Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
“I’d like to help Ava,” Nyan says.
“Good.”
“MAROW.” Buttface winds around my feet, throwing his lot in with us as well.
Saving Ava is not going to be easy. I fear for her safety, and for her life, but I know Kain well enough to know that he does not take a hostage just to sacrifice them immediately. He is many things, but stupid is not one of them. He wants me to come to him.
He’s going to get what he wants.
11
Ava
“I am having trouble deciding which one of you I want to kill first,” Kain says conversationally. “Traditionally, I’d kill you in front of Azlan, but I think a fun twist could be to kill him, so he dies knowing that he cannot protect you from me, and I can draw out your death as long as I want to. You could suffer for years.”
“It’s good to have options,” I say. It sounds smart ass, but it’s actually just the only thing my numb brain can come up with at short notice.
“It is. It’s also nice to have someone to share this with, someone who understands.”
Kain is full-blown, absolutely mad as a proverbial hatter. Not in a gibbering nonsense sort of way, but in a much more dangerous semi-lucid way. He treats me as a prisoner and as a confidante, spilling what passes for secrets to me nearly day and night.
For my part, I now inhabit a cage on the dais next to Kain’s throne. I have been here for three full days, and my captivity is designed to be a humiliation. I must relieve myself in a tray, which is removed through a slot and replaced, and when I eat, it is from the scraps of Kain’s plate. He does not follow a vegetarian diet.
One would think that I’d not see Kain all that much, given he is alpha and can do as he pleases. But Kain seems enthralled by the throne and does not want to leave it. He is like a small child with a new favorite toy. Or a power mad psychopath laboring under the misapprehension that the chair itself contains some magic.
“I’m surprised he is taking so long to come,” Kain says. “I want to be sure he sees me on this throne when he does. I want him to see me sitting in the seat he was groomed for, my feet on the pelt of the father who terrified us all.”
I am also surprised that Azlan has taken so long to come, but for different reasons. I am starting to fear that he may not come; perhaps it is not worth it to him. I hope the cubs are being fed and growing strong. I hope so many things from the restrictive, almost constrictive cage.
“Perhaps you could get your guards to notify you, and then you don’t have to keep sitting there,” I suggest.
I don’t really give two fucks if Kain sits on the throne so long it grows into him, but I do know that my survival probably relies on ingratiating myself to him.
“I could,” Kain muses. “But many of the guard are still loyal to my father, even though he was a nasty tyrant.” He rubs his feet along his father’s pelt. “This fate was too good for him,” he muses. “I did what Azlan should have done years ago. What anybody should have done years ago.”
Kain, it seems, really needs someone to listen. I’m not stupid enough to feel sorry for him, but I can tell he does not have any true allies or family. He has those he dominates, and those he fears.
“When I was but a cub of ten or so, just as my mane had begun to grow, this piece of shit took me out to the pride lands and left me there,” he says conversationally. “That is what he did to all his sons. Did Azlan tell you that?”
“No,” I say softly, not wanting to break his flow.
“Azlan is the reason I survived a single day out there. He was a cub of twelve. He had been on his own for some time, but he was smart and resourceful, even then.”
Does Kain know he’s praising his brother? I don’t interrupt him.
“Azlan showed me how to hunt small prey effectively, and how to get water from the dew. He showed me how to survive like an animal survives, because that is what we had been reduced to. I was much beloved of my mother, and thought she would surely come for me, but she did not. He prevented her from doing so. In the female quarters, there are thick collars and even thicker chains attached to the beds, so a mother might be bred and made a mother again.”
He sounds deeply bitter, and I do not blame him. Males are worth nothing in this society if they are not alphas. They are abandoned and left to die, if they are suffered to live at all.