CHP9

She opened her eyes in a daze.

A cool rag rested on her forehead, and a whimper of relief spilled from her lips. Then, tenderly, a tanned hand brushed its knuckles over her cheek.

Seneya shifted, registering the familiar padding. Her bare skin brushed against raw wood. Despite being back where she started, she felt a sense of security that she hadn’t felt before.

“Shhh. Rest. You can fight me later.” Her captor, the tattooed man, spoke quietly in the strange language that Sohken had taught her. Her eyes fluttered closed once more.

-

The next time Seneya opened her eyes, daylight filtered in, and the fire had reduced itself to ashes.

Her body felt too heavy to move, but she managed.

The cool cloth perched on her brow tumbled to her lap, and she sat up with a creak. Every muscle in her body protested with burning pain.

“If she runs this time, I’ll be surprised,” the man muttered in his strange tongue, one that Seneya had learned well. Her eyes met his as she strained to turn and look over the back of the couch.

She responded in kind, watching as his brows shot up his forehead in a flash. “Won’t run.”

“What are you? You’re certainly not the kind of thing that would speak that language,” the man spoke in his tongue, the musical language she loved.

“Human, maybe… Probably.” She picked up the cloth and held it to her head as it protested. Seneya wished she had a cool compress for her entire body.

“Hah, no! You stink of ault and kriss,” He flared his broad nostrils and made a hand gesture to indicate his meaning. He spoke so naturally, and the sounds sent pleasant shivers down Seneya’s spine that halted and twinged at the words she didn’t know.

“Ault? Kriss?” She asked.

Parts of her mind felt… for lack of a better word, broken.

“Pah! Gaff rahl neh!” Kael swore back at her, more words she didn’t know.

“I don’t know what that means, either.”

He stared at her for a long moment, lips contorting into a frown.

“Ault!” He pointed at his wrists, banded in dark leather, covering the transition between his black sleeve tattoo and his unmarked hands. “Kriss!” His hand made some sort of gesture, wriggling his fingers at the sky.

She shrugged as her eyes went wide and fearful, glancing from her own wrists back to him. A red and irritated patch adorned the base of each right below her palm. Her doctors had called it dermatitis, and she often picked at it until the spots bled.

“Okay, so you don’t know what you are, and neither do I. Your tongue is weak. So, show me your ikris,” the man said gruffly.

“I don’t know what ‘ikris’ is.”

He put his hand over his face for a moment and muttered something beneath his breath. Then, he looked up to the ceiling with exasperation. “You play cruel jokes on me!” He pursed his lips and looked back to her once more. “Come, little starling, lift up your shirt for me,” He spoke as he walked up to her.

She flinched, eyes going wide with fear. The urge to run again struck her, but she knew she’d not make it but a few steps. Defensively, she wrapped her arms around her chest. “What!?”

“What do you think I do, little starling? I just wish to see your back, what your ikris looks like,” He pleaded to her, tilting his shoulder to give her a glimpse of his heavily tattooed bare back. He looked almost hurt by the accusatory look.

Her eyes went wide, and her mouth gaped open slightly.

He had a tattoo like her own, strange in its solid darkness, with two wings aside a spear. While hers stretched over her shoulders, spread and bold, tribal almost, his pointed down, drawn and as sharp as knives.

Filled with sudden understanding, she lifted the back of her shirt and shrank.

“Get that thing off of you. You’re killing yourself with it.”

“What?”

“That… That thing. It’s digging into your ikris. No wonder you can’t stand. They’re cutting off blood flow.” He scoffed and gestured for her to carry on.

Seneya nervously reached behind her back and fidgeted with hooks before shrugging her arms around in her sleeve.

A worn-out tan bra traveled out of her sleeve and out of sight within the blankets.

She rounded her aching shoulders and neck, vulnerable there as he approached and looked over her. He sucked his teeth.

“My tattoos?” She asked. “Ikris?” She split the words between English and the language.

She shook from the pain, but her heart thundered full of life and joy. He had the tattoos like her own! And, as he had indicated, she felt relief once her bra slipped away.

“Tattoos? Pah!” He grumbled as she leaned over the edge of the couch and tugged the hem of her shirt gingerly up her back.

“GAFF!” he exclaimed as he pulled his hand away. Whatever he saw, it startled him.

