7. Betrayal

Shan

"Have you handled the girl?"

It takes me some time to recover from our mating session and return to Wrath. He is not known for being patient, but the fucking she deserved could not wait.

"Yes," I say, returning to my usual taciturn demeanor. "She's been bred again. Several times."

Wrath grins broadly, all my tardiness forgiven.

I am glad to have distracted him with this truth, and I know that in all likelihood he can scent the mating on me. Lettie's soft human pussy drenched me with her juices as she squirmed atop me. I am wearing her essence like a mark.

He thinks I am enjoying fucking her and bragging about it. That is the perfect cover because Wrath is and will always be a danger to me. If anything, he is only growing more dangerous over time. Now, more than ever, I must keep my innermost thoughts a secret from him. He represents an unimaginable threat not only to Alpha Thorn's grip on the city, but to my own happiness. If he was to understand, for even a second, how intensely and swiftly the bond between Lettie and me has grown, he would use it for his own ends.

"Go and get her and come with me. I have much to show you, Shan. You are fast becoming one of my most reliable and trusted men. In this organization, that comes with responsibilities."

"I will need some appropriate attire for the human. Her suit was detonated, but she cannot keep wearing scraps."

Wrath nods. "Go back to your quarters. I will have something suitable brought to you very soon."

I thought he would tell me such things would take time. Truthfully, I was attempting to stall. I have a very bad feeling about where Wrath wants to take me and Lettie. There is always a part of me that is convinced he has already seen through the charade of my loyalty to him and intends to kill me. Then again, he does not need to lead me outside Grave City to do that. He could do that right here, as I stand. I must not give into paranoia. My cover is solid.

Ireturn to Lettie, who is napping in my bed. She seems blissfully unconcerned by all that is happening around her. She is trusting in me to keep her safe, and for reasons I cannot entirely put my finger upon, I am starting to worry. There is something in the air. Change, perhaps. I have never liked change. Or more than that, simply the sensation that things are coming to a head. Wrath is right. He has begun to enact a kind of criminality that cannot be tolerated. The alpha will need his reserves back. I am keenly aware every time I venture to the surface just how uneasy the truce is becoming between the governors and those they attempt to govern. Wrath has always filled the city with spies, and now Thorn is doing the same. He is recruiting directly out of Wrath's organization in some cases, finding malcontents and those who are motivated purely by greed.

A net is tightening around Wrath, slowly but surely. But I know full well the underworld's alpha will not go down without a fight, and he is not entirely unaware of the way Thorn is attempting to play him at his own game. My concern is that this will eventually become bloody, and when it does, it may claim the lives of hundreds.

A brief rapping at the door indicates the presence of a runner. Wrath does not waste time dispatching his minions to do his bidding.

The saurian at the door hands an outfit to me.

"Wrath says this should fit your mate. He wants to see you both as soon as she's dressed and ready to go out. Don't keep him waiting."

I know the last part is coming from Wrath, and not the runner, because the runner's voice quavers when he has to say that to me. He is gone before I can reply in any way, which is probably just as well for him.

I find myself holding a fresh human-sized skin-tight suit. It is not like the one I found her in. It does not have endless pockets and tricks and such hidden in a multitude of pockets. It is bright pink with a purple chevron over the breast, made from a robust, thick, rubbery-type material, and it comes with a new pair of boots to match. It is quite striking. I find myself curious as to what it will look like when she puts it on.

I return to the bed and nudge Lettie gently, feeling warmth of an emotional kind pass through me as she opens her eyes in that slow, mammalian way she has, stretching her limbs and curling up again in an expression of pure coziness and contentment. Being a human looks to be a very comfortable experience at times. They are very warm and snuggly little things, and they enjoy blankets the same way saurians enjoy basking.

"Hmmm?" She does not bother to form a word, simply making a curious, sleepy little sound, looking at me with half-lidded eyes from the comfort of the bed.

"It is time to get up and time to get dressed," I tell her, producing the outfit that was just delivered.

