5. Kami

5

Kami

W e make sure to double-check our way so that we aren't followed, as we creep toward our hide-out on the edge of a nice street, where the building saw previous use as storage for medicinals.

The owner rents it to us for half again as much as the rent is posted. We slide him potions that enhance his love life and he pretends he's renting to his nephew, who doesn't like to be seen.

I'm not sure we can trust the guy, but since he uses the same black market that doesn't pay tithes to Rilitar, we should be safe enough.

Just until Rilitar lets everyone know we're to be captured or killed on sight.

Once inside the place, Ahza jumps off my skin and re-corporates.

I'm hustling to pack up what we can take on the road. Sadly, all the coins we've accumulated are heavy. We'll have to bury them on the way out.

There's no way we can lug them around while on the run .

Ahza takes a third of our stash. "I can hold these if I shift to a larger form. But I won't be able to go far. I'll find a good place to bury them and hurry back."

"Don't let anyone see you."

He nods, steps in front of me, and gives me a great big hug. "Two against the world."

"Two against the world." I hug him right on back.

We've been together forever, since our families were slaughtered, something we could never unsee. Through hardships and horrors, we've endured.

He's my heart. I'm his brain. Ahza likes to say that together, we're one awesome person. He never fails to make me laugh.

Even now, he pulls back and makes his goofy brave face, this time wearing Rilitar's features.

"Ew, gross."

"Come on. You know he's attractive…for an elf." He looks as if he's constipated, and I laugh harder.

With a grin, he pulls away, shifts the bag of coins over his neck, and turns invisible.

I wish I had that power.

"Back in a blink."

He's gone, and it's just me scrabbling to figure out what we really need and what we'll leave behind.

My grin fades. I've been changing lately. I can feel it. And I'm not sure I like it.

I no longer take great joy in our shenanigans when danger comes close. I wish I could be as lighthearted as Ahza. Though I do enjoy a good scam, lately I've been wanting to settle somewhere.

Every place we go, I see families or people who know each other. Especially in Sacred Lakes, where fae families smile and enjoy one another .

Friends dine out, play games. Even the less wealthy are part of something more.

It would be nice for us to be a part of a community.

Maybe.

I don't know. I don't really like people, so what the hell would I do with friends?

But I can't help wanting what I've never had.

Plus, Ahza would die if we had to settle down and play it safe. Danger's kind of always been our way of life.

No one has ever wanted us around. In most places it's the same.

People hate monsters.

Just because spawn happen to take part in creating us, we're less than nothing. And instead of being something cool and dangerous that can crush our enemies, something awesome like vampires or werewolves, Ahza and I are just clever thieves.

Clawless and mostly fangless.

My spiritual feedings leave my meals a little drained but alive. I have to be really careful how I take from them so they don't realize and try to kill me for it.

But Ahza is all flash and little substance behind his monstrous forms.

Heck, I'm even more dangerous than Ahza, and that's mostly because I'm a necromancer. But it's been a long time since I've practiced, so I doubt I could pull anything but weak energy from a body.

I'm a weird kind of dryad, infecting trees with bloodlust.

While I consume energy, my partner trees thrive on blood and sometimes bits of flesh and bone. I have no idea why.

Maybe because I'm part…whatever my father is? Was? I have no memory of him. I can only think he must have had the ability to mutate life. Because that part of my power isn't dr yad-based, and it doesn't feel as if it comes from the necromancer part of me either.

Add in the fact I actually do have a necromancer power and people would think I'm both wacky and super dangerous, even though I never indulge in death magic.

I've kept my spiritual feedings to the point I have a tough time feeling any kind of necromantic power.

While Ahza disappears regularly, I can't blend into shadows well. I feel weak with my magic, but Ahza more than makes up for it.

Sometimes I wonder, in the corner of my heart, if I'm holding him back.

Yeah, he was bullied when younger, but now, if anyone knew what he could really do with his illusions, he'd be sure to be welcomed into a djinn caste.

I mentioned it a few times in the past, and Ahza grew angry. He refuses to leave me—his real family—for people that judged him as a child. They should have taken him in. Most djinn families are fanatical about protecting blood lines.

Yet, for some reason, they didn't want him around.

Someday we'll get answers for him, I'm sure.