“Wings and a spear, like yours,” Seneya spoke quietly as the man put his hand over his face and wheezed an anxious breath.

“So- half of you is from the of the tribe of the Phoenix. I could have guessed that by the hair. As for the rest of you… I have no damned clue!” he announced.

Sohken rose within her mind, speaking. “Phoenix and a lost one, Kael, wild blood, but she’s sealed and has not seen herself in full,” the voice whispered.

This is Kael?

“What- the- hell- kind- of- creepy- sutsa- is- this-,” Kael breathed.

Seneya’s madness had form, it seemed, as he quite clearly heard it too. She stiffened and unfocused her eyes. She looked at the floor and tried to ignore the voice.

“If you can unbind her. I can explain. I am weak and trapped, leaking between her seals. She knows too much, and they’re fighting to get out,” the voice whispered.

Kael’s eyes darted about, searching for something in the air.

“What’s fighting to get out?” Seneya whimpered, bunching to herself. She wondered if he really could hear the voice. Nobody else had. “What am I?”

Her question went unanswered.

“NOT in the house!” Kael announced, beckoning her to stand.

She held her hands crossed over her chest, shaking legs drawn up to her form. He grabbed for her upper arm, and she struggled, trying to pull her shirt back into place.

She stood as he tugged, firm yet gentle. He kept his hands in her line of sight and moved with such care. Yet, despite his strength, he didn’t hurt her.

“I’ll be cleaning blood off the walls for… well, you see how often I clean.”

Blood? What is he going to do to me? Everything spun around her as she moved, dizzying her with motion alone. She fought the urge to fall to the ground in a faint.

Kael shook her arm a little, jostling her fully awake, then sank to her knees. His grasp moved to her shoulder before jerking the back of her shirt up and over her head with her arms still in it. In doing so, it kept the front in place. His eyes never glanced to her front, or anywhere besides her back or face.

Before she could even protest, he released her, shoving her forward with a hand at the back of her neck. Lightning flashed behind her eyes as the shock of pain from the contact overwhelmed the sensation of her face hitting the ground.

“Gaff! Sorry little one,” He reached over and pulled her hair out of her face.

“What are-?” His very warm hands met her back and felt over the risen lines of her tattooed wings. The weight of his gentle touch alone sent her burying her face into the grass with a sob. She froze in place, unable to move as each touch set her skin on fire.

“He’s helping,” The voice whispered to her, and her mouth shut in silence. She feared Sohken, feared what others would think of it.

Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes as he continued tracing her tattoos with his fingers.

They covered most of her back, an expanse of black ink, separated by a spear. She couldn’t remember a time without them, sigils of what would have told her tribe

They contained the wholeness of her, not a human child, but something more. Whatever lay within those scars was the mystery. She tensed her back as a wave of pain suffused her. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“Shh, it’ll be over soon enough. You said your name was Sennia?” He said the words strangely, and he had called her something similar, Syr enaia, their word for ‘little starling.’ She liked the way he said that.

His hands roved across the lines of her tattoos, spreading relief as he pressed his fingertips into her back.

She waited a fearful moment before crying out in pain with a shrill squeak. The pressure hurt but healed. “Seneya,” she said.

“Ha. We’d call it ‘Syriah,’ smallest star,” he said with a chuff in his throat, translating it to English for her.

“You hurt?” He asked. He saw the dark bruising spiderwebbing around the lines of her back’s tattoos, in places where veins rose to the surface of her skin, pulsing against ink.

Though she couldn’t see it, his trained eye caught the hint of a golden glow in her wing’s markings, tracing through them like a thread. He traced a finger over swollen lines, feeling the unusual heat of her skin there. A gentle press into the flesh let him feel muscles and the like squishing beneath them in agony, loose and pliant.

She nodded, gritting her teeth through the excruciating pain. Then, with a shrug, she brought her wrist to her mouth and bit down over it, releasing a shaking breath. “Doesn’t feel great.”

He’d seen things like this before, but never to this degree.

“I got the fix for it, and I can explain things after. You with me?” He asked with a quick shake of her shoulder. She gasped and squeaked over her wrist.

“There’s my little starling again, chirping.” He encouraged her as he raised his hand above her back. His tattoo, black as night from his wrist to shoulder, banded at the ends, began to crawl. The blackness lifted around his fingers and spun over his hands, a flame made of void and starlight as it floated over his fingertips.