She sits up, wiping her eyes, frowning slightly at the sight of the garment.

"Where did you get that?"

"It was given to me for you to wear."

Her eyes dart around the room, but I do not think she is looking at the room. I think she is searching the recesses of her own mind. Something about this suit disturbs her.

"You shouldn't have that," she says softly.

"But I do. So put it on. Our presence is required, and I do not think either of us want to present you to the most dangerous creatures in the saurian underworld without clothing. Get dressed. Now."

She does as she is told, sliding her curvy frame into a suit which stretches where it needs to stretch, and clings where it needs to cling. The effect is very pleasing, though I suspect it makes her uncomfortable to be so brightly and tightly displayed. A human female form is made up of so many delicious curves and sensitive locations. Now that the suit is on, I note that it is cut in such a way as to plunge down between her breasts just enough to put the uppermost curve of them on display. It is a very alluring sight. Though I come from a species of hard, scaly creatures, I appreciate her softness, and I am drawn to touch her most tender places.

"It zips in the back," she says. "Do you mind?"

Oh there are so many things I would not mind doing in this moment as I reluctantly fasten the garment from the rear, running the zipper from her lower back all the way up to the nape of her neck. I want to pull it back down again. I want to peel the suit off…

I restrain myself, knowing that Wrath has already shown more patience than usual. He is not taking me out to the new base as some kind of sightseeing trip. He wants something from me, just as he wants something from Lettie, who has now pulled her boots on and is standing in front of me, a curvy vision in pink and purple.

"You are very pretty," I tell her, though the word pretty doesn't feel right in this moment. What I want to say is you are the most alluring creature I have ever laid eyes on, and I want to ravage you absolutely relentlessly and remorselessly until you are utterly brimming with my seed.

I refrain from that level of disclosure, as fun as it would be to watch her blush and squirm and no doubt become aroused. We have somewhere to be. We have a game to play.

"Come with me," I say, extending my hand. "And, Lettie, no matter what you see today, I need you to obey me to the letter of the word. Do you understand? We are about to be in the presence of creatures who will attempt to destroy you if you present yourself as an inconvenience or an obstacle. If you wish to continue to survive, you must obey."

She gives me a small, frightened nod.

It will not hurt her to be reminded that the stakes of this situation are life and death. If something were to happen to me, or if some other saurian were to have had her in his grip first, the things that would be happening to her are unthinkable. I feel pulses of rage running through me at the mere idea of what I know my kind are capable of doing to such a devourable little morsel.

We leave whatever relative safety my room offers and proceed hand in hand through the halls. I notice that they feel less busy than they did even a few hours ago. There is a hollowness to my steps, and a…

"Can I ask a question?" Lettie pipes up, her voice small and soft.

"Certainly. I might answer it."

She hesitates a brief moment, and I find myself wondering what she is going to ask. It seems to be something she is half-afraid to know the answer to. Or is that embarrassment I am reading on her face? After a moment, she looks up at me and poses the question.

"Where are all the females?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I never see any females."

"Of course you do. You have seen dozens down here, and probably hundreds on the surface."

She looks at me, entirely, adorably confused. "I really don't think I do," she says. "I've not seen…."

Looking down at that soft cleavage displayed at the top of her suit, it occurs to me where the confusion might lie. These humans truly came to this world without the slightest bit of sense or thought, then threw themselves into the midst of a society they very much do not understand. I suppose I cannot judge them, given their presence here is entirely due to a rescue mission, but at times like this, the ignorance is quite jarring.

"Saurians do not look as different as male and female humans. We do not lactate. You have seen many female saurians, but might have mistaken them for male, as they are not smaller. Quite often, they are larger. Also, pregnancy does not take place the same way it does for humans. Eggs are laid and then incubated. A female saurian need only copulate once every few years in order to fertilize her egg when she sees fit. When she is ready, she fertilizes the egg using the seed stored in her body, and she lays it before leaving it to be incubated by nursemaids."