But not today. We need to be leaving this place.

I have a big bag packed when Ahza busts inside, breathing hard.

But it's not Ahza, I notice too late to evade the hands and spells binding me.

"Ah, there's our monstrous little dryad." A tall fae with long fangs smiles at me. He doesn't look friendly.

His elf buddies don't look nice either.

That danger I sensed earlier blows up, and I'm entering a full-scale panic.

I'm caught .

At least Ahza escaped. With any luck, he'll see me gone and come looking in stealth mode.

"You know we can't hurt her, Enwiss," one of them says to the large, brutish one favored by Rilitar. "You know what the boss said."

He smiles at me. "There's hurting and there's hurting. "

The next hour is one big bullying session. It's scary, and I'm appropriately terrified and crying and doing my best to appear small and cowed.

It's not all a lie. They're beating the shit out of me then healing me right after. It hurts, but I've been hurt before, so I cry and beg for my life to make these assholes happy.

Fortunately, nothing turns violently sexual.

I've been fortunate in my life to avoid rape, though I have gotten my share of creepers feeling me up.

Guys aren't immune either. Ahza once almost fell prey to a nasty succubus out by Lake Undone. Plenty of predators like my pretty djinn brother.

It doesn't matter what parts you have. The worst sadistic deviants find pleasure through spreading misery and pain.

I have a bad feeling Rilitar's the same. I saw it when I looked into his eyes earlier. He's a true elf, branded not by battle or competition but by murder and torture.

I have to ask myself if 300 gold coins was worth it.

Ahza would say yes. He's a freak, feeling more alive confronting danger. Like the me I used to be.

My torturers finally bore themselves and, after healing me up once more, take me away.

I can barely walk, exhausted and brittle, so Enwiss tosses me over his shoulder and laughs as they joke about how pathetic I am.

My ribs are killing me, so he's not exactly wrong .

They finally drag me into Rilitar's castle through an underground entrance some distance away.

My sense of direction is keen, and the trees outside the stone corridor speak to me in whispers, so I know where I am.

The forest here is very old and very strong.

My kind of place.

If not for Rilitar and his asshole minions, I'd like it here.

I'm doing my best to regroup before we meet the boss. I know I'll need my strength.

Enwiss pulls me from his shoulder, stands me upright, and whispers, "Walk straight. Not one word about what happened, or I'll gut you on my dick."

I nod and give a hoarse, "Nothing happened."

We get to a larger room. It's dark, lit only by faelight held in sconces on the walls. The area is filled with large, heavy stone I won't be able to penetrate even with my power.

I'm weak and growing weaker.

The sense of evil pervades the space and makes me shiver.

My captors see it and laugh.

The sound of someone being struck comes from my left, though I can't penetrate the darkness to see through the thick iron bars.

That iron feels achy inside me, tugging at my soul.

"Feel that, dryad? That's poison for our kind. But not for us." Enwiss shows inkspell on his forearm, likely something preventing him from also falling ill.

"Lucky you," I mutter.

Without warning, he smacks me hard across the face.

I'm dizzy, my cheek aching, and taste blood from where my teeth bite into my tongue.

Fuck, that hurts!

Enwiss nods to the fae who's been healing me. "One more time, Galha. Forgot myself there. "

Galha rolls his eyes but heals my cheek.

I swallow the lingering blood but apparently miss a spec, because Enwiss jerks me forward and plants his mouth on mine, licking at the trickle of blood over my lips.

I sag against him, shocked at the suddenness of his attack and overpowering strength.

He moves his head back and sighs, grinding an unwelcome erection against me. "By Beyrthnel's Dick, does she taste sweet."

I squirm fee and snarl, "Get off, asswipe."

Eh, so much for playing the meek dryad.

The others—I now count seven—laugh and gather closer.

That's when a light flares, and I notice through a space between them that the person being beaten is the orc who saved me.

I feel an odd case of the guilts but ignore it. I didn't tell the guy to step in. He did that of his own volition.

Before I can make any sense of what's going to happen to me, Rilitar steps out of the cell with Folas at his heels. His hands are covered in green blood.

Great. The boss likes to get his hands dirty.

This will not go well for me.