“Your spirit must have known I’m one of the few people that can undo one of these bindings,” Kael said as the lines of her tattoo began to glow.

“Sp-spirit? bindings?” Her breath weakened.

“All things in time, little starling,” He growled, laying a black-nailed finger down to the lines of her tattoo while slipping his fingernail against the sigils on her back.

The light formed a line of golden thread in the black of her ink. It glided over his finger like a glowing hair, and he pulled it, watching as it traveled the fine lines of her tattoo.

“I see the phoenix in you,” he muttered. “The rest is so….”

“Wild?” her spirit said, chuckling.

“None of our other tribes, the Anael or the Acerrai, look like these, though. Halfbreed for certain, little one, but the rest….” Kael sighed. “Definitely certain you’re not Acerrai, though.”

He had little to do with the Acerrai these days, though they were his own people. Their tattoos were sharp and striking things, fractal in nature.

“What sort of wings will you have, little starling?” He mused to himself as he wound golden threads of magic over his fingers, peeling them away from her wing markings, her ikris.

“Wings?”

“In time,” He spoke to her as he pulled the thread to its final pose and wondered if he should tug the thread of the spear in her tattoo. The spear told him more of her origins than any of her other markings or features. She had no idea how rare she really was.

His sharp tattoos drew down his form, and his back muscles twitched as he worked, the bare flesh of him flexed, and the tattoos began to lift from his skin, peeling away as they gathered form from the air. When his tattoos lifted entirely away, a great black and sharp set of wings spread out in full magnificence behind him. From the spear of his ikris, a flesh tail as long as he was tall slipped free of his form and twitched to life, spreading an impressive fan of feathers over its end. It started as thick as his wrist and slowly tapered down to a carrot’s thickness until the tip, jangling with silver bangles down the shaft of it, fastened amid black tattoos and rings.

He twitched it impatiently as the feathers righted.

“Show me your colors, little starling,” he said as he plucked the last string, letting it ravel free from her tail’s sigil and pulled away from her. A shiver ran through his body, rustling his feathers, and his eyes lit with a blue glow for a flash.

When he twitched his wings, a shock went through her.

“It hurts!” Seneya wheezed. Her eyes beheld great black wings unfolding behind him, blotting out the sun, and it comforted her far more than it frightened. She couldn’t say why. Her cries ebbed, and eyes looked not at his wings but his tail, finding more comfort in it.

“I know it does. The first time they come out will be the hardest. It gets easier, I swear,” Kael spoke to Seneya in soothing words. For something so fierce, his words came out calm and sweet.

His wings spread for a second and flit, shaking free into a wide display before tucking up neatly against his back.

“I don- I don’t think,” She stuttered as her wheezing breath drew into a harsh cough, gilded with sobs. She felt her back buck as something hard throbbed within her.

“Don’t think, just feel the pressure, let it go. Open yourself,” Kael barked.

She turned her head and saw his teeth, terrifying things, filed into sharp points from his canines and back like fangs. His blue eyes lit from within and reminded her of the glimpse she’d gotten of him earlier and Troi’s eye glow when she spoke Acerrai to him.

She opened her mouth to say something, but it caught in her throat. She choked, and the squeak she’d managed before hurt less to hear than the retching sound that creaked from her throat then. It left her shuddering and gasping for breath.

“Just like a sneeze, little starling. Feel that?” He asked as his fingers prodded to her back. Then, from somewhere at his waist, he pulled a short-bladed knife and jerked it down in a slit at her waistband as an afterthought.

The lines of her tattoos raised, the ink starting to pull from her skin. But unlike his own, they tore at the flesh. The skin itself began to bubble and stretch across rising forms beneath the skin.

He’d seen it a few times before, the wrenching of wings from a sealed one’s back. The spell they used made it gruesome; the first time, they came out again, part of the punishment behind the spell. He’d never seen it on a child before.

They used the binding to geld their criminals, not to bind innocent children. He could feel the fading magic of the spell, knew it had been there for many years, and reasoned that a child could do nothing to deserve this. Few could have managed the spell; only four knew how.

The first scream retched free, and bone, not feathered wings, tore from the tattoos. Great tines emerged from the flesh, puncturing their way free as they arched and pointed skyward.

“Poor child.” Kael’s face fell and twisted.

