Chapter 10
“Are you fucking shitting me?” Vergis threw up his hands. “You went from runaway mate to gold digger pretty damn fast, human.”
“You cannot blame a hangu for—” Nokim began, but Vergis snarled in a way that made me break out in goose bumps.
“He’s not a hangu, in any sense of the word. All human fetuses start out on the female blueprint, so they all have nipples, that’s it. Trust me, this dude is no more a hangu than I’m a horse.”
Vergis wasn’t even shouting. He was saying it calmly, but with a sort of icy precision to his words, every syllable carefully controlled and neatly intoned. It was scarier than if he’d been shouting. He added something in their language that sounded just as hostile, just as precisely venomous.
Fellisse grunted. “We have learned that Rory is a magical conduit, that other humans have used him to craft a spell, that the human anatomy never ceases to gift us yet more mysteries, and that our mage wishes to investigate this spell even if the conduit does not. I have two questions for you, Vergis. First, why do you want to investigate this, and second, is it likely that whoever cast the spell might have more use of this conduit yet?”
Those were more words than Fellisse had spoken altogether since I’d gotten here, and I felt stupid now for underestimating him. I’d thought Lissir was the smart one in the group—he was back to looking at me like I was a puzzle he needed to solve—while I had underestimated the biggest of the bunch.
Nokim set down his tray and respectfully held out a mug to Vergis. Vergis ignored him. Lissir got up, took the mug Nokim was holding out instead, and walked back to the mattresses where he once more sat next to me.
“Active conduits aren’t as practical to keep around as passive ones,” Vergis said. “But I’d want to keep any conduit regardless. We’re going back to the Stone because we need to know what they did and whether anyone helped them. I’ll be able to analyze the magic there.”
Inkiri cursed, and I felt him stiffen. “You’re thinking someone from Aer might have done this. You think they know there are mages among humans while magic is dying back home. You think our people want to take the magic from these human mages.”
“I think some of Aer’s inbred so-called high mages might come over and that it would ruin the place.” Vergis looked back at me. “You can stop making googly eyes at your love-besotted Raikenga. He has a brain, you know.”
“I wasn’t—excuse me?” I blushed. I hated that Vergis had that effect on me, and not in any kind of sexy way.
Fellisse growled and looked at me. “Rory, did anyone try capturing you that day at the Stone? Or after?”
“What? Back then, uhm… It was chaos. So many people simply vanished, you know? There was a whole group of school children there, and I remember the screams and the panic.” The group had significantly shrunk all of a sudden.
Actually, before they’d panicked, everything had gone deadly silent.
“I just sort of wandered off.” I didn’t want to say that I’d actually had trouble piecing those specific events—the ones directly after I’d said my wish out loud—together later on.
It was a blur, the kind of thing people talk about after a traumatic experience, which it totally had been.
One thing I remembered very clearly though.
“There was a sort of flat brown monster there that… It attacked some people just outside the gift shop, and…you know. It was bad, and I’d never seen anything like that.
What it did—eating, but… It was bad. The screams were the worst. There—one woman, she… It ate her feet first.”
After that, I’d run. I’d hidden. I hadn’t slept in the same bed twice for at least two months out of fear, scouring the internet in the hopes that the nightmare would end soon, that the government would do something and fix it.
But it had never ended, and no one had come up with any idea of how to fix it.
Inkiri rubbed my arm. “It’s fine, sweet thing. You’re safe now. I told you that, remember?”
I wanted to trust him, but I’d seen so much blood.
Inkiri whisked the mug from my hands, and only then did I realize I was shaking.
On my other side, Lissir clicked soothingly and took my hand in his.
My mouth was going dry. Why was this happening?
My skin was tingling, and my chest was too tight for my pounding heart.
“He’s chilly,” Lissir said.
My vision was darkening, and I felt dizzy, weak. Like I was about to die.
Inkiri clicked at me, the low noises now actually soothing. He kissed my neck, then pulled back. My body didn’t feel right. Fear made my arms and legs heavy, and I just wanted to curl up into a ball.
They talked in their language. It was easy to just close my eyes and shut all that out. Lissir stroked my head and neck and kept holding my hand while Inkiri pulled me against him. I was effectively the juicy human filling in a monster sandwich.
Vergis stormed out at some point. Well, he turned into a shadow that passed through the room silently and out the same glass sliding door through which I’d first entered the house.
After an indeterminate amount of time, I found myself huddled between Inkiri’s legs, which he had pulled up onto the mattress. They were still talking in low voices. My head was pressed against his chest though, and his steady heartbeat drowned out most of the rest of the world.
I took a shaky but deep breath. “What language do you guys speak?”
Inkiri paused his clicking to bend over me and wipe at my cheeks. “Lugarra, sweet thing. Our language.”
“Not everyone’s language.” Lissir had the tone of voice of someone repeating himself over and over. “You didn’t fake that, did you?”
I shook my head. “No.”
Fellisse hissed. “He really is frail.”
I glanced over at the big monster. It didn’t seem as if he was criticizing me, he was likely just voicing a fact. Maybe this was all a cultural thing to begin with. I wasn’t sure I was a good ambassador for humans, but here I was. Being frail.
“I think humans are adorable.” Nokim held my honeyed coffee out to me. “Here. I used the microwave on this.” He narrowed his cat eyes at Inkiri. “Your mate call definitely draws you to him?”
“Yes. Get your own human. Rory is mine.”
I still felt like shit physically, but this?
I liked it. I’d found myself a man who would ravish me and proclaim I was his, never mind that said man happened to be a monster.
As it turned out, I liked all of that just fine, including his monster buddies.
It was a revealing truth college had not taught me about myself, and I guessed the trip to Europe had paid off, in a way.
