agony. My heart is pounding in my ears. All the world has narrowed to this pinpoint of reality in Peliel’s home.My home.I am to be his pet until he grows bored of me, and then he’ll do terrible things to me.“Just like the dark elves.”
I feel more than see him whip around, and when I look up, a scowl has come over him. “There are no dark elves in my territory, human, donotevoke their likeness here. Words hold power.” He seems to cool slightly, looking down his nose at me. “Well, at least mine do. Now,quiet. I have work to do.”
I bite my lower lip until I taste blood, pressing my forehead to the cool floor. It is imperative that I keep control of myself around this Peliel, or gods know what he’ll do to me if I disobey him again. It all went upside down the moment I left the safety of my cave.
I could have died in peace there, surrounded by my friends.
Mother, Warden, even the cold Ezekiel.
But I am here, made to supplicate a monster in his own home until he finds a better use for my body and mind. If I have not gone mad already, I know he’ll drive me to insanity by the end of it all with that handsome and terrible face.
12
PELIEL
When I think I’ve finally gotten her to shut her mouth, she proves me wrong again. The chatter is incessant. The complaining never stops.
Some plans require careful study. What I know is that orcs and elves are moving into my territory. I do not know why, or what they’re planning. Quashing the invasion of my territory is as simple as snapping their spines and ripping out their skulls.
