Chapter 4 #2
She blinked back, then snorted a laugh, before hastening to arrange her features into what I suspected was intended as professionalism.
She was back to speaking too slowly. “No, I am not a pygmy ogre. Pygmy ogres are like a thousand times my size.” Another snort, another subduing tug on her features. “I’m a … parvnit?”
“Is that a question?”
“No. I mean yes. I mean, I know I’m a parvnit. But I’m not sure you do. Though how you wouldn’t is beyond me, and I’m supposed to be able to figure out what eludes others.”
I wrung the water from my hair. “Never heard of a parvnit before. Never heard of a pygmy ogre either.”
The creature’s wings buzzed while she hovered in place, her eyes trailing all over me. “What…? You’re a s?nglure, yes? A vampire?”
“Yes…” I drew out.
“Was that a question? You drink blood to survive?”
“I do…”
“Then how do you not know what I am? Or a pygmy ogre? It’s not like the smelly brutes are subtle.”
Strategically, I shouldn’t reveal my instabilities before understanding my situation—if not fully, at least better than basically not at all. But my mouth popped open anyway, allowing my desperation to slip free.
“Is the prince alive?”
My heart thundered so fervently it obliterated even the crawling-ant sensation.
“Prince to the empire, Alobaz Hawxley, you mean?”
Words failed me.
“Yeah, he’s alive. Of course he is.” The parvnit tilted her head to one side then the next as she studied me intently. “Are you alright?”
I chortled darkly. “Am I alright…”
“Yeah, you don’t seem right. I mean, beyond being a murderess.”
I swallowed, the rusty sensation like sandpaper against my raw flesh. “Is Mateo, crown prince of Zaraga, alive?”
“Fuuuuck,” she whispered.
My heart was stampeding in my chest. “What does that mean? Is he dead?”
“Not dead, no.”
My heart was already stretching toward Hope when she added, “At least, not that I know of. But it’s not like I’d find out right away if he died. No one would. He’s, you know”—she flicked another series of glances around us, then lowered her voice—“exiled.”
“Exiled?” I exclaimed loudly.
“Shhhhhh.” More frantic glances. “Maybe he’s dead, maybe he’s not. But he’s definitely not here, and I definitely shouldn’t be talking about him. Especially not with a murderess.”
“Exiled to where?”
“Shhhhhhh!”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter.”
Whatever reaction crossed my face then had her flying backward before holding there, just beyond arm’s reach.
I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs that he mattered. He was practically all that mattered in the entire world.
I didn’t. “I need to get to the palace as soon as possible.”
Slowly, she nodded. “Good, good. I can work with this.” Then she let loose a whistle so piercing I stepped back, wincing.
Whatever her power, it was much larger than she was.
When she flew toward the bodies, I wasn’t going to follow at first. But then that was cowardly.
I hadn’t meant to kill them, hadn’t wanted to.
I’d been the one to do it just the same.
Since my rebirth, I’d done everything to avoid bloodlust just for this reason.
Someone else did this to me, and ultimately to them.
But I was still the one who’d been covered in their blood. Who’d drained them to the final beat of their hearts. The unfortunate lovers. Doomed. Heartbreak’s hand again, maybe. Probably.
Murderess, that was me now. It didn’t seem like an upgrade from my usual assassin.
As an assassin for the Crown, I was always fully in control. I defended Zaraga. It was an honored, if secretive, position.
When we reached the bodies, the parvnit looked toward the trees. I made myself study my victims.
There they lay, their bodies twisted, their skin pale as ice. The woman’s hair stretched behind her like tentacles slithering toward the ocean. Dried blood spattered their bodies much as it had me, though no holes or cuts punctured their skin.
Their expressions, at least, were peaceful.
More than that, they were elated. They’d died in the throes of the intoxicating arousal of a s?nglure’s feeding.
There were far worse ways to go. That was something, if not much.
At the end, they wouldn’t have experienced fear or pain.
They would only have wanted to give themselves over to me completely.
The blood was from my frenzied consumption.
“Come and get ’em,” the parvnit hollered, drawing my attention toward the sparse trees and the beasts who lumbered our way.
There were four of them, huge and toddling, leaving deep, gouging footprints in the sand.
They were either more fat than muscle or the other way around.
They had a whole lot of both, all that glistening, sweaty flesh on display, roll after shuddering roll.
Their smell—like musty feet—assaulted my nose, overpowering the lingering scent of blood from the dead lovers.
“That’s why we need to find you clothes,” the parvnit said as I took in how the newcomers wore none, and how their dicks were smaller than their massive bodies suggested they should be, slapping against the underside of their overhanging bellies with every vibrating step.
Surely, that wasn’t why we needed to find me clothes, no matter what the parvnit said.
“Pygmy ogres,” she added, as if that were sufficient explanation.
When the pygmy ogres arrived at the bodies, I stepped back. It wasn’t the smell of their unkempt flesh alone that drove me, more the scent of putrid animal meat in their veins potent enough to mingle with their sweat.
The sweltering sunshine glistened along their misshapen heads, bigger than their frames suggested—unlike their baby dicks—and hardened their eyes to stones.
Unlike men, they didn’t spare a glance for me or my nudity.
“These two bodies only,” the parvnit told the pygmy ogres with the kind of exaggerated censure that suggested the warning was very necessary. “No one else, no matter who comes up to you. Of these two, leave nothing behind.”
The four responded in greedy grunts, and descended on the bodies like the carrion scavengers they apparently were.
Each tugged on a limb—leg or arm, didn’t seem to matter—ripping one free with brute strength.
Tissue tore with revolting squelches and cracks.
They discarded any clothing like wrappers keeping food from a marketplace, and brought the flesh to worm-like lips.
When the first one chomped down noisily, crunching through bone, I jerked around. So fast I was nearly running, I stalked away and didn’t stop until the sounds of devouring faded, when the parvnit caught up.
I whirled around to confront her. “What the fuck was that!”
“Gross but efficient.”
“Efficient?”
“They need to eat too, and I had all I needed to conclusively conclude you’re the murderess, solely responsible for the double murders. It’s not like either of them’s gonna feel a thing. So waste not, want not, you know?”
I did and I didn’t. Mostly I didn’t.
No stranger to death, not even to death I inflicted, regardless I walked in horrified silence with her flying at my back. My silence turned numb, and I placed one foot after another until I didn’t know where I was going anymore. Until my skin was pink from the sun.
It still wasn’t long enough to erase the slurping chomps or the num-num moans.
It didn’t deliver the answers I so desperately needed either.