She cried aloud once more, strangled and choked, from vocal cords that had never been used above a whisper. Seneya’s gasp for air wavered, full of fear, and she screamed again and again. Nothing Kael could do would stop it or ebb her pain.

“Would, but I could,” He whispered.

Ghastly bones struck skyward as so too did a spinal column of bones that shot free of her flesh at the base of her tailbone. With no ligaments or tendons, no muscles or flesh, they spread wide, flexed, and went limp as the angry flesh at the exit wounds pulsed thick living blood. Then, like an alien creature, a tendril shot from the blood at her back to the hackle of her wing bone. It twisted slowly around and tied itself in knots as the liquid properties pulsed along the tendril.

It knitted itself, creating a tendon, then muscle, squirming further up her back like a spider’s web.

Her voice broke in a heaving breath. A croak of cracking sound came next, then a whistle of a breath, then just trembling air as she screamed harder still.

As the blood writhed over the muscles of her wings, it began to drip away, skin forming in crawling pulses as tiny needles began to poke free of the naked forms of her wings. Finally, pinnate and flight feathers began to twist and force their way through the freshly formed skin.

She retched from deep in her throat before her eyes rolled back and her head slumped forward.

Kael stepped back, distraught, torn between reaching out to help her and repulsed by what he saw. Though he’d seen it before, it always shocked.

She, a young woman, presented a problem. He hesitated to touch her wings, something regarded as more intimate.

“Spirit creature! If you can come out, do so now!” Kael commanded, and the voice spoke in stronger words.

“Let it run its course,” it said in a sharp panicked whisper.

Kael’s brow furrowed. From what he knew of her people… her spirit acted very abnormally…

He reached down to her form and lifted a lock of her hair, staring at it for a long moment.

Seneya’s fingers dug into the dirt. She tore handfuls of sod from where her hands clutched. Dirt and grass marked her fingers.

The feathers of her wings lifted skywards, blossomed like flowers, and slowly laid down flat in a grand rippling display.

He held his breath, and the process slowed, exposing the muddied color of them. Blood stained them from hackle to flight feather, and whatever strength Seneya had left in her wings and tail abandoned her. Her tail flopped limply down between her legs as the final feathers blossomed and laid in a fan, the spade of her tail feathering slowly in as her harsh breaths grew weak and wavered.

“I’m letting it run its course, now speak with me,” He growled, looking around as a mote of mist began to take shape in the air. He didn’t cast a second glance at Seneya. Instead, he wished to speak to the voice, her ‘spirit’ as he called it.

“Patience! A flock of geese doesn’t form all at once,” he said, some sort of metaphor.

“And you are a goose, then?” Kael spat as he watched the mist take human form, blurry in every aspect as it shifted, waving mist-like arms and touching over its obscured face with clouded hands. “This your form?”

“No, you know well that it’s not,” the mist replied as it frantically patted over itself and sighed in deep exasperation.

“Then what is?”

“Eventually, we’ll figure that out, I guess.” The creature wilted.

“You’re a half-soul, aren’t you?” Kael asked the mist, tilting his head in doubt.

“Something like that.”

“Child of two tribes?” Kael pointed to Seneya.

“You called it,” the mist agreed.

A quiet moment passed as Kael closed his eyes.

“From the line of Southwind?” Kael hesitated like he genuinely did not want to know the answer.

“Aren’t you a clever one?”

Kael took a deep breath, turned his back on the girl, and swore in spitting vile syllables so powerful in nature that his own magic fire, his ‘kriss,’ lit between his teeth in a short spit.

Kael rubbed over his chin and then brushed his hands through his hair. Scarred knuckles came to rest against the back of his head. He sighed once more, closed his eyes, and muttered a swearing prayer beneath his breath, cursing his creator for whatever had been done to put this girl in this pain.

He tilted his head back so that his features graced the sky. The warm sun beat down over his face.

It was not a day to be doing this, but then again, when was it ever?

“I’ll get the basin started to get her cleaned, round up some clothes, and see what I can do for her for the time being. You should talk and be very forthcoming while I work.” Kael’s voice contained both threat and warning. The misty man-shaped thing turned seemingly to watch Seneya.

Her short breath caught in her throat. She gulped air in labored pants, blood trickling slowly down to the curved well of her back.

“I brought her here for you to help her,” the voice said.

