Enthralled by Tiffany Roberts

Chapter 27

The queen’smandibles rose and fell, and she tilted her head aside by the barest degree. The only sound in the chamber was that of the storm raging far, far above, amplified through the hole in the cavern ceiling, and the slow, echoing drip of water falling through that same hole.

Ketahn’s hearts lurched into motion again. His blood crawled through his veins like mud sliding down a hill, thickened by that impossible mix of hot and cold.

“What is this creature?” Zurvashi asked. The buzzing underlying her words might have been curiosity—but it might as easily have been disgust.

Though the movement was subtle, Ahnset eased back from the queen. “She is a hyu-nin.”

Zurvashi summoned her Claws closer with an impatient gesture. The males advanced warily, eyeing Ketahn and keeping their hands on their weapons as they did so.

“Have you seen such a creature as this?” the queen asked.

“No, my queen,” replied one.

“Never,” said the other.

“Only the finest hunters for your Claw, my queen,” Zurvashi said mockingly. “Were it not for his loyalty, I would have crushed that fool Durax long ago.” She dismissed the Claws with a brisk wave and looked at Ketahn. “And you?”

Ketahn did not answer.

The queen chittered. “You have. It is plain in your eyes, Ketahn.”

“W-what’s happening?” Ella asked in a small, worn voice. The light in her eyes was more than just fear. It was a sputtering fire that was burning through the last of its wood, brighter than ever as it entered its final moments. And, whenever her gaze drifted away from the vrix to take in the cavern around her, that light took on a hint of wonder.

“It has a strange call,” remarked one of the Fangs.

“Quiet,” snapped Prime Fang Korahla.

“Ahnset?” Ella looked from Ahnset to Ketahn, a pleading crease forming between her eyebrows. “Ketahn?”

Zurvashi released a disbelieving huff. “Did this creature just speak your names?”

“It will be all right, Ella,” Ketahn said in English; he did not look away from the queen.

“Words,” Archspeaker Valkai breathed. “Those are words in another tongue.”

“The hyu-nins are intelligent,” Ahnset said, bolstering her voice with fresh confidence. “My queen, befriending these creatures would benefit all Takarahl. The tools they are capable of creating are beyond anything we have imagined.”

The queen stepped closer to Ahnset and Ella. The human female shrank in Ahnset’s arms, curling close against her chest.

“K-Ketahn, what…what is this place?” Ella asked, trembling. “Why did Ahnset…bring me here?”

The words Ketahn was about to speak formed low in his gut, taking the shape of a thorny vine. They shredded his insides as they rose, leaving his chest and throat torn and raw; it was not the alien tongue in which he spoke them that made them so painful. It was the truth of them.

It was the futility of them.

“For healing,” he said. “Ahnset…wants to help.”

“You understand this creature, Ketahn?” the queen asked, looking at him again. “Tell me what it is saying.”

Ketahn curled his hands into fists, pressing his claws into his palms. “Ahnset, take her out of here.”

“You will do no such thing,” Zurvashi snarled, thrusting a finger toward Ahnset like it was a war spear. “Bring that thing to me.”

Ahnset’s mandibles twitched and fell, hanging at the sides of her face. Her posture was stiff with tension and uncertainty. “Ketahn, I…”

“Your queen has commanded you,” Zurvashi growled. “Do not ignore me.”

Ella’s trembling had only worsened in the face of the queen’s anger.

As large and powerful as the queen seemed to him, she must’ve been terribly more so from Ella’s perspective. Ella was a small, soft, ill thing in a world of giants—and none were quite so large as Zurvashi.

Ketahn did not care if Ella’s death was mere days away or years in the future—he would not allow the human’s final moments to be here. Not with her.

“Do not ignore me,” he snarled, darting into the space between Zurvashi and Ahnset.

The Fangs shook their apparent stupor. In a burst of movement, four of them took position in a ring around Ketahn, leveling their spears at his neck. The two Claws behind the queen had their axes raised now, mandible claws gnashing.

Ketahn did not look away from Zurvashi.

The queen dipped her chin to glance at him, narrowing her eyes.

Ahnset rasped his name.

Ketahn’s chest and shoulders heaved, breath growing ragged as the fire inside him finally beat back the cold. “We have not finished, Zurvashi.”

Queen Zurvashi made a thoughtful trill. “No, little Ketahn. We have not. Remove yourself from my path.”

Ivy… Forgive me.

“No.”

“Curse your stubbornness, hunter,” Prime Fang Korahla growled. She stood behind the queen, eyes shifting repeatedly between Ketahn and his broodsister. He’d never seen her look so troubled.

The mask of calm that had settled over Zurvashi’s eyes shattered. She lunged at him, reaching with both left arms. Her long, wicked claws were blurs racing toward Ketahn’s head, each as capable of piercing his hide as a sharpened blackrock shard.

