A Taste
I wake suddenly, bewildered, ripped from the comfort of sleep.
I’d been slumbering so soundly, deeply, dreamlessly. It took waking and opening my eyes to find a nightmare. The nightmare in question?
Cyphus.
He looms over me, breathing rancid, moist air into my face.
I suck in a hard breath, recoiling, shrinking back from his brutish features as though I can melt into the bench to escape him.
He balances above me, our noses so close they almost touch, so close I can see the striations of blue in his onyx eyes.
Those eyes burn into me, the pupils fully vertical.
His skin, more dragon than man, flashes in and out, iridescent scaled flesh one moment, human the next.
A terrifying sight that sends my pulse battering against my throat so violently it hurts.
A whimper escapes me. The great wall of his body throbs over me. Bulging biceps surround me, one on either side of my body. One hand grips the back of the bench, the other on the edge of the plank seat beneath me, effectively caging me in.
“You think you’ve won your place here, human? That you are safe?” The plank beneath me groans and cracks from the pressure of his tightening hand, reminding me just how strong, how deadly he is.
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper.
“It was a nice trick earlier . . .” His lips move slowly around his words as though he’s savoring them, and I feel like a rabbit mesmerized, its little heart thrashing against a membrane-thin chest, frozen in the sights of a predator. “Letting Tage think you have the touch of a healer.”
I shake my head. “I’m not—”
“You think that will make Tage like you? Make you useful? Worth keeping?”
He might be asking me questions, but he doesn’t care to hear any answers. He’s not here to listen. He’s here to deliver his threats. To inspire fear.
And it’s working.
He removes his hand from the back of the bench and grips my face. “I think you’ve grown too comfortable here.” His fingers squeeze, digging into my cheeks. I feel his power in the way his hand trembles on me, his strength barely restrained. It would be nothing for him to crush me.
I shake my head mutely.
He presses on, his words like darts striking one after the other. “As clever as you are, it won’t work. You won’t ever belong here.”
I manage a nod, another whimper escaping between the small opening of my lips.
He’s too close, his sour odor assailing me. I taste it right alongside the fear.
“Tage plays the part of a human, but he’s not. None of us are. Don’t get comfortable. You will never belong here. We will never forget what you are.” His fingers flex, pressing deeper, grinding my cheeks into my teeth until I taste the flow of blood.
I try to nod, to give him some manner of assurance that I agree, that I don’t want to belong here either.
“You won’t last here. There’s a reason that humans don’t live in the Crags. You’re not bred for this. You won’t survive here.”
I flinch, unable to deny the truth of that.
He lowers his face, buries himself in my hair, his lips brushing my ear, and I shudder in revulsion as he breathes me in like I’m a meal he’s about to devour. Spit sprays my neck as he whispers, “Does it ever cross your mind that my forefathers ate your kind?”
A full-body shudder racks me.
The knowledge of that, of course, always itches under my skin, but it’s easy to forget when I cohabit side by side with them. When they look and talk as humans.
I remember that now as his fingers dig deeper into my tender skin and he growls in my ear in a voice that sounds warbled, caught between human and .
. . not: “I think about that, wonder what you would taste like . . . the texture of your meat, the flavor of your blood. I’m sure I’m not the only one who wonders what you taste like.
Would you be better roasted on a spit . .
. or consumed raw.” He pauses and then licks the side of my throat in a long, savoring swipe of his tongue.
He groans. I jam my eyes shut and whimper, waiting for the inevitable tear of his teeth.
“Oh . . . that’s sweet. I’ll fall asleep with the taste of you on my tongue. You think about that.”
Then he’s gone.
By the time I lift myself up on my shaking elbows, there is no sight of him in the vast space of the cave. I’m alone.
I drop back down on my bench and rub the blanket roughly over my neck. I rub until the skin goes raw, desperate to rid myself of the sensation of his tongue. It does no good. I still feel it, feel him, and I want to weep and scream.
But mostly I want to flee this place.
Gone is the notion that I could wait out winter before escaping. I can’t stay here. Cyphus made that painfully clear.
I reach for one of the pillows resting on the floor. Pulling it close, I hug it to my chest, seizing what comfort I can from it. It doesn’t work. I can’t feel safe. Can’t fall back to sleep.
Curled up on the bench, I stare into the fire and start to plan.