“I have done so; now give me reason to continue doing so!” Kael walked with heavy feet to the side of the house to pull out an old metal basin, big enough for a single person to crouch comfortably in. Then, he tossed it with a loud clang at a well-used spigot, grasped the handle, and pumped a solid arm to get the water flowing, letting fresh water gush free with a hollow, tinny geyser into the basin.

“You were my best place to start,” the voice said, and Kael’s inspecting glance saw that he gained a little more form. Kael’s eyes narrowed, and he looked away, nodding as he pumped and gestured for the mist to keep speaking.

“You used to be a king. I know that you were banished shortly before Seneya was born.”

Kael’s face went dark. His stroke on the pump abruptly halted with a harsh creak.

“You had good reason. I know it was choice. You couldn’t face your people after… Just know that I know.” The mist apologized, sputtering as Kael gave another harsh pump.

“My wife and unborn child were murdered. Say it. Skipping over it doesn’t make me hurt less! I did as my kind would do, and I raged until my princeling put me down. So many died to be sent back into the cycle.” Kael grinned with vindication, a harsh and toothy thing that he used to bite back bitter tears.

“This is why I brought her, this child. She is the other half of something. She is halfbreed. She is Phoenix and wild blood. As your son would be. I knew you would not fault her for her blood,” The mist spoke in pleading tones.

“She is royal blood,” Kael spoke quietly.

The mist gave the impression of nodding, and Kael pumped one more time, leveling the water in the basin.

Thick black starlight fire crawled over his hand, and he plunged it into the water. It boiled over every inch of his hand in a torrent of steam. He glared at the half soul before turning away. His wings flicked rudely.

He ambled towards the cabin and to the messy room, tossing open a meager chest full of strands of linen bandages, sashes of black cloth, leather bands, and to his dismay, not a single shirt.

He tossed open a drawer, then another, celebrating as he pulled out what looked to be a scarf; with that, he paired a handful of the linen strips. It would have to do.

He continued to dig and brought out a parchment-wrapped block of black soap, a cup, a soft-bristled brush, and a small tin of unlabeled material.

The misty spirit drew close, perhaps curious.

“Duck fat and wing soap.” Kael gestured to the spirit, who nodded slowly.

“I know what a halfsoul is, but not how you’re with the little starling,” Kael spoke as he strode out to the basin to deposit his gathered things.

“I am a safety measure. Seneya’s mother was of the south wind. Esanye Lyra, the queen, had but one daughter, and she passed away in unfortunate circumstances. The mind of an infant is so small, and their mana so weak. I could do nothing for her without her mother there to protect her. All I could do was huddle away and whisper to her the words of the song to keep her mind alive as it grew.”

Kael raised a brow and moved carefully towards the wheezing girl in the grass. He scooped her into his arms, cautious of her great wings as he walked back to the basin. Steam rolled off its surface. He lowered her into it as her wings draped out and over the back, still wet and bloody.

The water eased her breathing.

Kael pushed her into a slumped position over the side of the basin, turning the water pink.

He used the cup to scoop and pour water over her back, then wings, then hair. It was a sunlight red, wild, and thick as a horse’s mane, free-flowing and so very long. The blood washed away easily in places, stubbornly in others. Her wings were dark as far as he could tell, not quite a black amidst the blood, but lighter color showed through.

“Know what her wings are?”

The misty spirit, Sohken, shook its head. “Her tail’s feathers were too light when she was born. There’s Phoenix in them. Beyond that, she’s never had her wings out.”

“So never? Not even once!?” Kael blanched.

“Her mother bore scarlet hackles with dark grey and black banding freckled with white,” the spirit spoke with fondness and sadness.

“I remember Felice. What about the father?” Kael asked as he dipped the brush into the water and stroked it slowly over the black soap. It didn’t foam so much as lightly lather.

“A common pigeon,” Sohken said in bitter tones.

“Anael?” He asked, raising a brow.

“I know no Anael who have dirty grey wings,” He grumbled. Kael’s sideways glance grew severe.

“You may want to hold your tongue on things like that because these look very grey to me.”

Sohken’s misty form froze.

“You didn’t think that would happen, did you? Were you waiting for your little fiery wings? Didn’t think a father’s blood would will out?”

“I didn’t think of that, no. I just hoped you could care for her until she was ready to be found. She’s got a lot of healing to do.”