"Wow," Lettie breathes. "That sounds amazing."

"Does it?"

"Well, the part about being able to… I don't know, store sperm and then decide when you're going to have a baby. Human women almost never get the choice unless we do all sorts of things to go out of our way to artificially block it, or just don't have sex or whatever — and sometimes that's…" Her expression darkens a fraction. "It is hard to be a human woman."

"Yes," I say, looking at her frame. "Human women seem almost entirely built around reproduction. It is not the same for saurians."

"It is not even the same for human men," she complains. "We're constantly cycling. Every damn month, we have to spend internal resources on replenishing a lining we usually don't even want to use. There's no control over it at all. Instead, you dance like a fucking puppet to the tune of surges of hormones that then fade away and leave you…."

I am not sure I have ever seen her quite so animated as she is right now, talking about the failings of the human reproductive system.

"I hate it," she says. "I hate bleeding. It's stupid. And I hate that every few weeks I want to cry because of a sad bird or for no reason at all. And I hate that everything I am, and everything I've ever been is constantly churned up by this imperative for me to be available for a fucking breeding…"

She is right, in a sense. The human female body does seem to be obsessed with breeding. They are quite literally made to be fucked and to be impregnated, and to try again if they are not. I can see it takes a toll, because Lettie has not complained about anything the way she just complained about that.

"A lot of the girls on the Mare have had their uteruses removed," she says.

"Oh?"

"Yes. It doesn't change the hormonal cycles, but it stops the bleeding, because some of them bleed so much regardless of what else they do, and when you're a pirate, you can't ask the evil police or soldiers of whatever planet to stop pursuing you and let you have a lie down with a hot water bottle for a few days. For some of us, it's a matter of survival."

"But you have yours?"

"For now," she says.

Lettie

I'm asking questions about saurians and sex because I'm trying to distract myself from the disturbing fact that I am wearing evidence that something very, very bad has happened. With every step, the fabric grips me, and the faint scent of a favorite perfume wafts up. This is not my suit. I know who this suit belongs to, and I know it should not be down here on this planet.

Shan just told me how saurian females not only don't have to deal with periods or being noticeably smaller and weaker than their male counterparts, and how they get to choose when they use the seed they are inseminated with. I definitely do not have that choice. I can feel it sliding out of me, creating a wet patch against the crotch of the suit. I'm not going to be able to give this back now that I've worn it in such a ravaged state, and I'm probably stretching it out.

Shan takes me to a clearing in the tunnels. A cave, I suppose you'd call it. Though garage would be an equally apt moniker, because there's a bunch of what I have to call vans down here. Traffic is odd on this saurian world. They like to make good and ample use of the wheel, though I am sure they are aware that there are better, cleaner technologies. These all run on ancient tech, the combustion of rich oils in controlled explosions that allow for propulsion. In terms of efficient travel, it's like deciding to walk on your hands instead of your feet.

I worry less about the transport options when I see Wrath, flanked by two generals. They look like twins, great predatory, scaled beasts with red and black scales that make them look almost volcanic in nature. A minute ago, I would have assumed they were male, but now I wonder if they're actually female. It's an interesting shift in perspective, though I suppose it doesn't really matter.

The Mare has always been about girl power. Everybody on the Mare is a girl, even if they're a guy. It's just how it works. Down here, I realize I've been mentally assigning everybody male. But I wonder if we can't find some kind of help from the other half of the population. Assuming females do even make up half…

"How are you enjoying captivity?"

Wrath's question interrupts my demographic pondering.

"Lovely, thank you," I respond, choosing automated politeness. Shan will approve, I am sure.

Wrath lets out a barking laugh. "Been fucked into submission, I see."

I look him in the eye and I feel an odd kind of blankness. I think it's because on some level, I know he is not my problem. He is so far beyond my pay grade I don't have to argue with or attempt to fight him. Someone else will do that. Entire armies might be the ones to do that. All I have to do is be relatively pleasant and stay alive long enough to see that happen.