Ketahn ducked under Zurvashi’s reach and shifted to her left side. He put up one of his arms, hooking it around both of hers, and swung himself behind her, using his hold to throw himself against her back.

Between the momentum of her attack and impact of Ketahn’s weight, Zurvashi’s forelegs buckled. Her leg joints hit the floor heavily. Gold and gems rattled and clanged, some of them striking the stone, and she was forced to twist her torso to catch herself with her right hands.

Drawing himself fully atop her, Ketahn latched his legs around her hindquarters and torso, hooking his leg claws into her hide. She snarled in pain and shoved herself upright far too quickly.

The faces of all the vrix he’d seen fall over the years flashed through Ketahn’s mind’s eye. With a growl of his own, he curled his upper left arm around Zurvashi’s neck and sank his claws into her cheek to anchor his hold. Hot blood trickled over his fingers.

There was shouting all around, hulking figures looming nearby, but Ketahn couldn’t make out any of it; that chaos did not matter.

Protector… Avenger. If he could not save Ella, he would at least ensure Zurvashi would never pose a threat to any of his other friends, any of the other humans.

Zurvashi lifted her upper right arm over her head and bent it back. Her groping hand came down on Ketahn’s back between his neck and shoulder. Her claws pierced his flesh like it were no thicker than a leaf.

He did not feel any pain, but the strength drained from his arm all the same. Zurvashi bent forward, dragging Ketahn off with raw force. His body flipped over her shoulder, his claws tearing furrows on her cheek, and he hit the floor on his back with enough force to steal the air from his lungs.

Zurvashi shook her head. Droplets of blood spilled from the cuts on her cheek, falling on Ketahn.

The Claws were upon him first. The edges on their blackrock axes gleamed in the blue light of the crystals as their groping hands caught Ketahn’s arms.

“Do not kill him,” Zurvashi barked.

With no attempt at hiding their frustration, the Claws growled and tightened their holds on Ketahn, dragging him up. When he tried to get his legs beneath him, one of the Claws kicked the backs of his leg joints, forcing the limbs to buckle.

“Please, Ahnset, I want to go back. P-please. Take…take me…take me back.” Ella’s words were broken, weak, desperate. Labored and fearful. Tears glistened in her eyes.

“Shh. Be easy, little one,” Ahnset soothed. Ketahn recognized the cracks in her outward calm, the faint wobble in her voice.

“Was this a challenge for rule?” the queen demanded, locking her gaze on the Archspeaker. “Were we battling beneath their eightfold eyes to determine the fate of Takarahl?”

Valkai lowered her head. “No, my queen.”

“No.” Zurvashi spun toward the Fangs, fine hairs bristling. “So why did all of you stand and stare as your queen was attacked? Boulders would have offered me better protection!”

“He was unarmed,” replied Prime Fang Korahla, “and you have ever chosen to meet your attackers with your own hands. My queen.”

The queen walked to the Prime Fang, fingers flexing as though preparing to lash out. Zurvashi’s voice was dangerously low. “When all this is through, Korahla, we will have a spirited discussion concerning the loyalty and effectiveness of the Fangs under your command.”

Something flickered in Korahla’s eyes—unease, perhaps even shame—but it was gone before Ketahn could determine what it was.

The Prime Fang made a gesture of apology and bowed her head. “Yes, my queen.”

Zurvashi lingered there for several more heartbeats; Korahla stood her ground but did not raise her head again. Finally, the queen stepped in front of Ketahn.

Crimson oozed from her cheek as she leaned down and grabbed his jaw, holding his head still. She purred, “We are not done, you and I.” She raised a bent foreleg, pressed it against his side, and slid it down slowly, deliberately, spreading her strong scent along his hide. “Bending you to my will be the greatest challenge I have ever faced, Ketahn. But when you finally crumble, when you finally admit to yourself that you belong to me… That moment will be sweeter by far than any other.”

“By the Eight,” Ketahn rasped, “I will end you, Zurvashi.”

“A foolish male who needs to learn his place. It is fortunate for you that your place is as my mate and sire to my brood.” She relaxed her hold on his face and patted his cheek. “But I must attend to my other guests before I see to you, little hunter.”

He snapped his head forward, seeking the queen’s forearm with his mandibles, but one of the Claws grasped a fistful of Ketahn’s hair and tugged him back hard. The jagged edge of an axe pressed against his throat.

“Do not move,” the Claw to his right growled.

Zurvashi chittered as though it were all in jest and turned back toward Ahnset. “I will say this but once more, Ahnset. Bring the creature here.”

Ahnset drew in a deep breath that made her chest swell. Ketahn watched her harden—her eyes, her stance, her very spirit. She closed the distance between herself and the queen in two strides.

Queen Zurvashi folded her arms across her chest. “Place it down.”

