Qanek
Her mouth dropped open then closed, again and again like a gaping animal.
Her eyes widened and she stared at me with her curious little human expressions, one I deciphered as shock.
Had she believed me to be an imbecile? Had she believed me incompetent enough to not understand her words?
Was she so surprised I spoke her language?
My brothers and I spoke every language known to humankind and demons; a gift given to us in the blood of the Kings of the Underworld.
I’d known every vile word she spat at me, and each one grated down every single nerve I possessed.
“You… you talk!”
Her flesh was delicate in my hold, her bones fragile. I kept my touch light, knowing if I put force they would likely break. I shook her with a gentleness that still made her body rattle.
“Cease your pratter,” I growled. “I cannot think beyond those incessant mouth noises you are creating.”
She blinked at me and I realized how close this human was to my body. Plastered against my chest, wrists shackled beneath my grip. I could read the fear in her eyes, as surely as she could read the hatred within the depths of my own.
This close, she boasted far more imperfections than I had originally thought. Something about her very presence, her very existence, made everything in me recoil.
I shoved her away, still feeling her touch along my body, like she’d imprinted her mark against my skin.
“Wha–how dare you!” She stumbled back, far enough away that I could breathe without smelling her.
Floral and something else I could not quite name, but as rich as the earth beneath our feet.
It was the type of scent that tickled the insides of my nostrils, and I did not know if I would sneeze or inhale her essence.
My eyes narrowed on her.
“You kidnapped me and you’re asking me to shut up? That’s rich, hijo de la gran chingada!” She began cursing, switching human languages between one slip of the tongue and the next.
Her voice screeched through my head, and an ache built behind my eyes.
“Silence!” I roared.
She recoiled at the sound, but then lifted a finger in my direction. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
Beneath me, my tail gave a violent twitch. Like it wanted to reach out and touch her, or throttle her. I was not entirely sure which.
“You will obey me.”
“You will obey me.”
My gaze sharpened on her. “Do you mock me?”
She snorted and rocked back on her heels, putting more distance between us. “What the hell is going on here?”
“You are creating a headache.”
Her human eyes rolled and she bent, picking up stones from the ground. When she stood, she threw them at me. Each one bounced off my chest and back to the ground. The light taps did not hurt, but they annoyed me deeply.
No one had ever dared to be as bold as she. Everyone cowered in fear when I flew onto a battlefield because I was nightmare incarnate, molded into the form of the Lord of Torture himself, born from the screaming, agonized cries of The Pit. I was fire and stone and retribution.
Another rock bounced off the center of my head.
“Stop that!”
“There’s more where that came from, buddy. Now, tell me what the fuck is going on or I’ll–” She threw another stone. A bigger stone. This one landed between my legs.
I flinched, talons digging into the earth.
“Cease your violence, feral creature.”
“Answer me!”
I growled, turning away from her and tugging at my horns, scraping my palm against the broken one as was my habit.
Doing so only reminded me of days I would forget, but surely the past that always hovered just out of reach was better than this.
Irritation flared as wide as my wingspan, and the anger became an all-consuming force.
Reality lingered above us, reminding me of the way I had failed to steal the right wife.
If my brothers were here, surely they would laugh.
“I did not want you,” I growled, low and quiet. “You ruined everything. All my plans, you ruined them all.” I turned back, and she flinched away from me and the glare I gifted her with.
“Well…did you think that I wanted this? I don’t want you, either!” She scoffed, shaking her head back and forth. “Besides, I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”
“Are you unintelligent?” I questioned.
“What?!”
“You repeat the same words. ‘I do not understand.’ What is so difficult to grasp? That bringing you was a mistake, or that I did not want you?”
Sounds sputtered from her lips. She seemed clearly taken aback by my words, and just as I thought she would finally be silenced, she spoke again, “Listen here, dipshit, your storytelling skills leave much to be desired. I want to know where we are, why you were stalking me, and why you brought me here. Can you do that coherently, or are your muscles sooo big that blood doesn’t flow to your tiny brain? ”
My wings fluttered. Now it was I who did not understand, but I was sure she had just insulted me. Perhaps she called me a simpleton.
My tail swished with an unnamed emotion.
“We are in the Underworld.”
“The what?!” She staggered backwards, and for a moment I was sure she would faint.
“I was not stalking you, feral creature. As I said before, I did not want you. I wanted Carlota.”
Her light brown skin changed a shade, her color reddening. It rose over her cheeks and spread down her neck over her chest. I did not understand the purpose of the color. Was it rage, the same reason fire glowed in my own chest?
“Yeah.” Her voice grew clipped, angrier somehow. “I’ve heard that one before.”
“I would have had her, were it not for your meddlesome ways.”
“Alright, pipe down. You sound like a Scooby-Doo villain.”
“I do not understand what that means.” My wings snapped closed with irritation.
I did not like that she seemed comfortable enough in my presence to throw insults my way.
She should have cowered in fear. Instead, she was arguing.
“Regardless, you need not worry about your location for much longer.
I will take you back to your world, as soon as my magic to open portals replenishes. "
She gave pause at my words. “You’re serious?” she asked after a moment. “You’ll take me back?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And then I shall find Carlota, the woman I truly wanted, and bring her here to make her my wife.”
The human choked and began to cough as though something were lodged deep in her throat. I stared with barely concealed disgust as she fought to pull herself to a presentable state.
“Did you just say wife?”
Wife.
The one thing in the world I desired above all others. The one I should have had in my presence right then, but instead I was stuck with an annoying, feral creature that boasted of no self awareness, with a grating voice and a penchant for violence.
But even though I had stolen her, she would not be mine.
I would not allow such a thing. I would take her back and take the right bride.
And this human would be all but forgotten.
She would never become my wife. So long as I never brought her into my den, let her lie in my nest, clothed her, fed her, or mated her…
She would not be my wife as long as I took her back where she belonged.
“I will right my wrong,” I told her. “I will bring my true bride back.”
She opened her mouth as though she meant to say something or create her mouth noises once again.
Before she could utter a syllable, the ground beneath us rumbled. A second later, it exploded behind me. Earth tore through the sky in a geyser of violence.
And then something wrapped a scaled body around my own and pain, crippling pain, exploded through my body.