"Very perceptive," I say, though it doesn't come out quite the way I intended. There's a note of sass, a kind of silent fuck off, you fucking idiot, that I just couldn't help.

"We're both very much looking forward to seeing what you have to show us," Shan says, interjecting over the subtext of my attitude.

Wrath laughs. "You're being far too polite, Shan. Worried about your human mate's mouth?"

"I worry about all her orifices," Shan deadpans.

A roar emits from the alpha, and even the volcanically predatory generals behind him smirk with amusement. I am the butt of this joke. I am their collective captive. I am the tender human sacrifice impaled on Shan's cock and filled with his seed. I am the one who is being used for breeding purposes, and they all know it.

Hot shame rushes through me as it all comes rushing down on me, the realization as to their perception of my vulnerability. I am like food being played with, pushed around the metaphorical plate until I am devoured in the act of birth.

"Let's go," Wrath says, ignoring me.

My feelings do not matter here. That is fine. I am accustomed to my feelings being an irrelevance at best, or an amusement at worst. I content myself with following Shan into the rear of one of the vans. The volcanic twins take the wheel, while Wrath and Shan and I sit in the back.

The interior of the vehicle is spacious from my perspective. It has to be. These are tall creatures with tails, and they need the space. Wrath sits at the big seat down the back. It is plush and lined with leather and it looks comfortable. Shan sits on a bench style seat that runs the side of the van opposite the door and pulls me onto one of his knees to sit, wrapping his arm around me to hold me close and keep me contained.

We set off through the underground, which is not far from the surface, which makes sense, as the emissions from the combustion engine are no doubt poisonous. If one were to simply leave a few engines running, it would be possible to gas the entire underground warren of criminal dinosaurs to death. It's a dark thought, but I suppose they're aware of it. They probably have ventilation.

"Freedom is the only thing worth living for," Wrath says.

I snort under my breath, an almost involuntary reaction.

"Yes, human. I know you have been denied yours. We have all been denied ours. What I am doing here is finding ways to make us all freer than we have ever been. You are a pirate, aren't you? No different in criminality than any of us. You are no doubt wanted in a dozen galaxies."

"Actually, I'm not wanted anywhere, because I'm not the sort to be caught," I say.

Again with the ill-advised sass. I just can't seem to help it. Wrath is a terror, but he is trying to make a connection with me, and I don't want it.

He snorts. "You've been caught at least twice on this planet already."

"That's true. Harder to blend in when everybody is eight foot tall and covered in scales."

Am I making excuses? Justifying my failings and my ego? Sure. Maybe. I didn't think I had one, but maybe I just never really needed it. On the Mare, everybody knew I was a stealth expert. They didn't question me. They celebrated me.

There's no celebration of me here except for what my holes can or cannot deliver. I am being used in a very different way, and though it feels so fucking right when Shan and I are together in private, before Wrath it feels like a filthy, tawdry, demeaning thing.

"You know what it is to run your entire life."

"We didn't run. We sailed, and not away from our enemies, but toward new treasures. We didn't hide like rats in a burrow."

I know what I am saying is insulting, but I don't regret it. Not until I see Shan's face, anyway.

"Lettie!" Shan snarls my name, and in an instant I feel the van spin as I am tossed over his lap. He starts spanking me without any preamble, and because the suit I am wearing is basically a club outfit, there is close to no protection from his palm.

He spanks me fast and hard, and much more than I thought he ever would. His hand is like the world's hardest paddle, and I am trapped writhing over his lap, my legs scissoring, my breasts nearly falling out of the top of this skin-tight suit. I gasp and flail, and I'd try to beg for mercy, but it is hard to get a word out when every new slap brings with it a fresh burst of impossible pain.

"You do not speak with disrespect. In fact, from now on, you don't speak at all."