Stiffly, Ahnset lowered Ella. The human clutched at Ahnset, fighting to remain close, to remain in the shelter of her arms, but it would have been an unwinnable struggle for Ella even if she were at her prime.

Ella’s feet touched the cold stone floor; they were bare. She staggered back against Ahnset, making as though she meant to twist toward her.

The hardness in Ahnset’s eyes shattered. She looked away as she placed a pair of hands upon Ella’s shoulders and gently forced the human forward. Ella’s struggles ceased as she found herself looking up at Zurvashi. The flesh around her eyes was dark and sunken, in stark contrast to her terribly pale skin, and there was a blue tint to her lips. She drew the blanket around herself more snugly, shivering.

“As I said, my queen, there is much we might learn from them,” Ahnset said.

“From something so tiny and frail?” Zurvashi leaned closer to Ella. “What is wrong with it?”

“She is ill. I had hoped…to acquire mender root, my queen, to heal her.”

“Are they all like this? Soft and weak?” The queen lifted her gaze to Ahnset. “This creature looks like something we vrix would hunt, though it would barely make a single meal.”

Ketahn’s gut churned at the thought of humans being food—of his Ivy being food.

“Do not touch her,” he growled, throwing himself forward. The Claws restraining him grunted and pulled him back.

Zurvashi turned her head, regarding Ketahn. His hearts hammered in his chest, his rage swirled in fiery waves that had nowhere to go, consuming him from within, and his heartsthread thrummed mournfully in the absence of his mate.

“There are more, yes?” Zurvashi returned her attention to Ahnset.

Ahnset’s mandibles drew together, fangs grinding against one another.

The queen reached for Ella. The human female let out a meager cry and shied back, but she could not retreat; Ahnset’s firm hold kept her in place.

Zurvashi’s hand caught the underside of Ella’s jaw. Ella’s breathing, already shallow and strained, became quick and ragged, panic lighting in her eyes. Zurvashi tipped the human’s head back, turning it from one side to the other.

“Ugly things. Like misshapen grubs crawled out of the dirt.” The queen grasped the blanket and tore it away from Ella. The damp cloth brushed along Zurvashi’s foreleg when she released it.

“She is as harmless as a broodling,” Ketahn said. “Let her leave. She is no threat to you.”

The queen’s body went rigid. A low growl rumbled in her chest as she hooked the fallen blanket with her leg claws and lifted it to one of her hands. She pressed the fabric to her face and drew in a deep, heavy breath.

Realization struck Ketahn harder than any blow Zurvashi could’ve delivered.

That was Ivy’s blanket. The one she’d used most every day for several eightdays before gifting it to Ella. The one that bore Ivy’s scent down to its tiniest fibers.

Mandibles spreading wide, Zurvashi leaned down and sniffed at Ella, who closed her eyes and turned her face away.

“Leave her, Zurvashi!” Ketahn snarled.

“I know this scent.” The queen shifted her hand to wrap around Ella’s throat.

Ella let out a choked cry, throwing her hands up to grasp futilely at Zurvashi’s arm.

“I have smelled it on you”—Zurvashi thrust a finger toward Ketahn, fire flashing in her eyes—“many times. One of many jungle scents, you said. But I had never smelled it before, and I have walked the jungle, Ketahn.”

Ahnset’s arms tensed, tremors rippling through them. “My queen, please. She has done no wrong to you or any other vrix. She and her kind mean us no harm.”

Zurvashi tore Ella from Ahnset’s hold, leaving the Fang to stumble forward. Ella’s feet dragged on the floor as Zurvashi, holding her by the neck, spun to face Ketahn. “You have mated this creature!”

Ketahn pulled against the hold of the Claws, hearts thundering. “I have not!”

Ella’s face was turning red. Ketahn knew some of that color on human skin was healthy, but there was nothing healthy about this.

He roared and twisted his torso fiercely to the side, wrenching his arms free from one of the Claws and throwing his weight against the other. The blackrock edge sliced across his throat. The searing pain was distant, the wound minor—and his fury was unleashed.

Instinct drove him, demanding blood, demanding death, demanding savagery to protect this sickly member of his tribe. His claws lashed out wildly, shredding the flesh of the male he’d knocked down.

The other Claw had maintained his hold on Ketahn’s hair. He pulled on it now. Ketahn resisted for an instant before throwing his weight in the same direction. The sudden shift in momentum disrupted the Claw’s balance, and Ketahn fell upon him. In the span of a heartbeat, he wrestled the male’s axe away.

A huge figure approached from the side. Ketahn lashed out with the axe, burying its head in the gut of the Fang who’d tried to intervene. It slowed her down, but she did not stop.

A storm of grabbing hands and pummeling fists enveloped Ketahn, obscuring his vision, reducing his mind to the most primal of all thoughts—kill or be killed. He thrashed and clawed, gnashed his mandibles, and kicked his legs, doing as much damage to his foes as he could.

