Page 14 of Taken to Kor
I start to laugh.
I start to sob.
I start to sweat even though I’m freezing freaking cold. I’ve never been so cold. Not even when Mathilda used to turn the cooling system way up and take away my blankets just to torture me.
I wave my wrist around in the cubicle of darkness in front of me. It’s a duct. Maybe for air. Well, not air because this place doesn’t seem to carry enough oxygen, if any at all. And it’s gross in there. Covered in an even thicker layer of the rot that’s all over the halls. So thick that it’s entirely changed the shape of the duct. What was, I assume, once a rectangle or a square is now a rugged, misshapen series of sharp edges and knobby lumps.
“What is this shit…” I moan, then sniffle. What is this shit? I hate it! I hate all of this! I hate hate hate hate hate…Svera! Shroving, Svera! Why’d she send me here? I’d rather be back in that box with my dear, darling grandmother watching over me.
As I smash my body into the duct and pull the grate back into position, using the dagger to try to wedge it in there tight and prevent anything from following me, I start to laugh with no sound. Crying and laughing tastes the same in silence.
The duct isn’t bigger than I am and an immediate claustrophobia sets in as I crawl. I crawl until my arms and legs give out, until the crying-laughing gets so intense my whole body shudders with it, like I’m vomiting but my body’s got nothing to give up but the packages I was munching on and I have no desire to find myself covered in barf that looks like shit.
I collapse.
My hand is shaking so badly it takes me a dozen tries to reach into my pocket. Where is it? Where is it! I almost pass out. I think I might have passed out in my panic, but only for a breath. I’m not breathing. I drag air into my lungs in wretched gulps, then cover my mouth with my hand to keep it quiet. I hold my light under my chin and look down the length of my body…down.
And there it is.
A pale shadow of a person with a mouth that screams and hands that catch. It’s crouching just out of range of my torchlight. All I can see are its fingertips shuffling back and forth. And then it releases a terrible squeal and charges forward, sounding like it’s in pain. It grabs every part of my body, but its fingers slide uselessly over my pants. I have the dagger in my hand and lurch up, banging the shit out of my forehead on the top of the duct.
It clings to my clothing, trying to tear it and succeeding.
My head clears of the butterflies that knocking my noggin made appear and I fuel all the strength in my entire body into my left arm. I stab.
I stab and stab and stab until the thing goes limp on top of me and blood fills my mouth that tastes metallic and salty and a lot like the blood that I tasted earlier on my lip. Wait a second…it tastes like my blood. Myhumanblood. The blood tastes human…
I’m woozy under the thing’s crushing weight. I don’t know if this particular carpet is male or female or if it’s even still alive. I’m sure it can’t be with as many times as I stabbed it, but I can’t stab it again. My arms aren’t working right.
I close my eyes and turn away from the smell of it. It doesn’t smell likeanythingand that frightens me weirdly more than the taste of its blood. It should smell like something, but it doesn’t. It’s just a weird wet weight on top of my body, its head resting on my boobs, its torso pressing down on my bare stomach. It ripped through my shirt like it was nothing.
My fingers are in my pocket and I find the token this time with surety. I pull it out and shove it into my ear and I pray to the Tri-God that my mother so devoutly worshipped and that I never believed in that Rhork has not forsaken me.
Rhorkanterannu rhymes withI’ll do anything you need me to if you just get me the fuck out of here.
4
Rhork
Nothing. It’s all that runs through my mind.
Deena would likely try to rhyme the word with something. I heard her rhyme inconsequential words together when she thought I was not listening to her all the time.
But I was always listening to her, wanting to shout at her that her rhymes made no sense, wanting to tell her that I was coming for her as soon as I determined how I could keep her all to myself.
And now I’ve lost her.
I laugh wickedly to myself. It is a laugh that the pirates on board this ship know not to question. They don’t speak to me, but continue shouting and bickering among themselves as they scour the star maps for signs of the escape pod. It could be anywhere.
I lost it.
That’s twice now that I’ve let a human female slip from my grasp. The first time, I should not have underestimated the power of bonded Voraxian males to their Xiveri mates. I did, and my crew paid the price. We lost a dozen good males that day and at least a dozen wretched ones. And now I let a little human female with a husky voice that has come to replace my own conscience make off in my escape pod and I did not catch her before she jumped.
The escape pod that carried Svera and her mate away, I expected to jump. But I did not expect Deena to know how to do this. Svera’s mate must have taught her how miraculously in whatever brief moments they shared together. I wanted Svera and her mate to get away.
I would not dare confess this to my crew, but I knew what they were planning. I could hear into their pod, every gory and salacious detail. I heard as they were picked up by Eshmiri reavers. I know that they will face their trial on Evernor. And I know that Svera’s male will fight and win for her because I now know not to underestimate a bonded Voraxian male to his woman.
Onefemale foronemale.
