Page 17 of Wings of Lies (Daughter of the Seven Circles #1)

Chapter

Fourteen

“ L ook how tiny the female is,” hissed a voice.

“Why would she want someone like her?” hissed another. Each letter ‘S’ was a drop of water hitting a hot stove.

“We should eat her.”

“Eat what? Look at her skinny arms and legs.”

The raspy voices slowly pierced through the jumbled dream-walk of the stranger and dull throbbing in my skull. What did they just say? Something about eating?

“Idiot! Remember the last time we ate a prisoner?”

“What about just a nibble?”

“No.”

Were they talking about eating me? Awareness shot through my drowsiness. It took every ounce of willpower not to open my eyes or scramble away from the voices. Maybe if I continued to act asleep, they’d leave me alone .

“But I’m hungry, Cacus,” he whined closer to my ear. Hot, pungent breath hit the side of my face. I tensed, fighting the urge to lean away, and heard a soft chinking. Warm metal slid against my wrists, forcing my arms behind my back—the cuffs.

The throbbing in my head screamed at me through my rising panic.

Breathe. Don’t let them know you’re awake.

“Oh! Bael, we’re almost to Chatoyant Forest!”

“Yant Foxes. My favorite.” His spoiled egg breath shifted away.

My neck hovered at an awkward angle, nearly touching my shoulder. Despite my muscles screaming at me to shift, I figured it best to stay this way until I understood what was happening.

My bruised head bounced painfully against a wooden wall.

After the fourth bounce, I stiffened my lolling muscles—a small change.

One I hoped wasn’t too noticeable. But it was worth it as it saved my head from the constant bruising.

Unlike my bottom, which absorbed every bump from every nook and cranny we dipped into. Did they know how to drive?

A soft clip clop interrupted the hissing voices of Cacus and Bael. They were arguing over how many Yant Foxes they’d eat. Better than eating me. But what was that clip-clop noise?

Horses?

I ached to open my eyes and squeezed them tighter as the jostling reached a standstill.

Keep them shut. Don’t move. Pretend, Lucy .

Pretend. But the tightness in my neck cramped, shooting a biting pain into my muscles.

I jerked my hands, wanting to massage it.

Metal clanked against metal. I stiffened, hoping they didn’t hear.

Stay still, Lucy. Stay—shit! Unable to withstand it, I straightened my neck, waiting for the pungent scent and hisses to descend. When they didn’t, I risked a peek.

I was in a carriage .

The tan, boxy thing, illuminated by one small window, revealed a figure hidden in the corner.

A guy slept wedged between boxes, with his knees bent and head tilted back, which was good. What wasn’t good was the familiar uniform hugging his toned frame, only black instead of blood-red and with an azure blue emblem. The colors must be a ranking.

Hissing erupted, making me rethink the idea of opening my eyes. Slowly, I turned to my right, thinking it was too late to return to pretending.

Maybe it wasn’t too late. But how could I possibly close my eyes again, knowing three feet away, hunched two scaly monsters? My fingers hooked into a plank groove, barely preventing me from scooting away. But I was already moving too much.

They filled the back half of the carriage with their bulbous bodies.

Horns jutted from their unnaturally large heads.

At first, they both crouched underneath the square window, staring at something.

Then, one hissed and shoved his shoulder into the other.

Their horns scraped across the top of the wooden ceiling as they fought.

A small circle of light flashed through the gaps of their shoving.

A peephole underneath a window?

My eyes widened as one slammed the other into the wall, rocking the carriage and dislodging my weak hold on the wooden plank, sliding me forward. I cringed at the sound of my metal chains dragging. But they took no notice, too occupied with shoving each other.

With small movements, I glanced to the corner, wondering about the male, and met drilling blue eyes .

Shit, a hundred times over.

We stared at each other, neither moving nor blinking.

Under his scrutiny, tiny beads of sweat condensed on my forehead.

I wanted to drop my eyes, but something predatorial held me.

I swallowed. His searing gaze followed the contraction of my muscles, making me inhale my spit.

My face flushed as I held back a cough, then hacked, lips failing to muffle the noise.

“Shit!” I squeaked as one of the black creatures yanked me into their arms.

“Bael! She lives, and her eyes! She will be pleased.” The creature rasped. Bael turned his head toward me, and my stomach dropped to my toes.

I was going to die.

He laughed with a mouth of sharp, crimson teeth. “Afraid pipsqueak?” he hissed.