Folas is spotless, however. Like Rilitar, he's obviously part elf. But he's less barbaric and more devious. From this guy, I'd expect a dagger in my back. He looks shifty and more aristocratic than Rilitar and acts with precision and manners, his beauty cold.

Folas stares at me, his white hair pulled back in a long ponytail, his ears pointed and slashed like Rilitar's, but with less gems and hoops. His eyes are a brilliant lavender, and according to Ahza, isn't the worst kisser he's ever kissed.

That's the real reason we were accepted to work with the mob boss so soon after moving to town. Folas has a crush .

He doesn't look pleased to see me.

Instead he looks…worried.

Oh fuck. What's next?

Rilitar doesn't make me wait. He walks up to me and strokes my cheek. "Enwiss, you know better."

"Sorry, Father."

I blink. Enwiss is Rilitar's son? I see no resemblance between them.

Enwiss has his father's height, but his features are rough, his brow heavy, his eyes flat. He's surprisingly unattractive for an elf. As if his outside is trying to match what's inside.

Someone opens a cell door next to the one the orc is occupying.

"I figure you and your friend deserve to spend some time together worrying about what comes next." Rilitar's voice is gentle. He nods to the cell, where I see Ahza.

He looks lifeless in the back corner, as if he's lost everything.

"Ahza?"

He doesn't respond.

My heart is racing. Something really bad is happening, but I don't understand why Ahza won't talk to me.

I try to go to him, but Enwiss holds me back.

Ahza doesn't even try to look at me. He leaves the corner, taking shuffling steps forward.

Toward his doom.

I'm forced to watch as Rilitar meets him in the middle of the cell and strikes him without warning.

Ahza crumples with a moan.

"Ahza!" I scream and struggle to free myself.

Rilitar makes no sound as he starts beating Ahza to death.

I do my best, but Enwiss is like a steel cage surrounding me while my brother is dying right in front of me .

I push for a last bit of power to do anything.

Something.

But I can't access it in the arms of my captors, surrounded by iron.

It's all too soon before Ahza can't move, still.

He shudders under the kicks and punches of the evil creature destroying the only good person I've ever known.

Each blow lands harder, each strike resonating through me.

We should never have come to this town.

Never have taken this job.

Never have assumed we'd live forever.

Ahza lays slumped on the stone floor, his breathing ragged, a terrible hissing that suggests a punctured lung.

He grows quieter, not breathing as hard.

I feel it. That something big and hot in my gut, the knowing that comes from my necromancer power.

No. Not Ahza.

Anyone but him.

I'm pulling as hard as I can on my insides, trying to reach for the spark of animation that necromancers can sometimes achieve.

Nothing. I'm blocked, a subtle bar over my power keeping me helpless.

But I know the truth.

I'm weak, and Ahza's going to pay the price.

I can't stop crying as the power of death swells.

Rilitar leaves the cell, wiping his hands on a towel someone has handed him.

He gives me a sweet, understanding smile. "Go on, sweetheart. Say goodbye to your boyfriend."

"Yeah. Take your time. We'll be back later, and you can share memories over a victory fuck," Enwiss offers .

Everyone laughs at his crudeness. Even Rilitar smiles and nods to his son.

Folas just stares at Ahza on the ground.

Enwiss drags me to the cell and shoves me inside before slamming the door shut.

"No one touches her," Rilitar says, his tone firm. "She's mine." He pauses. "First."

His gaze locks with his son's, and Enwiss squirms a little and nods. "As you wish, Father."

Folas gives a great sigh. "Ah well. I guess I'll have to make do with someone else."

Then he follows Rilitar out.

The dungeon clears of everyone but Enwiss, who crouches next to the cell. "When he's tired of you, you'll belong to me." He grins. "What fun we'll have then."

He leaves, and it's just me and the prisoner next door.

And Ahza. Who's nearly dead.

Nausea rises, and I hurry to vomit in the corner, away from my brother.

I hurry back to his side and rush to catch the last breath as it rattles from his lungs, sensing the spirit that's leaving his body.

The softest whisper. " Coming…Kami… "

"Ahza, no." I'm crying, but I can't feel anything beyond shock and horror.

Because he's gone.

And there is no bringing him back once he's crossed the Veil.

The place between life and death I've never been able to go.