I wail as I am thrashed. My orgasms in the previous hour or so have left me very tender and very sensitive. This punishment feels like cruelty, but it is probably cruelty I should have expected. Shan takes Wrath's opinion of him deadly seriously. I have inadvertently gotten myself into about as much trouble as I think it is possible to get myself in.

I know that for certain, when Shan pulls the zip of my suit down and I feel it part, leaving my back naked. It is the work of a second for him to whip the arms of the suit off mine, and roll it down below my cheeks. I am more than half naked now in front of Wrath. I feel the underground alpha's eyes on me as my mate whips my ass with his hand, catching my bare skin with terribly painful slaps that make my toes curl and my voice go raw with squealing.

Shan knows I am already sore. He knows I am brimming with his seed. Not all of it has come out of me yet. I have been dripping it into the suit.

"Shan!" I gasp his name as he puts one hand on the back of my neck, and the other down between my thighs. His fingers sweep along my slit, and then I feel the tips of his digits against not only the entrance of my pussy, but the tight bud of my ass.

"I warned you to behave yourself a thousand times," he says. "Now you're going to find out what it means to be properly publicly disciplined."

"Please…"

He pushes both fingers inside me simultaneously, taking both holes. I am being punished and toyed with in front of Wrath. My shame is being made public. I should have known better than to test Shan on this matter. I should have considered what he would think when I opened my mouth and talked to Wrath without any care whatsoever.

Now, I feel his scaled digits going deep inside me. My pussy is aching, and still wet from our previous encounters. My ass is tight, and the limited lubrication from my juices is not enough to make it not painful.

"Owowowow," I complain as he fingers my ass.

"You will speak with respect," he lectures me, going deep and pulling out again only so he can go deep once more. My hips buck as I try to deal with all this painful stimulation. "Or your holes will be used and displayed."

"I'm sorry!" I gasp the apology because I have to. There is no way I can handle being publicly fucked. I know that saurians like to do things in front of others. I am fortunate not to have been bred in front of everybody. But this might be worse. This isn't proper simple fucking. This is being used and being punished in a way that makes me deeply ashamed.

"You're a bad girl," he tells me. "You're a mouthy, opinionated, loud and thoughtless mate, and I will not allow it. Apologize to Wrath."

"I'm sorry, Wrath!"

"Ask him if he thinks you deserve to be forgiven, or if he wants to see your holes stretched."

I feel a bolt of erotic energy run through me. This is wrong. He is putting me on humiliating display in an effort to appear in control. And now I have to play along.

"Please, Mr Wrath. Forgive me…"

"Ask him if you deserve to have your holes stretched," Shan prompts me. He is being absolutely emotionally brutal right now.

"Do I…" I whine before finishing the sentence as fast as I can. "Deserve to have my holes stretched?"

Shan gives me three quick pumps in my pussy and ass as I surrender to his demands.

"This is for your own good," he growls down at me. "A human mate must be obedient. You are too small, too weak, and too breedable to be anything else."

I know some of what he is saying is for Wrath's benefit, but much of it is the same as the things he has previously said to me. Shan is not pretending to own me. He believes I am his to his very core.

"Understand?"

"Yes," I whimper.

"Good." He leaves his fingers inside me, keeps me over his knee, and the journey continues.

Shan

Her hot little holes feel great around my fingers. I'm glad to have stopped her tirade, and frankly, she deserves a little of this humiliation. She has to learn to guard her thoughts and words. Sooner or later she was going to say something that would anger Wrath, but more likely, she'd say something that would give things away. Lettie already knows too much. She saw me talking with Avel, and she knows Avel and Thorn are on the other side of this conflict. That means she's a liability when she starts getting chatty in any way.

Overall, it's not that bad a position for her. The seat allows her to rest her upper body rather than dangling, and her legs are similarly supported. My view is not bad, either. There's something about the way her cheeks curve and press against the fabric of the suit which is only just barely keeping her contained.

"I apologize for my human mate," I say to Wrath. "She is not yet trained."

