Page 23 of Brutally Mated
I have to pretend I’m interested in their plan. “What’s in the city?”
“So many wonders,” Thorn says, enthusiastic. “If you liked the candy store, imagine a place with a thousand candy stores stretching for hundreds of miles. And they don’t just sell candy. They sell things even better than candy. They sell everything you could imagine.”
“Wow,” I say. “And what else?”
“And there is a royal castle where the king lives with his mate and their two mates.”
“Okay. And what else?”
“So many technological wonders,” he says. “There are machines everywhere, ones that fly and ones that drive. You will never be short of entertainment.”
“And that is where we are going to live?”
“Yes,” Krall says as he too enters the room. “Eclipse City will be where we raise our pups. It is the best place for them. The safest for young wolves. There are many places in this world where our kind is hunted. In Eclipse, we are exalted.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Wolves rule Eclipse.”
“Wow,” I say, hoping I sound suitably impressed and maybe even excited. “I’m hungry.”
“Stew is on,” Krall says.
No sooner does he say that than a human carrying a big tray with a loaf of bread, a hunk of butter, and a big pot of stew that just barely covers the sweaty scent of the man himself appears. I try not to recoil in disgust too visibly.
I am relieved when he leaves the tray in Krall’s hands. Krall carries it across to the table at the corner of the room, and distributes the bowls on the side to each of us.
It’s a really big, very full stew.
“What’s the animal?”
“Cow, I think.”
We don’t have cows in the mountains. We have sheep and goats and hares and such, but cows are too big and need too much grass and water to survive up there. The meat is juicy and somehow kind of sweet as well. There are root vegetables and florets of something, and the butter is so buttery and the bread is very bread-y. It’s delicious. I consume as much of it as I can until my stomach feels sort of taut. I almost wish I hadn’t eaten so much candy, and that’s a frankly insane thing to wish. Candy is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth, and I am pretty sure I would do crime to get more.
Having pretended to give a damn about their plans, and pretended to like the stew, I go about pretending to go to sleep.
I don’t want to go to sleep. I don’t want to be in this room. There are so many smells here from people who stayed here before. Itmakes me uncomfortable. I bet humans can’t smell the mattress, but I can.
“I am going to sleep on the floor,” I say. “That bed is disgusting. It smells like it’s been full of animals for years.”
“We’ll put a blanket down for you.”
“Please don’t,” I say.
Krall gives me a look, as if I am spoiled or something, but I’m asking to sleep on the floor, so that leaves the bed to him, which he should appreciate.
“Your old bones are getting lucky,” I say.
Thorn squeaks with amusement. Krall glowers at me for a moment.
“True,” he says. “And they need a bath.”
Settling down in this room feels uncomfortable. I have never felt so captive. Last night I did battle against the shades. Tonight, I look at the moon out the window and yearn to do so again. I’d rather be torn into a thousand pieces than sleep here in this stinking little chamber.
I am almost asleep when I am woken by a slight movement near me. I am grateful for it at first, because without it I would lose my opportunity for escape, but when I see it is Skor, I feel my lower belly become immediately tense.
He looks down at me, then crouches next to me. We are alone, in the sense that the other two are fast asleep, and I feel thatcrackle of energy between us, stronger now than I felt it on the mountain. I was distracted then. I’m not now. I can feel him in a way I do not feel the others. There’s power in him, the same way there’s power in me.
