Chapter 58
Alex looked up, her brush poised mid-stroke as she paused in the middle of practicing the Seshanamitesh characters to listen.
The sound was back, but accompanied by an urgent sort of tapping that was riding her last nerve.
They were really taking it to the next level in their attempt to get a reaction from her—or perhaps to lure her out of the safety of the palace.
She wasn’t entirely sure which, but she did know that she wasn’t born yesterday.
“I’m not falling for it,” she muttered as she refocused on the page in front of her. “You’ll have to go find someone with a death wish to be your victim.”
She focused her attention on the character, moving her brush slowly as she drew each line painstakingly.
Her mouth curved. It was her best one yet!
She just had one more line and—a loud crash, as if something threw itself violently against the wall, resonated through the room.
Her hand jumped in reaction, brush skidding across the page, leaving a messy trail of luminescent pigment.
Her eyes dropped down to it, aghast, as she gaped at her ruined work.
Not only was that character destroyed, but so was every single one she had carefully copied for the last hour leading up to it.
Alex squeezed her eyes shut, praying for some measure of patience before she went out there an attempted to kill whatever it was disturbing her.
“Son of a bitch,” she grumbled. “I cannot believe I have to just sit here and deal with this shit. I am going to end up skewering myself a snake and stretching it out on the fucking desert.”
Sighing heavily, she crumpled the page of alien paper and blindly pulled another one in front of her.
Dropping it on the table, she rubbed her eyes wearily.
At least the terrible racket stopped. Blessed silence stretched on, and her shoulders sagged with relief.
Now, if only it stayed that way. Somehow, she didn’t believe she was that lucky.
Perhaps it was time to find something else to do.
She had no interest in starting over when there was a chance that whatever was out there resumed being a damned nuisance.
She could always get up and stretch her legs a bit.
That idea had some appeal, but ultimately, it was a softer, closer sound that had her eyes snapping open.
Pushing back from the table on the low bench where she sat, she turned toward it as the hair on the back of neck prickled.
A chill crept through her as she stared into the thick shadows, and the silence within the room seemed to perceptively deepen.
But there was a presence within the silence that unnerved her.
She was being watched, and it was worse than the occasional clamoring outside the palace walls.
She swallowed sharply as she slowly eased herself off the bench.
She wasn’t imagining things. There was something quite sinister about this, and it sent a shiver up her spine as she slowly stood.
The longer she stared, the more certain she became that there was something out there.
She just couldn’t see it. Her eyes were not strong enough to peer into the darker parts of the room, and the galthie flowers, though enormously helpful with their brilliance, left pockets of darkness that even their glow couldn’t penetrate.
“Therxian?” she whispered, her heart in her throat.
He wasn’t the sort of male to pull the kinds of pranks that some of her co-workers relished, but all the same she prayed that he was having a rare moment because the alternative was far more frightening that she liked to admit.
“I know someone is there,” she said, raising her voice a bit more with a vague notion of perhaps intimidating whoever it was into fleeing with some false bravado on her part.
Unfortunately, it did not appear to be working.
A soft scrape of sound slightly to her left had her jerking around toward it, spinning on her heel.
She stared into the dark, her heart hammering.
Damn it, why had she insisted Therxian thin the galthie some?
At that moment, a good night’s sleep seemed a small sacrifice to be able to see the farther parts of the nest more clearly.
“Show yourself, damn you!” she shouted.
A soft, hissing laugh was her only answer, but it was enough to make her blood turn cold.
She had been right. Someone was there, and it definitely wasn’t Therxian.
And it wasn’t her visitor either because she could hear the banging resuming outside the palace wall, even if it seemed to be moving erratically to the side.
“Very clever,” a soft voice hissed.
The shadow shifted in a distinctively serpentine movement. It moved forward and gradually she could make out the violet glowing eyes of a Seshanamitesh that was most definitely not her mate.
“I never suspected that the mate Therxian had hidden would be a human. The council would be most displeased,” he added with a mocking laugh.
“Who could have guessed that Therxian would succumb to the same unnatural desire for an alien that claimed his brother?” His eyes brightened as he moved closer.
“How delightful. This makes killing you so much easier.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” she countered, and was immediately grateful that her voice did not shake with the very real fear that she felt. She at least sounded confident. “I am not exactly helpless here. Besides, do you really want to risk Therxian’s anger?”
The male laughed as he emerged fully from the shadows, his lavender scales shimmering in the glow of the galthie.
With his bright coloring and delicate features, he was undoubtedly beautiful, but his eyes made her skin crawl.