Kael poured water from cupped hands before stomping off to get a bucket. “I’m going to have to talk to Lyra, you know this, right? Holding on to her is an act of war.”

“I might agree, but Lyra cannot help her yet. She holds too much anger for a child like her. My first thought was to go back to Lyra, to travel and bring Seneya to her, but… Because of her, Felice was sent back to the cycle in death. So it may very well have been Lyra that gelded my little star.” The spirit whispered weakly.

“How did she end Felice? Also, for that matter, why did you teach her Acerrai instead of her homeland’s tongue?” Kael mused.

“Acerrai has more magic in it. She knows Anael, too, but it’ll come slower. As for Felice… One does not bear a spirit like me without consequence. Felice suffered after Seneya was born. She was too scared to go back to Lyra after she bound herself to the pigeon, afraid Lyra would have him executed. If Lyra wouldn’t have before, she would now. She was just so lonely, and he wasn’t there for her. Then the emptiness settled in, the hollow thoughts. Felice entered herself into the cycle.”

Kael brushed the soapy brush over her limp wings.

“Sutz,” Kael said beneath his breath with a grimace.

Kael closed his eyes for a moment as he thought. He’d be damned if he let this spirit say such things where she could hear. She looked so young, so new. The spirit blamed her for her mother’s death and the ill words he had of her appearance. Something didn’t sit right, though.

Seneya wasn’t conventionally attractive, not in her own way. Her ribs stood out, arms too thin, and her wings, they’d take time to heal, and he’d see what beauty they held once clean. She held features that said they would be beautiful in time.

The gentle suds came off pink with blood from his reserved touch, but this had to happen. When she finally lost consciousness, he sighed in relief. Just this alone may have been one of the more painful parts as he laid his hand over her back. His swirling black flames of night sky went tepid as he focused hard. A natural power flowed through it, but he subdued it in favor of something else. The rawness of her back began to draw back in, wounds closing and tears healing.

He wrestled with her limp form before grabbing the bucket, filling it before dumping fresh cold water over her. The chill made her gasp, waking her from the faint. She threw her head back, mouth wide. Kael’s eyes glanced over her teeth, a strange shape with canines filed down to blunted ends.

She screamed silently, thrashing as her wing hitched.

Kael steadied her with a firm grasp dumping another bucket of water over her, and watched as she spluttered with shuddering breaths.

“Come on, we’re going to dry you off and get you into some actual clothes and not this… this.. constrictive travesty of movement and form!” His rough, sharp hands grasped tight, fingers with long nails dyed black, digging into her. She made a soft noise of protest and stood in the basin on shaking legs as her heavy wings drooled copious amounts of water. Then, with gentle practiced movements, he led her out into the grass to lay in the sun. He helped her onto her knees in stunned silence as she reached for the dragging feathers of her limp wing, each touch satisfying her curiosity and simultaneously bringing great pain.

“Don’t try to move!” he warned, walking around to face her. His wings flit with emotion in them. They piqued curiously, and behind him, dusting the ground with a fan of feathers, stretched a long swaying tail. It flicked at the dirt with an impatient swish.

“Tell the spirit to go away.” He ordered.

“Don’t listen to him!” the misty form of the spirit hovered beside him, and Seneya looked to it with fear.

The mist went lighter, scattering as she saw it.

“I don’t think he’ll listen,” She breathed out in a hoarse rasp.

“He has to. Now command it.”

“Don’t you dare little star. Don’t you d-.”

“I order you to go away. GO AWAY!” Her hoarse voice cracked, and the force to use her breath made her wings ache and her back throb.

“No No No!” the mist shouted before dissipating, scattering into nothingness.

“Now. He brought you to me to heal you. He made me feel things I did not want to feel. I am now in possession of you, an unseasoned fledgling who cannot fly, has never seen her own wings, does not know her fire, and can only passably speak a language that, might I add, I have no idea how you came to know!”

She winced as he spoke over her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” she whimpered.

“What DO you know?” Kael asked, flitting his wings impatiently.

“Nothing. I heard a voice in my head. He told me to come here, and I did. I traveled thousands of miles, did dangerous stuff, learned this language from the voice, and now I am here,” she coughed out.

He looked her with a sneer over. “I’ll keep you for a bit. You’ll be an interesting pet.”