Page 4 of House of Kallan
“How did they manage to keep a unicorn?” Malacai asked, horrified.
Zuri shook her head. “I couldn’t begin to fathom. However, we don’t think he was actually being held. As with the few oni in captivity, we think they’re there for another reason.”
“Oni are stupidly hard to keep,” Bailey said with a frown. “Unless the humans have figured out that they need to bebathed in light?”
“Nope. The onis’ cells are just as dark and dank as the others,” Zuri said, shrugging.
Why stay, then? They could likely break everyone out.
“We have an oni friend,” Kohara said. “While he’s unbalanced for an entirely different reason than just being a demon, I don’t know that we can take his answer when asked why with anything but a grain of salt. He said there’d be no reason he could think of to stay locked up. When presented with the idea that his friends and/or family were there with him, he said he’d take the place down to get them out.” He shrugged. “Again, take this lightly because, as I said, he’s a little… unstable.”
“Anti-social disorders are common in demons,” Bailey said, nodding.
“But they’re staying there when there’s torture going on when they could stop it,” Jordika said. “I don’t understand why!”
“Unless we speak to one that’s been locked up, we likely won’t have an answer,” Zuri said. “We have teams that aren’t affiliated with The Harem Project meticulously dismantling ORKA agencies methodically. They’ve begun on the West Coast of the United States and are working their way east.”
“Why did they begin there?” Taylour asked.
Zuri shrugged. “That’s where they found the pegasi being held. I think they were chasing that lead to try to free the herd that was taken. I didn’t ask for a reason.”
“Anything else?” Bailey asked.
“Still looking into the connection between Silence and ORKA,” Zuri said, shaking her head. She looked at Kohara. “As you know, there was an incident last year on the island of Iano. From what I’ve personally seen, Silence didn’t have a reach there. However, ORKA had moved in and when we raided their home facility, we found Silence’s hit list of families with targets over them. One such family lived on the island and was somehow apprehended by ORKA.”
“Which only lends credence to the idea that there’s somecommunication and coordination between the two,” Kohara said. “But the only thing we’ve seen is conjecture and speculation based on what we’re finding at ORKA. Because the findings are widespread at different ORKA locations, we have to think there’s something connecting them.”
“Which seems laughable when you really think about it,” Malacai said. “These monsters have a god complex and are trying to extinguish entire species of supernaturals. Would they reallyseek helpfromhumans?”
Kohara shrugged, chuckling. “Believe me, we’ve discussed that same point many times. Honestly, we don’t know what to think. But that they’re somehow capturing apex monsters and at least a handful of branches have somehow acquired the magic of a supposedly dead sorcerer…?” He shrugged again.
“I think the real question is, who is behind ORKA?” Zuri asked. “I think we need that answer, but no matter how many computers we break into, there isnothingthere indicating the very top of this pyramid.”
“Maybe there isn’t a single point on the pyramid,” Jordika said. “Maybe it’s a step pyramid and there are many seats at the top.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that we can’t find the top to know who sits in the seats,” Zuri said. “It’s as frustrating as it is kind of fascinating. If the situation wasn’t so dire, this could be like an expert level game of Clue.”
Chuckles circled the table. That seemed to be the end of the discussion on ORKA, and attention moved to the sanctuary programs. There were a handful that I loved to learn about, but I was too distracted today. There was a lot on my mind and if the conversation wasn’t concerning one of the top most issues in my head, my mind wandered.
I was really hoping to expand my program in the future to partner with the family branch and match my mothers and their monster children to harems looking for their completion. I knewthat was a loftier idea than what was reasonable. Especially since I’d never looked into how recruiters determined that a human might be a fit for a harem.
Maybe that needed to be my first step.
Then again, these poor humans had been through so much at the hands of monsters. Could they really bring themselves to be trusting and vulnerable in a multiple-monster family? Probably not. Yet, that would be the best spot for a human and their monstrous offspring. But was that reasonable?
Maybe we needed to be more inclusive in this family-building process. We cater to poly families because that’s what family unit monsters gravitate toward. But humans like monogamy. One could argue that was what they were taught, since so many of their ancient ancestral societies that really pushed monogamy were actually polygamist at their core.
Then again, one was about love, and the other about access to sex. I supposed those weren’t the same parallels to draw on.
Of course, maybe we didn’t want to talk about human history. They also thought gender should be factored into family dynamics. That’s just barbaric.
Still, I wanted to find a way to give these women a more permanent future. One where they were not scared and ended up living in terror that something they couldn’t identify was just around the corner to take them again.
That’s no way to live.
I wouldn’t be bringing this up today, though. Not until I had a fully formed proposition ready. Unfortunately, that meant that my girls were still going to be sitting in Haven and never fully learning not to fear their children.
The foster/mentor program would be a start. I could acknowledge that. A supernatural family that was willing to take in a child and their human parent would definitely teach both human and child how to live their new reality.