But they were too many, too strong. The Fangs managed to get hold of his arms and legs, lifting him off the floor completely to deny him the leverage solid ground would have provided. They bent his limbs, putting so much pressure on his joints that he might have wailed were it not for the battle haze dulling everything but his rage.

The Fangs swung him around so he was facing Zurvashi again.

Ella’s round, terrified eyes, showing so much of their whites—and the weblike veins running through them, now more noticeable than ever—met Ketahn’s gaze.

“You mated this abomination,” Zurvashi snarled. “You have spurned me for this creature! This worm! You have been offered the best of our kind and you chose an animal instead.” She shook Ella hard; the human’s limbs flopped against the force, but somehow Ella held on.

“Release her,” Ketahn roared, straining against his captors.

The Fangs swayed, shifting their legs to better brace themselves, and tightened their crushing grips on him.

“Please, my queen,” Ahnset begged. “It is not as you say!”

She lunged forward, but Korahla intercepted her, blocking Ahnset’s path with her own body.

“Still you fight for this creature’s life?” Zurvashi lifted Ella high. The human’s feet dangled and kicked weakly nearly two segments off the floor. Zurvashi was still staring at Ketahn. “I will not allow our kind to be tainted by these vile creatures. I will no longer be made to look a fool in my city.”

The queen stepped forward and wrapped a hand around Ketahn’s neck, squeezing tight enough to cease the flow of air into his lungs. She forced his head up. “I will no longer allow you to believe you have any choice, you sniveling jungle worm. Takarahl is mine. The whole Tangle is mine. You. Are. Mine.”

Ketahn tried to choke out words; he did not know what they might have been, did not know what he could have said, and it didn’t matter. They wouldn’t have changed anything had he been able to get them out.

She did not allow him to look away as she clamped a hand on the top of Ella’s head. She did not allow him to look away as she squeezed Ella’s neck and skull. Did not allow him to look away as she pulled her hands in separate directions.

“No!” Ahnset cried.

Ella’s agonized scream was cut short by the wet crack of bone and the tearing of flesh. Ketahn had heard such sounds countless times, but this time, they pierced to his core. They were burned into his spirit, into his heartsthread, and they would haunt him forever. There was shouting, Ahnset crying out in shock and rage, but all Ketahn could hear was cracking bone, tearing flesh, and that short, horrifying scream.

A choked moan was Ella’s final sound. It was little more than a whisper amidst a raging storm.

Blood gushed between Zurvashi’s fingers, and bits of shattered flesh and bone oozed out with it. Her amber eyes bored into Ketahn as she tore what remained of Ella’s head away from her body.

“Shaper, unmake me,” someone rasped.

Ketahn stared at Ella’s unmoving body, stared at the blood running over her jumpsuit, stared at her dirty bare feet as that blood ran down to drip off her toes and pool on the floor. For an instant, his imagination presented Ivy in Ella’s place—and he knew the Eight were nothing like what he’d been taught. What benevolent gods would allow such an atrocity to take place here, in the very cavern where they were worshipped?

Zurvashi jerked Ketahn’s face back to her and leaned close—close enough that he could’ve caught her with his mandibles, close enough that he should have done so, but he couldn’t feel his body, couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

“I will have every one of those creatures brought to me,” she purred, trailing the tip of a claw along his jawline, “and you will watch as I tear them apart, one by one. You will watch as I paint Takarahl’s stone with their blood. And you will give me everything I demand and more, because you belong to me, Ketahn. You will spend the rest of your days redeeming yourself for what you have done. You will spend the rest of your days in your place, beneath me.”

She shoved his head down hard and released her grasp. Ketahn sucked in air through his burning throat, mandibles flaring wide.

“I will give you everything you deserve,” he growled. “Blood for blood.”

The queen tossed Ella’s remains aside like a soiled piece of silk, shaking excess blood from her hands. “Take him to the deepest, darkest hole in Takarahl and ensure he remains there until I see fit to use him.”

The Fangs hauled him backward, carrying him away from the queen. Ketahn struggled and hissed, but he could not break their grips. His hearts beat like rolling thunder, and his rage was hot enough to melt stone, but it was all for nothing.

“As for you, Ahnset…” the queen said, turning her back toward Ketahn.

Prime Fang Korahla shifted so she was more fully in front of Ahnset. “Zurvashi, she—”

The queen silenced the Prime Fang with a click of her fangs. “She is going to lead my Claws to the rest of these creatures.”

Ketahn roared in useless fury; it echoed in the cavern, building and building, shaking the crystals as it became something as powerful as it was meaningless. He roared until his throat was ragged, and even then, he did not stop until there was no sound left to emerge from him.

And the Queen’s Fangs dragged him down into the dark.