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Wonderland Ch09 Teaser
My eyes turned back to the Raspan body. I didn’t even flinch when Thatcher held up a large dagger for me to see. “Take his tail.”
I eyed Thatcher then. “Why?” I asked flatly, unable to summon the energy to sound curious.
“It’s what a warrior would do,” Thatcher replied slowly, his tone terse. “In war, it’s common for the victor to take a war trophy. Druls take the Gargoyle ears marked by their clan tattoos. Gargoyles take Raspan tails.”
“And what do Raspans take?” I asked bitterly, taking the dagger from him.
“A Gargoyle’s magic,” he breathed. “Or their wings, if they don’t have high levels of power.”
“What about the Lunar?” I asked mechanically as I hacked at the back end of the Raspan. The cut was by no means clean, and the tail smelled like ass. Thatcher took both from me and gave the blunt end of the tail a cleaner cut. I only blinked when the dagger became wreathed in blue fire, unable to tear my eyes away from the blade as he cauterized the blunt end.
“They take Drul fingers and hands,” Thatcher answered. “Druls use their hands to manipulate their magic. If you take the hand, or the fingers, you take their magic. The perfect war trophy, in my opinion.”
When Thatcher was finished, he cleaned his blade and handed the tail to me. “I have a bag we can put it in. Usually you hang them from your belt, but…” he trailed off as he stated the obvious, his brown eyes narrowing a little when I finally looked into his face.
“They’re dead,” he said quietly. My throat was too tight to speak just yet so I nodded.
“I guess burying them would be pointless,” I said after a while, clearing my throat. “The rats would just eat them.”
Thatcher flinched at my wording but nodded. “I have a better idea.”
+++
We rode away from Bella Lane and into the forest where the rest of the Raspan’s waited, the heat of the fire at our backs.
I watched for as long as I could as the flames engulfed the only home I had ever known, taking the two people in this world that had loved me along with it.
+++
“Where are the helicopters?” I asked Thatcher as soon as we hit the forest line. “Or the planes?”
“I had the men take them down,” he retorted as he led our mount uphill.
“How are we going to get to Queensland without being found?”
“My magic is strong enough to keep us hidden. These hills will throw off sensors and if the Raspan’s want to stay alive, they’ll follow my orders.”
I wasn’t quite sure it was that easy, but I didn’t know what else I could do but believe him and hope for the best.
I swallowed hard and hung on for dear life as our Raspan mount began to speed up as it darted through the ever-narrowing trees as the terrain changed from flat to steepening craggy rock.
“Hang on,” Thatcher murmured as the Raspan leapt off the ground and grabbed onto the rocks, his powerful body tightening and testing itself as it began to bound across the stone. I gasped in surprise at how fast the Raspan sped across the tumultuous terrain. Our mount never slipped or wavered in his course over the rocks, making sure to never take us into open territory.
I looked up to the sky, sighting the grey clouds between the trees and found my mind turning back to the images that had burned themselves on the backs of my eyelids.
For the rest of the ride, I was still back at the house of Bella Lane, staring into the chewed off faces of my mother and father. Nothing, not even the bitter cold, could take my mind off of their lifeless stares. I knew in that moment when Thatcher and I arrived at the base camp not by a day’s journey from the mountains where the Raspan Elites and Thatcher had made their rendezvous, that I would never forget the evil that it seemed that nowadays anyone was capable of making.
“Eat, drink and rest,” Thatcher was commanding when I finally zoned in. The entire forest floor was filled with Raspans for as far as the eye could see. It looked like we hadn’t lost a single Raspan in the flight from Wonderland, and for that I was surprisingly grateful. “Clean up after yourselves,” he continued. “Do not eat more than your fill. We cannot leave much trace of our journey behind. If you have the strength, cloak your scent. Now, I need scouts…”
Thatcher kept going, dictating rounds and duties to the pack like he had done so all his life. I couldn’t help but smile a little as the Raspan’s obeyed his commands in their human forms, eager to please their new king.
When Thatcher was finished making orders, I could tell he was exhausted, but he didn’t complain. Instead, he came close to me and gestured to his temple. I nodded and felt his presence push hard against mine. The feeling of almost uncomfortable tightness was the key indicator that Thatcher was inside my head.
“It is custom for consorts to dine and sleep together. If we’re apart, they’ll grow suspicious. It’s the last thing we need right now.”
I nodded and drew up my shoulders. I was a big girl. I could handle this. Never had Thatcher in all those weeks staying in close quarters with me had he ever taken advantage of our situation. I knew he wouldn’t start now.
“Where will we camp?” I asked him out loud, smothering a sigh of relief as he left my thoughts, the pressure relieving itself instantly. Thatcher looked at me for a long moment before responding.
“There’s an old bear den not too far from here,” he pointed southeast. “Help me carry the packs and we can get going.”
Casting a glance at the Raspan’s around us, I nodded and followed suit.
The cave wasn’t big enough to fully stand up in and was only one oblong-shaped “room.” A few rocks and limbs scattered the place, but other than that it was empty and clean.
Thatcher and I deposited our packs in a rounded corner and silently gathered firewood. The smells of cooking venison wafted through the air from the camps outside and my stomach rolled.
Closing my eyes, I braced myself against the wall of the cave, breathing in and out until the nausea subsided.
I opened my eyes only when I felt like I could stand and not feel the world around me spinning. “Does it ever get easier?” I asked Thatcher hoarsely, looking over at him now.
