It was what everyone around them was doing. Males. Females. Chids. It didn’t matter the age.
They all woke early and went to bed late, working tirelessly to mine the metal from the unforgiving rock.
His and Sohut’s bucket was almost full after a day of digging tirelessly, their small hands broken and chipped by the sharp rock.
“It’s almost full, Sohut,” he said. “We’re almost done for today.”
Sohut sniffled.
The dust in the mines irritated the soft lining in his nose, making it difficult to breathe.
Every time Sohut sniffled, it hardened Riv’s resolve to get them out of the mines one day.
Their mother had sent them there to die but they wouldn’t.
He wouldn’t let it happen.
“Just a few more, Sohut. Then our bucket will be full. Then we’ll be done. We’ll be done and they’ll let us rest.”
“Is that so?” the voice beside them had Riv turning quickly, his small hands closing around the adult-size mining chisel.
Sohut’s eyes widened a little, his ears pricking from beneath his hair, as he saw who it was.
Traakni leered at them. He was a tall male; a merkannian by blood, but his golden skin was almost completely hidden by the dirt and the dust from the mines.
Traakni blinked at them with his one eye and Sohut moved a little out of his view.
It wasn’t the first time that Traakni had come to steal their days’ work. As a matter of fact, he’d done it before, many times, and gotten away with it. And Riv had been the one to take the whippings for not turning in any metal—whippings and working all night to fill the bucket, only to spend the following day working his normal shift, too.
Mining talix metal was hard and some degenerates in the mines preyed on chids like him and Sohut, preferring to steal than to do an honest day’s work.
No one in the mines could be trusted.
He’d learned that early.
They all hated working for the horrible Tasqals, but being in the mines was better than being in the Tasqals’ beds.
At least, that’s what he’d heard some of the older miners say.
He didn’t understand what was so bad about being in a bed. A bed was better to sleep in than the hard floor of their cave down in the mines.
“Leave us alone, Traakni,” Riv said, standing his ground in front of the adult male.
He didn’t care that Traakni was older than he was. Stronger.
He would fight him if he had to.
He had to be strong for Sohut.
They were all each other had.
“Oh shut it, you little shit.” Traakni moved quickly, grabbing their bucket filled with metal and emptying it into his own.
Riv watched him do it, the world slowing down completely with Traakni moving in slow motion.
He didn’t know what happened.
It was a fire within him that he didn’t know had been there.
He was tired of it all. Tired of thinking this had been a mistake and his mor would return for him and Sohut. Tired of believing in such a fairy tale. Tired of working in the mines.
Tired of the endless labor.
Tired of the nightmares that reminded him it was the one person he trusted in the world that had caused him and his brother such a fate.
He lashed out, launching himself at Traakni, barreling his small body into the male’s side.
Traakni’s one eye widened as he jerked backward.
He hadn’t expected retaliation and, on the uneven ground, he couldn’t regain his balance.
Riv watched, frozen as if watching a moving clip, as Traakni fell over the edge, the talix metal falling with him.
A sickening crack had echoed upward and Riv gulped hard, his small heart pumping in his chest hard.
“Is he okay?” Sohut crept up behind him as Riv’s heart began hammering even harder.
He wanted to answer Sohut, but he didn’t know.
He didn’t know if Traakni was going to be okay.
“Riv?”
Sohut’s voice sounded…different.
Riv turned to look at his brother.
Sohut was disappearing ever so slowly, his body fading along with the mine around them.
“Riv?”
He’d been wrong. It wasn’t Sohut’s voice.
This voice was female. He’d heard it before, too.
Eyes flying open, darkness greeted him.
There was no chink-chink of metal in buckets.
No mining sounds.
No smell of sex, sweat, or dirt.
He wasn’t in the mines anymore. He was home.
His home.
His quiet home.
Releasing a breath, he rubbed a hand over his face before he froze.
That voice.
The female voice.
Surely, he’d been dreaming.
She hadn’t…
Turning his head slowly, almost painfully, to the side, Riv stiffened.
She had.
The female knelt by his sleeping cushion in the dark, her hand hovering over his arm as if she meant to touch him but paused in the process.
His systems suddenly felt overloaded. The mere sight of her so close, in his room, made the pent up anger from his dreams burst within him immediately.
Moving much faster than she expected, he snatched her offending arm by the wrist.
What the phek was she doing in his room? Who invited her into his private space?
“Are you lost, human?” he growled.
She was close enough that he could feel her deep breaths on his skin as her breathing picked up pace.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” he snarled, inadvertently leaning in closer, and that was a mistake.
Her scent filled his nose, fueling his anger and setting something else aflame within him at the same time.
She’d entered his room for a reason. A reason he wanted to know.
Deceptive beings—males, females, everyone.
They always wanted something.
No one was there to trust.
The female winced a little and he could see fear enter her eyes as he held onto her wrist.
Her play at innocence was irritating and he wished she’d drop the act.
She was wasting time trying to deceive him.
It wouldn’t work.
“What do you want?” The words were hard to get out. They felt constricted in his throat, coming up through his gritted teeth. He wanted to snarl at her more, tell her to get out of his