"Where we are going, training will not matter. She will bear your young, and she will live as wild as she pleases. I am not taking you somewhere you will have to worry about the rules of the society that shunned you, Shan. We are going back to our roots. We are reclaiming our power."

He sounds genuinely excited. In moments like these, I do find my loyalty to the alpha wavering. Wrath knows what matters to me. He knows what matters to all the outcasts he rules over. I am disturbingly aware of the fact that if I had met Wrath first, my loyalty would not be divided in the slightest.

"I cannot wait to see what you have in store."

Wrath smiles at me. "And I cannot wait for you to see it."

We travel a while further, but no more conversation happens. I eventually ease my fingers out of Lettie and restore her clothing as the road stops being a road and becomes more of an increasingly bumpy dirt track. Finally, the track ends and the van comes to a halt.

"Time to get out," Wrath announces. His two guards disembark at the same time, exiting from the front of the vehicle.

It is at this moment that I realize Wrath has taken me deep into the primal forest with two heavily armed guards, both of whom are looking at me with a restrained violence, clawed hands on their weapons, tails swishing with excitement.

I am unable to protect both myself and Lettie. Neither one of us is armed with anything other than our own physical abilities. I have allowed us to be taken into one of the worst possible situations without so much as thinking about what I would do if it went wrong.

Wrath smiles at me, his mouth broad with humor. His eyes gleam the way they do when he is about to enjoy himself immensely. He is anticipating something, something I am sure I will not enjoy. Fortunately, I have the excuse of Lettie and her very poor behavior to draw her close and keep her close. My hand slides over her lower back and pulls her toward me.

"Don't move more than two steps away from me," I order. "If you do, I will whip you until you weep — I promise you that."

"Do not worry," Wrath laughs. "It is perfectly safe here. This may be the safest place on the planet. This is where our new lives begin."

I am befuddled. We are in dense forest, and there is absolutely no sign of anything even remotely inhabitable.

"Come," Wrath says. "We have to walk the last stretch, but it is worth it."

"I hate hiking," Lettie mumbles under her breath, sounding petulant and annoyed as we start moving. It is not easy for her to keep up with us. She needs to take two steps for every one of ours, and she is not in a state of fitness. I do not think that there's much in the way of exercise happening on the ship of humans. They largely seem to be involved in making bad decisions with worse outcomes. There might be some cardiovascular benefit to that, but not nearly enough to ready my mate for a long walk through a trail cleared for saurians.

As we walk, her cursing and complaints start to become even more audible. Wrath is marching ahead of us. His guard is behind. I know their names, Rake and Flail, though I do not know them in terms of character. Their reputations precede them as vicious enforcers of Wrath's will. Executioners, you could say. I feel distinctly uneasy knowing that at any moment the two of them could drop the both of us with a single shot. We could be buried out here and never found, or just left for the wild creatures who will gnaw the meat from our bones, which would then be scattered for miles potentially.

It is hard to try to stay calm while also realizing that if this is the set up I suspect it is, then we are almost certainly dead. Wrath enjoys pageantry. This is the kind of drama I know he would live for.

"You see, Shan, the loyal among us deserve their rewards," he says, his rough voice floating back to me through the ever-thickening foliage. "The only way for those like us to maintain their freedom is to fight for it, and to be prepared to spill blood for it. Don't you agree?"

"Of course," I say, automatically. I must keep my cool. If I start panicking now and give my guilty conscience away, then I am dead, and Lettie will wish she was.

"You have truly done me a service, Shan. You have never shied away from any order or task. You have even mated with a human eagerly and given your own genetic material to the cause of learning if hybrids might easily be made. You deserve to be rewarded richly."

I still don't trust this situation. I glance down at Lettie, who returns my look with a wide-eyed stare. Of course, that's more or less her default facial expression so who is to know whether she is afraid or merely confused.