Fellisse made a grumbling sound deep in his throat. “That’s his choice. He’s also a conduit. It bears considering.”
I sat up a little straighter so I could get back to my coffee. Nokim had brought food from the kitchen too and laid it out on the tablecloth now. There was bread and jelly and mashed potatoes—not a breakfast food in my book, but Nokim had said something about potato pudding.
I was pretty sure I’d had a panic attack.
I’d never had a panic attack before, but there had definitely been moments when my heart had started racing for no reason, and I’d needed to take a minute.
Several minutes. Had Nokim cooked all of this, including the steamed greens that I was pretty sure were chard?
Panic attacks sucked, but I was hungry. Sex really got one’s appetite going.
I took a deep breath. “I can’t do magic. I also don’t want to go back to the Hill of Tara.”
“We know, sweet thing.” Inkiri’s soothing voice scattered my thoughts, and his warm breath tickled my neck. “It’s just that you’ll be safer, ultimately, if we can figure out what happened that day.”
Fellisse hummed. “Yes. We also need to make certain no one wants you. When conduits still existed among bagua, they were sought after. Hunted. The Koa Esher especially were eager to have them.”
Fellisse’s face darkened as he said the last bit about those cola ash people, whoever they were. I decided I didn’t want to know. All I wanted was to enjoy my damn coffee in blissful ignorance.
I cleared my throat. “Someone might want me. I don’t think they have anything to do with magic at all though.
You see, there’s this, like, commune that I mentioned before?
They’re very religious. They didn’t want to let me leave.
They needed everyone they could get for slave labor—working in the fields, you know?
There was a lot of praying too. I guess if you actually happened to have a uterus, they’d want to breed you, whether you were okay with that or not. ”
Lissir hissed and said something in Lugarra. “I’d like to meet them.”
I looked over at him. “You want to de-horn them? What’s that you said, sake?”
Lissir tilted his head. “Yes. Sakkir. But since humans have no horns, I would cut off other things. All the things. Or rather teach your hangua how to do it since humans don’t seem to put any effort into that important bit of education.”
I narrowed my eyes and finished my microwaved, honeyed, and all-round excellent coffee. “So hangu means woman. You’ve been calling me that, and I really don’t—”
“No, no.” Nokim shook his head. He took my cup and put a bowl in my hand instead.
It looked like strawberries and raspberries with caramel sauce.
Much better than the mashed potatoes. Had he actually put sugar on those potatoes?
I was morbidly curious. “We’ve just decided to use hangu and hangu-na since it’s more accurate than ‘woman.’ Human women and hangua are still different.
” He tilted his head, then stood and headed for the kitchen.
“Humans are very strange. But cute also.” He stopped to grin at me.
“Although you do smell nice, and if you ever want me in your bed, please let me know.”
With that he walked off, and I tried to hide my reddening cheeks behind the bowl of fruit.
Fellisse reached for some of the bread and slathered it with jelly. “Maybe we can seek out that commune on our way back, see if anyone would like our help. They didn’t request you make any wishes, speak any curses, Rory?”
I shook my head and swallowed before answering. “Just silent prayer. I didn’t stay there long. Hightailed it out at the earliest opportunity.”
“Smart.” Inkiri stroked my back. “Like when you hid from the beast.”
I frowned. “You know…you know, we can’t all of us run around with three swords on our hip and those horns.” I pointed at all of them.
“Exactly.” Inkiri licked the side of my throat with his rough tongue. Maybe I’d have to tell him to stop doing that. As soon as it really, really annoyed me, I definitely would.
Lissir spooned some of the mashed potatoes and fruit into a bowl and sat back down next to me. “I propose we leave the day after tomorrow. I’d like to look around that place where Inkiri found Rory first.”
I watched in fascination as Lissir dug into sweetened mashed potatoes topped with fruit. Maybe I should give it a try, if only so I could be certain it wasn’t good at all.
Fellisse frowned. “Vergis won’t like that.”
“He’ll have to get over it,” Inkiri said. “The Stone won’t move, but a bit of rest will do Rory good.”
Nokim came back with a refill for me and more food. There was so much food here. It was heaven. Inkiri took the bowl with fruit from me but held it where I could easily continue eating while also sipping my coffee. Gosh, I felt so spoiled. And I liked it.
I tapped the rim of my coffee mug. “I’m not sure why I have to go with you. I mean, if you want to just look at the Stone, I definitely won’t be any help.”
Fellisse held up two fingers. “Two reasons. One: Vergis will need you there to investigate what you did with the Stone. Two: if someone does want you for themselves, the five of us will be better at protecting you than Inkiri alone.”
Inkiri grunted. “That’s true, sweet thing.” I felt him move, tilting his head this way and that. “But if you want to, I could carry you there? Would you like that?”
Being spoiled was nice, but there had to be limits. “Nope.” I lifted my foot and wiggled my toes in the cat socks. “Look, my feet are operational.”
“If you say so.” Inkiri was frowning at them though. “I will ask Vergis about the foot fetish.”
Nokim looked up. “What was that word? Oh, look how flexible his feet are! You’d never guess from the shoes they wear.”
“I think I’ve read something about fetish.” Lissir dug into the pile of manga by his side of the couch-mattress. “Hold on.” He pulled out several and flipped through them. There was some very uncensored yaoi in his pile. Well, okay. Maybe I could tell him about some of the fics I’d read.
“I found the word.” Lissir held the manga open for everyone to see. If there was any fetish there, it was a lace fetish, going by how the guy was dressed in all that tight, see-through stuff despite also being very buff.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Inkiri said.
I turned cabbage red. I wasn’t sure I understood why stuff like this kept happening when I just wanted to have a normal conversation with people.