Page 4

I watched in horror as they used sharp tools to hack open the seam between the front glass and the cell on my left.

It was my turn. They were going to kill me.

Fletcher had used me too much. I didn’t have enough blood to give.

I could be replaced by someone who’d eat their berries and food and drink their water.

Someone who replenished far more often. Someone who complied.

But, I wanted this, right? I would rather die …

And now that the glass was opening, the stench of sweat and dirty shoes rushing into my cage from the hallway, I wasn’t even strong enough to fight them.

Fletcher had just drained me. I was at my weakest. I hadn’t moved much in months.

My muscles were sore, my spine stiff, stuck in a curve from huddling in the corner. My neck creaked when I moved it.

I watched as two men invaded my cage, plodded to me, and knelt by my side. “Hello, little creature.”

I dared my magic to respond. And it did, but it was a flicker of aqua so faint, I wasn’t even sure if it was just an illusion of my panic.

Rough hands came down on my bruised wrists, pushing my golden shackles into me with far more force than was necessary. Their warm skin felt like fire on my cold limbs, pressing uncomfortably on my wounds. I grunted as they dragged me to my quaking feet.

I tried to keep my feet under me, but they were moving too fast, so I had no choice but to let them drag me into the hallway.

I watched as the other women gradually stood, placing their hands over their hearts. All except Topine. She was frantic at the front glass, punching, kicking, and screaming .

I had an opportunity to mouth something to her… but what? Instead, I just stared. Tears poured down her face. Then, I rotated my head to Quinn, gaining a final image of my friend.

Down the narrow hall I went. The door at the end, the one that Fletcher always used to storm toward my cage, opened to expose tall metal walls. My headache roared to life as I groaned and squinted my eyes at the bright light reflecting off the walls.

After no more than ten feet, another door in front of me opened and I was thrown into a large room alone.

I fell onto my stomach, face scraping the coarse cement and lighting fire to my wounds.

The gray concrete held spots of liquid crimson in some areas as if there had recently been a battle and no one had bothered to even hose it down.

Laughing resounded all around me from a crowd I couldn’t yet see.

Slowly, I was able to bend my leg under me and make my way to my hands and knees. A nasty cough ripped out of me as I waited for the pain of the fall to subside.

I inhaled deeply but coughed as soon as the stench of sweat, body odor, and sex filled my lungs .

I planted my foot on the ground, knee creaking beneath my weight.

My shaky legs wobbled with fatigue as I moved to a slumped standing position.

Black tendrils of hair fell like a curtain over my face, and I didn’t have enough energy in me to fix it.

Instead, I tilted my head to the left then the right, hoping it would clear my vision a bit.

The same metal walls lined the square space in front of me.

I trailed my vision up the twenty-foot-high walls to a seating area above.

Dozens of people sat, watching me from the other side of a chain-linked ceiling that separated us.

Their chatter filled the air, looking down at me like I was their form of entertainment.

My skin crawled under their harsh gazes, humiliation flaring up my bare stomach with raw revulsion.

Hammering pain slammed into my head and rattled up my body, sending me backward into the wall with a yelp.

A new clatter of laughter flew into the space as I brought my gaze back to level.

A whooshing sound turned my attention to the other side of the room.

A door opened and a lanky, naked male was pushed through with similar golden shackles.

His scrawny figure stumbled in, falling on his face much like I had.

Red holes slathered his body as his golden eyes looked up at me.

“I-I’m so sorry about this,” he mumbled to me in a craggy rasp.

“About what?”

Then, the door shot open again, and a man wearing a protective suit that loosely covered every inch of his body stepped in.

In his hands was some sort of barrel attached to a larger tube that traveled out the door behind him. He aimed it at the Elizian’s back as he climbed to all fours.

Out of the barrel came a shimmering purple mist that engulfed him. And as soon as he inhaled the mist, his entire demeanor shifted. His muscles tensed. He rose to a standing position effortlessly, and his eyes locked on mine.

The suited man darted out the door, closing it behind him.

Then, it was just me and the male Elizian staring at each other from across the room with the audience above.

His spine straightened, coming to more than a foot and a half taller than me. Purple magic swirled beneath his skin in a display of beautifully curved spirals. It traveled down his torso where I noticed him becoming hard.

That was when I realized what this was. Why the women were being dragged out of the cages. Why I had been dragged out of the cage.

They were going to breed me.