I pull her against me again, but she trips a moment later and before she can hit the ground, I snatch her up by the back of her suit and swing her into my arms. I cradle her against my chest, relieving her of the burden of exercise and soothing her with closer contact. That is what I tell myself, anyway. The truth is, she is actually giving me comfort. Her snug, soft weight in my arms makes me feel as though I am doing something very good. I am protecting someone vulnerable and feeling protected somehow in turn.

I will not allow anything to happen to her. I will protect her with my very last breath. I keep my ears on alert for any click of a mechanism or trigger that might herald a final shot.

"I have never felt that you owed me any thanks," I say. "You've given me more than I ever gave you. You showed me that life could be different. Less orderly and oppressive. More natural and free."

"Oh, yes. There's going to be a lot of nature in your future, Shan. There is also going to be a lot of freedom."

Again, there is that note in his voice that makes me feel as though I have very little chance of surviving this encounter. On some level, I have always known that my treachery would be discovered. A spy can only be effective for so long once he or she becomes active. Every time I made contact with Avel or Thorn, I was putting my life at risk.

I wouldn't mind this, if I wasn't dragging Lettie into it, and if Lettie was not potentially carrying my baby. The stakes have never been higher, and the fact that I seem to now be caught has never been a more frightening proposition.

"Look at the feet," Lettie says.

I glance down and see that both of my feet are placed squarely in an oversized footprint. It belongs to a creature that must be more than ten times my height. It's not a primal. It's just a feral dinosaur, and it could still be close somewhere.

No sooner do I have that thought, than…

Click. Bang!

The guards shoot into the forest, making me jump and hold Lettie closer than before. There's a brief instant in which I brace myself to feel the heat of spreading blood that I know will be followed by the ripping ache of pain that comes with being shot.

Deep in the forest, trees snap and boughs break as whatever was stalking us runs from the loud sound from the guns.

"I thought we were shot!" Lettie pipes up in a high-pitched little gasp.

"We're not shot. It was just a warning for whatever might be hunting us out there."

"There's something hunting us?"

"There's always something hunting you," Wrath says. "You should know that as a pirate. There's always a bigger, meaner, hungrier creature scanning for prey. That is one of the very few immutable laws of the universe."

"Hm. I never noticed. I stay out of the way. If something notices me long enough to hunt me, I'm usually already in so much trouble I may as well not survive."

Wrath chuckles. I think he likes Lettie. I think he finds her ruminations quite amusing. Her thoughts are not in line with those of most saurians. She has a uniquely mammalian perspective, one that comes from a lifetime of fitting into a particular mold.

"She is a creature of stealth," I explain to Wrath. "She likes to move unnoticed."

"The two of you have that in common," he notes, very calmly.

Once again, my senses tingle. I feel as though I have absolutely, certainly been discovered in my treachery.

"We are almost there," Wrath says as the forest starts to thin. He does not continue with expressing his line of thought about betrayal and betrayers. All the better for me, I suppose. I am still clinging to a faint hope that I am misreading his tone and these cues and that he does not yet know what I have been doing these past months.

We walk a little further, moving beneath the canopy, through the rich, verdant trees which make the air feel slightly thick with perfume. This is a very pretty time of year, the flowering season. There will be rain soon, I imagine. I can smell it on the air, that pleasant dampness that comes from droplets yet to fall.

Finally, the trees clear, and Wrath stops, spreading his arms in an expansive gesture. "This is it," he declares. "This is where you will encounter freedom in a way you have never thought to encounter it before. You are going to become wild in the most primal ways."

There is nothing here. Well, almost nothing.

I wondered how Wrath thought we could possibly survive in primal territory, but it is immediately clear. Caves. Caves worn into deep rock in rises and mountains that have stood for millennia. We have emerged from the tree line to find ridges and hills of stark yellow rock pitted with darkness here and there. I've heard of these caves, in a faint and vague way during discussions of the geographic lie of the lands around Grave City.

Nobody has thought to inhabit these, because there is no protection from civilization here whatsoever. This is where animals live, creatures with no sense besides instinct, who hunt viciously. Sentient saurians do much better when living in communities. There can be no community in this rough, remote place.

