"I know that," he said softly. "And I know you could've handled it yourself. It's just...seeing him - it - come at you...fuck! I don't know."
He released me as if I had burned him, pacing. His eyes occasionally flashed towards the decaying corpse.
"What the hell even is that thing?" I asked, nodding towards the disgusting creature. His - I was under the impression it was a male - features were unrecognizable now, the fire completely eating away the rest of his skin to reveal the brittle bone beneath. That must've been one hell of a fire. Even where I stood, now a few feet away, I could feel the heat it emanated in blistering waves.
"I'm not certain...but..." Bash trailed off, casting a scathing glance once more at the corpse. I raised a brow at him to continue, and he sighed resignedly. "It reminds me of a story my dad used to read to me before bed. About a princess, a prince, and the monster that attacked and killed her. The prince killed himself in grief."
"That was the bedtime story your dad told you?" I gasped in disbelief, heart breaking for younger Bash. “That’s fucked up.”
He tossed me a glare.
"Not important. Anyway, the creature was described exactly like the thing that attacked us. Holes for a nose. Circular mouth with hundreds of little teeth. Gray skin. It scared the shit out of me when I was younger."
"What is it?" I repeated. There were minuscule pains all throughout my body, but I couldn’t tell the source. The fight hadn’t been too strenuous, so why did it feel like I ran twenty miles? I absently rubbed at my nose, shocked when my hand came away stained with blood. I hid it behind my back before Bash could notice.
"A Revenant." Bash's voice was quiet, but it carried easily through the suddenly stilled forest. Not even animals wanted to bear witness to what had transpired. The tranquility was nothing more than an illusion, betraying how fucked up everything actually was.
Bash sighed once more, a hand combing through his blond hair. "They have been extinct for years now," he admitted. "That...thing...shouldn't exist."
TWELVE
DAIR
Father stared at me over the dinner table, fork partially lifted and a contemplative expression on his face. I squirmed, unease prickling my skin at his undivided attention. Even Tavvy noticed my father's uncharacteristic interest in me, skin wrinkling around his eyes and brows in irritation.
Poor, envious bastard. For once, he wasn't the center of attention.
What Tavvy didn't know was my willingness to sell my soul to escape my father. I didn't want his attention. I didn't want those crystal clear blue eyes, the same shade as my own, to be fixated on me with an interest that made my hair stand on end. I didn't want to be on the receiving end of his punishing hand, his cruel words, his excessive games.
But freedom was a foreign concept, one grafted from this improbable ideology that we were actually made to be free. That was a lie. We were born only to serve those in power. To bow down to those higher than us, stronger than us, faster than us. It wasn't so much a hierarchy as it was a way of life.
You were either born with power, or you weren't.
But every person, my father included, had a weakness. His weakness wasn't physical, but mental. It was the same affinity that plagued the rest of my family and species. Envy.
It was for that reason alone Father had dozens of wives, each one a different age, a different skin color, and a different body type. His favorite wife at the moment, Marcella, sat in the seat beside him, dark skin and dark hair a contrast to my mother's own golden hair and golden skin - a trait that I had inherited.
Marcella, noticing my stare, leaned over, revealing her ample breasts and cleavage. Disgust filled me instantly, and I turned away. Tavvy had no such qualms, flashing Marcella a sultry grin and unabashedly staring at her breasts. No doubt, he would track her down and fuck her later.
As was always the case with Father's new wives.
Tavvy got jealous, fucked them, and then let Father know. More than one woman had paid the price for Tavvy's transgressions even if the woman hadn’t been a willing participant.
More than a few of Father’s wives had come onto me as well, despite my disability. I knew they only wanted me to prove a point, to mark me off their list, put a notch in their bedpost, to tell the world that they had conquered the impossible. I hadn't ever been inclined to indulge myself in such scandalous - and frankly, disgusting - activities, but that distaste had turned into complete and utter revulsion now that I had found my mate.
Of course, the rest of the world didn't know about that. It was a secret I would take to my grave until the time was right.
My father...
The cold hearted bastard would steal her before I could stop him. Before any of us could stop him. We may be the princes, but we were suffocated by the rules and regulations of courts. That wasn't to say that we wouldn't break all of them for Z, we would, but it meant having a relationship with her was slightly more difficult than one would anticipate after meeting his mate.
Not one of us was against running away with her. Leaving the Capital and never returning.
But we knew Z would never stand for it. As crowned princes, we had the capability to actually make change. To fix this world that our parents broke. Between the human work camps, the resistance groups, and Aaliyah, it wasn't practical to run from our problems. Not yet, at least.
"What did you do today, son?" Father asked. It took me a moment to realize he was talking to me. It took me another moment to lift my jaw off the ground at the realization that