There was no softness at all in those eyes.
Just cold, brutal madness pinned lethally on her.
Any thought of dissuading him or trying to reason with him quickly evaporated.
The fervor that brightened his eyes was nothing that could be reasoned with.
“What risk?” he asked as he drew himself up, his coiled tail tightening as he rose threatening above her.
“Everything has been arranged to deal with him. Therxian will not be leaving the upper palace for a very long time. And you—you will never have the opportunity to escape to safety. You will die and be left to rot, forgotten within the elder palace.”
Ok... that was not good.
“What did you do to Therxian?” she whispered, drawing back a step. Keep him talking... but to what end? If Therxian truly wasn’t coming, then she was going to have to think fast on her feet. She needed to think! How could she get the upper hand?
He hummed, and his luminescent gavo rose a bit higher with his interest as his eyes followed her movement.
“I did not do anything to him.” He grinned, and a small giggle escaped him.
“But I did do something quite entertaining to the female who thought she owned me. That was the sweetest revenge. That I could satisfy my hithana by using it to orchestrate Therxian’s downfall just made it sweeter.
A male who kills female is a male who will never be free. ”
Her blood went cold. Impossible! The queen would never permit her son’s execution. Unless—
The male grinned coldly. “Do not look so worried. He will not die, though he may wish he would so that he could join you in Shangla’s garden.
Of course, normally killing a female—especially a female of the noble houses—would be a death sentence for a male, but Therxian’s bloodline offers him certain protection.
He will not die, but he will soon learn to suffer the fate I have long endured.
He will know what it is like to be used for the purpose of another while I reap the rewards of my service. ”
“And what could possibly be worth it all?” she whispered. “Do you think this female truly cares about you? If your hithana is Yilada’s daughter, do you think she would even allow you anywhere near her once you’ve served your purpose? Therxian’s is the only bloodline useful for her to breed with.”
A terrible giggle escaped him. “Do you think that is what I desire, human?” His eyes narrowed menacingly on her.
“What I truly long for is freedom to be left to my own purpose and seek my own pleasure without being under the demands of a female. I offered her all she desired by giving her Therxian, but your death will guarantee my place within the shinara.”
“Then why tell me anything at all?” she whispered. “You could have just killed me and been done with it.”
He cocked his head as he peered down at her in amusement.
“I had planned to, but it is far more amusing this way.” The tip of his tail hooked on the floor and slowly slid toward her.
“It is not often that I have the opportunity to encounter a female so small and weak. So unlike a Seshanamitesh female. Is this what it is like to be the larger and more powerful? To know that we are both aware of how absolutely powerless you are to my whims.” His tongues slipped out, tasting the air.
“So very sweet. I like the smell and taste of your fear, human. How much sweeter can I make it before I finally kill you?”
Over her dead body—which was probably the point, but she wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
She glanced covertly toward her blowgun.
It was her only weapon, and its usefulness in the situation was doubtful, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.
Backing away, she began moving intentionally across the room toward it.
Though his eyes followed her, he thankfully didn’t seem to be aware that she was going in an intentional direction beyond just backing away from him.
Instead, his focus seemed to be elsewhere as his hand slid down his belly, drawing her horrified gaze to it.
“What... what the fuck are you doing?” she demanded as she stumbled rapidly back, her fear spiking.
“Yes, I understand the appeal. I have wondered what pleasure such a small, fragile race could provide. Now I will satisfy my curiosity before I kill you.”
He grinned wildly as he whipped toward her on his long tail, his movements quick and graceful.
Alex darted out of his immediate path and inwardly cursed as her trajectory carried her further away from her blowgun.
Rounding a low, ornamental table, she kicked it toward him, sending it and the various pots and décor on it flying at him.
Though the male brought his wings up to protect himself from most of the blows, it obscured his vision, giving her an opportunity to run in the direction she wanted as his outraged shriek filled the chamber.
She didn’t look back, however, not even when his tail hit the floor with a force that she could practically feel through the bottom of her feet.
Alex sprinted, pushing her legs to move, but it was not enough to gain the distance needed before his tail whipped out in a blow that sent her flying off her feet.
She hit the ground, the air exploding from her lungs in a painful burst. For one terrible moment she couldn’t breathe as she rolled on the floor.
But her hearing was not likewise encumbered.
She heard the rasp of his scales against the stone as he slid forward.
And she heard his shrill giggle as he drew closer and bent over her.
“So sweet,” he hissed, and his hand descended, his claws closing firmly around the back of her neck, pinning her to the floor. “So very sweet.”