Thatcher paused from throwing kindling onto the fire, his eyes meeting mine. “Seeing death?” he clarified. I nodded. Thatcher threw in the kindling with a small shake of his head, his dark eyes dancing in the flames. “Never,” he whispered.
I looked out of the open cavern and across the small frozen pond just a few feet from us.
The world was silent beyond this. Eerily silent.
Thatcher had only allowed one fire to burn long enough for food to be made, and when the sound of the Raspan’s conversation had dwindled, he left the cave to check on the fire. Meanwhile, I gathered up my blankets and kept watch, unwilling to blink or close my eyes.
I was still awake and the nightmares were plaguing me. In sleep, I would be at their mercy completely and I was a coward. I didn’t want to see their faces. I didn’t want to see the blood. It was like a murder scene out of Criminal Minds. I didn’t want to believe that I was out on my own.
But I had to, and that’s what scared me the most.
When Thatcher returned, I heard him rustling around. The sound of metal drew me from the growing darkness. I looked over my shoulder to see him filling up a small pan with the water from his canteen.
“What are you doing?” I asked quietly.
“Making dinner,” he responded. I watched him move around the fire and couldn’t help but wonder where in the hell he had gotten the five large bass he was currently skinning.
“I’m not hungry,” I argued, pulling up my blankets and putting a section over my nose and mouth to block out the smell.
“You will be,” Thatcher vowed.
Suddenly the need to keep my mind off of things seemed like a great idea. I turned away from the forest and faced Thatcher to watch him clean and gut with precision of someone who had done this far too many times.
“Where did you get the fish?” I asked him.
“From the Ancient, one of the Original Twelve. He’s a qualified tracker. That’s why my father liked him so much,” Thatcher responded dryly, snorting after.
I came to a wall with that one. “One of the Original Twelve, what does that mean?”
“The Original Twelve are the only children my father has ever raped into being. They are meant to resemble the twelve original children that all Raspans can trace their roots to. Fuyher meant to breed out his siblings, but ironically, his fruitfulness was rewarded with infertile sons.” Thatcher cut the fish into chunks before tossing them into the boiling water. “This particular Raspan son is named Manat. He’s my older brother.”
Whoa.
“How is it that the Original Twelve are Raspan, but you are not? Is it just because your mother was half-Drul and half-Gargoyle?”
“Breeding has to do with everything,” Thatcher answered simply. “The human gene skipped over the first generation and was bestowed, somewhat, in the second. Remember, my father is the only offspring of the first generation to naturally take human form. He cannot morph into anything else.”
“What about the other offspring of the second generation?”
“They are Raspan with human-like characteristics. They can converse in a language, they have a sense of right and wrong, they ask the big questions, things like that. Only the evolved Raspan’s of the second generation can take another form. They are fairly rare.”
I eyed him in surprise then. “But you have a whole army of them right out there,” I told him, gesturing behind me.
“Those are the majority of the evolved Raspan’s – or the Elite. Fuyher must’ve thought he’d easily wipe out the threat in Wonderland and gather intel if the operation wasn’t filled with mindless rats creating mayhem. He needed some order and thinking going on, so he must’ve sent them in the common Raspan’s stead. His chess move is our gain.”
My chest tightened at his words, but I knew he didn’t see my parents’ death as a gain. He was thinking like Tรกxim-se, not Thatcher. He saw his number of troops surge, and that mattered when he was trying to gather a mass for the coming war.
“I’ve noticed something,” I told him as he checked the fish.
“Noticed what?” he asked as he turned the boiling meat over in the pan.
“Their eyes – the Elite Raspans, I mean – they’re brown.”
Thatcher eyed me in surprise, as though the observation was new to him. Maybe it was.
“When I first met you, your eyes were as black as night,” I continued, watching the light bulb go on in his head. “Do you think it’s because you are more human than your father?”
Thatcher nodded slowly, his brow furrowing slightly. “My father has human features, sort of, but inside he is not human. His strength lies within his beast and because he controls so many, he feeds off the connection of those around him. When so many beasts are connected to your own, they are part of you and you are part of them. If the control isn’t handled properly, you will slowly go mad, as my father did.”
“What about you?” I asked him. “How are you so different?”
He inclined his head to me. “Because I have something that Fuyher does not.”
I waited then, shaking my head slightly when he said nothing. “I have a soul,” he said quietly, the light in his eyes turning a light brownish gold color before turning back to a deep brown.
“Ready to eat?” he asked me, his voice returning with its usual sarcastic bite.
I gave in and nodded, accepting a plate and utensils. I didn’t bother to ask how he had managed to pack this stuff, but I was glad he had.
After dinner was eaten and put away, I returned to my post at the cave entrance, ignoring Thatcher’s requests to sleep.
There would be no sleeping for me on this night. Or, if I was honest, for many nights after.
Not if I could help it.
+++
BTW, when Thatcher speaks in italics it's for 2 possible reasons: A) he's talking to someone mentally, which is then noted as such; or B) he's addressing a group of Raspan's or a Raspan itself in the Raspan tongue and the italics serves as the English translation.
Is that confusing anyone? LOL.
Anyway, if you find grammar/punctuation/continuity mistakes let me know. This teaser isn't thoroughly edited yet, so there will be a few.
Hope everyone is having a great summer! Xo-LilyArc
oh shoo and this is only the teaser. her parents dead, her house burned down.
ReplyDeletestill no sign of Talon either grrr!
awesome job, Lily. Can't wait for the full update!
ReplyDelete