Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 62128 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62128 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
“Then we should get out there, see if there’s any extra patrols. See what the chatter on the radio is,” someone else chimes in.
This whole room is just a mass of random someones. I should be doing my best to observe all of them. Get their names. Observe their appearances. Right now they’re kind of a blur of rainbow scales. There’s green and blue and orange and red and… no. Not purple. The only saurian I’ve seen with that incredible hue is Avel.
I miss him. And not even just in the obvious sense of hoping he rescues me. I assume he’ll do that. I just miss him. I miss being around him. I miss having his arms around me and feeling more safe and contained than I ever had before. I’m out on my own again now and being reminded harshly how fucking nasty the universe can be.
The saurians are done with me for the moment. As I lie aching on the floor, I hear them filing up and out of the cellar, heavy boots stamping up wood stairs. This has to be a very old building. My feeling that it’s in the part of the city not all that far from the Hall of Bones is growing. They’ve probably got me stashed away in some kind of rat hole right under Avel’s nose.
It’s smart that they’ve got me underground. That’s really not his domain. He might not think to search below the surface. Or maybe he’ll have a sense of who took me…
“Oh fuckkkk…” I groan as realization hits me. In spite of what I just said to that pack of dumb saurians, there’s a very real chance he doesn’t know I’ve been taken. He’s going to think I’ve escaped jail. And then he might even think that my crew came for me. If he thinks that, he’ll think that I’m beyond his reach. He might stop looking before he’s even started. And that might mean that I end up stuck in the clutches of these brutish, murderous monsters until my demise.
5 A PAINFUL ESCAPE
Avel
“How did this happen on your watch!?”
Even as I dress the unfortunate guard down, I know that I am being unreasonable. There should never have been anybody else on watch. I should have stayed on guard. I cannot believe I allowed this to happen. I let her out of my sight and lost her immediately as a result.
The guard is cowering, head bowed in shame and fear. He is no doubt worried about surviving this incident. He very possibly should be. I am struggling against the urge to strike him down where he stands — though I know that my anger is largely directed at myself.
I should have taken her home. I should have whipped her harder, and longer. I should have never allowed her to goad me into leaving her without supervision among others. I have clearly trusted in the integrity of this facility to an extent I will never accept again.
Before I can continue my dressing down of the unfortunate night guard, I hear someone shouting for me in extremely disrespectful tones.
“Wings! Back here!”
That voice makes every bit of my body rankle at once. I know that voice.
“What the hell is he doing here?”
“He was brought in late last night, sir. Disorderly conduct. We were going to hold him for you. Thought you’d be pleased, knowing who he is. He’s been evading justice for years, sir.”
I am not pleased. Hearing that voice in my prison is like finding a scaly egg-eater in a clutch of freshly laid eggs.
I walk back into the cells, where one other prisoner is held.
“Wrath?”
“The very same,” he laughs, leaning against the bars comfortably, as if the cell is his — as if this entire building is his and he meant to be here.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was arrested, wasn’t I. I’ve been a bad boy, I suppose. Not unlike my nephew, Torin.”
Finding Wrath Rivet in my cells is like finding a primal in a mouse trap. It doesn’t make sense. There’s no reason he would be here unless he agreed to be here. He has the resources to walk in and out of places like this at will. And that means he’s amusing himself or collecting intelligence. This cannot be a coincidence.
“I met your human mate,” he says. “She’s impressive, for a walking, talking, hot meal.”
“She’s also gone. Did you have anything to do with that?”
He chuckles. “Can’t say I did. She walked herself out of the cell without much trouble at all. Pushed her way out between the bars, then went over and hid behind the door, waited for the guard to change, and slipped out. Wasn’t exactly a great escape.”
“She pushed her way out from the bars,” I repeat.
“She did.”
The urge to curse is almost unbearable, but I refrain. This has all been an exercise in foolish assumptions on my part. I have become accustomed to trusting in the infrastructure of my domain, relying on cells and guards, and the sheer authority of my position. It never occurred to me that a human with no respect for any of it would just walk through all of it.