I thought I would be keeping an eye out for the monstrous tracks of the primal beast who rules these lands. But now I am realizing that should never have been my main concern.

A primal is a terrifying thing to behold, but there are more present dangers than the primal who stalks these lands. There are so many carnivorous beasts out here, creatures that will eat their prey alive without any compunction whatsoever.

Wrath does not give any thought or mention to these creatures, though I feel as though the jungles around us are currently bristling with the things. That is why we, or rather he, is accompanied by heavily armed guard. I cannot help but notice neither Lettie nor I have been provided with anything. Not so much as a sharpened stick or particularly hefty throwing rock. I have to assume this is a sightseeing trip, though the gleam in Wrath's eye makes me think otherwise. He is up to something.

"There's enough living space here for hundreds of us. Enough for us to raise our young outside the institutions that enslave us."

When Wrath speaks of such things, he inadvertently touches a nerve that runs so deep in me I cannot help but feel a visceral reaction. I look over at Lettie, who perhaps already contains the spark of life. My son or my daughter, my line. My family, who cannot be taken from me. Will not be taken from me. I reach for her and draw her closer. It might only be because she is afraid, but I feel her press into me, taking advantage of the shelter my body provides. I like her warmth. I like her soft, round mass close to me. I do not like the wildness of these lands and the potential for pure, raw chaos.

"You have proved your competence and bravery time and time again, Shan. That is why I have picked you to live here with your mate. You will be the vanguard of an entirely new social system. You will prove whether or not it is possible for our kind to live here with humans, and whether your resulting families are able to survive."

Lettie lets out a gasp.

"You"re going to just abandon us out here?"

"Abandon is such a strong word," he says. "I am leaving you here, in a place where you have everything you need to survive."

"Fuck off, we do not!" She bristles and takes a step forward. I pull her back. This was Wrath's plan all along. I suspect he knows of my association with Alpha Thorn. This is his way of removing me from play. He is stranding me out here where survival is the only thing I'm going to have time to think about. I will have to protect my mate, who is a tasty morsel for all number of creatures.

"I think you have both shown adequate capacity for survival," he says, barely hiding his glee. This is Wrath all over. Saurians assume that a vicious, ruthless underworld alpha would deal with treachery and enemies with displays of extreme violence, but Wrath doesn't waste any of his resources. He is simultaneously punishing me and likely sentencing me and the human I have bonded with to a slow and painful death, while also allowing for some useful information to arise from the situation. I have to give it to him, it's a masterful stroke.

"We don't have water! We don't have anything to start a fire with! You're leaving us to die, and you will regret it!"

She is lucky she is small and soft, because if any saurian made these kinds of threats, they would be severely dealt with. As it is, Wrath just looks down at her soft, round frame that is vibrating with rage and indignation.

"You're right," he says. "Have this."

He reaches into his pocket and tosses a flint to Lettie. "There you go," he says. "I know how you humans have to be given fire."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lettie hands the flint to me, still giving Wrath the most vicious of stares.

"It means I know the ancient stories of your people. I know more about you than you can possibly begin to understand. And I know what I am doing right now. You will loathe me for it in the moment, but you will thank me later."

With that incredibly dark, paternalistic statement, he turns to his guard. "Time for us to go. These two have a home to make."

"Don't you dare!"

Lettie shrieks and tries to run after them. I lunge to hold her back as the guards swing around, weapons drawn on her. This is a very bad situation, it goes without saying. I could probably take one, or perhaps two of these three in hand-to-hand combat, but they are armed and we are not, and that means I can't do anything in this moment that does not put Lettie in danger.

"We have to let them go," I tell her, picking her up so she can't go running off after them again. She is much safer while contained in my arms. "Don't worry. It's going to be okay."

"The girls won't know where I am!" She sobs against my chest. "They'll think I'm lost. They'll leave without me!"

"Everything is going to be alright."

I say the words, and I hope I mean them.