Afraid? Was I afraid of the three beady eyes the same color as its razor teeth and the symbols dotting its entire body? Was I afraid of the slits it had in place of a nose or the slimy scales that squeezed against my body, preventing me from moving?

No, I was terrified.

The thing squeezed me harder as it laughed with his buddy. A familiar pressure stabbed at the invisible barrier under my skin.

Bael crowded in. My heart pounded against Cacus’s large bicep, compressing my jerking lungs.

“She smells good, brother.”

“So, what about that nibble, Cacus?” Bael shifted his weight between his feet, shaking the carriage. “Please, please?”

He was begging to eat me? To take a nibble ?

I shook. Bael’s red razors glinted in the window light, slick with saliva. A glistening glob trailed down his chin while he widened his lipless mouth. Rotten egg breath heated my face, and I realized Cacus had lowered his mouth to my ear.

“You don’t want to eat me. I—I taste bad!” I stuttered out. Black specs seemed to think it was a good time to invade my vision.

I was about to pass out, and they were going to eat me.

Caucus and Bael laughed before they both drew in and sniffed.

“No, you smell delicious.”

Bit by bit, the stabbing sensation ripped into my barrier, seeking the outer portion of my skin. Please surface! It couldn’t be like with Marcus’s goons.

Its sticky lips pressed against my neck when it happened—a flash of light, a sharp jolt of pain, hissing, rocking, hands jerking, and a tingle.

One moment, I was about to be snacked on, and the next, my back was pressed against a chest angled away from the hissing things. The scaly creatures bared their teeth, holding their arms to their chests.

“Stupid beasts. She’s not a snack! She’s our prisoner!” I flinched at the ferocity of the male’s voice in my ear.

“But it wouldn’t damage her too much. Just her ear?” Bael supplied, hopeful. The thing sounded like a little kid begging for a second cookie after dinner. They were insane! What were these things?

The guy behind me snorted with disgust. “ She is not for you. Find a snack in the forest, or next time, I’ll take the teeth you cherish.”

He jerked me around to face him. But my focus lingered on Cacus’s and Bael’s hissing. Pointed black tongues came out of their mouths and wrapped around the wounds on their arms. I shuddered .

“You.” A calloused hand came up and gripped my chin, forcing me to look at the guy who held me, shocking my skin with pinpricks of electricity.

Full lips pressed into a line, right at my eye level.

His grip on my chin tightened, and the pinpricks of electricity increased.

I dropped my gaze from his grimace, finding a bright red scrolling scar beneath his chin.

I followed his chiseled jawline up his sweeping cheekbones and landed on his pissed-off bright blue eyes.

“Try something like that again, and it’ll hurt you more than us. Understand?” He punctuated his question, which wasn’t a question, with a shove, pushing me away like he couldn’t stand to touch me.

Unbalanced with my restrained arms, I fell into the wooden wall. Stunned, I leaned there, flickering my eyes between the bulky black beasts and the guy with the indifferent expression.

“Did you hear me?”

My fingers dug into my palms. The cords in my center hummed, plucked by his domineering tone.

“Go to hell.”

Cacus and Bael snickered to the side of us, shutting up quickly with a jerk of the male’s head.

I guess my new jailor was an asshole with authority.

From the way he not only bruised my chin but shoved me into the side of the carriage, I knew he was as bad as Marcus and Oliver.

A wash of betrayal and defeat struck. How would I ever find Magda and my mom now?

Oliver gave me up. He was the first person I trusted, and he placed me back into their arms. Now, here I was—cuffed, with two creatures who looked like nightmares and a guy with a penchant for rough handling. I had no clue where Marcus and Oliver were. Maybe this was their hired help .

Was this what she meant when she said to come to Elora? A weight settled on my shoulders and burrowed into my chest. Was this all one big ploy?

“Get out. It’s time to set up camp,” snapped an older man from behind the bulbous bodies of Cacus and Bael.

Graying hair and a long beard peeked through the small gap between the creatures.

From the wrinkles on his forehead, he appeared to be in his sixties.

A gray cloak flowed behind him over a gray tunic and pants, dull and different from the casual, more modern clothes I wore.

Even the full garb the younger man wore was different.

Carriages, old clothing, stiff leather uniforms, strange creatures— This was Elora?

The older man stood chest-level with the carriage.

One long scar ran from the start of his nose to the middle of his cheek.

It moved as he pursed his lips impatiently, watching the younger man grab supplies in the back.

The creatures pushed each other, hunched and shambling the few feet to the back opening.