I’m unsure if Bard is there in the pack, but only he would be so quick to claim his pound of flesh.
Flesh. I have to make an offering, or he won’t hear me. “Someone. Quick! Take a piece of Tiago’s left nut.”
“What?” Tiago snaps, wiggling to free himself.
“Fine. A sliver of skin.” I really wish I could have him partially castrated—would serve him right—but he’d probably bleed to death.
One of the men holding Tiago takes out a hunting knife. Before Tiago can protest, the man removes a pinch of Tiago’s prized stubble.
Touché, asshat. When he tries to grow back his “glorious” beard, there’ll be a bald spot.
The War Man hands me the bloody offering, and I hold it up. “Bard, let’s talk.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“How did you save me?” Tiago grumbles, bound by the hands, his torso chained to a black tree that’s covered in sticky muck from the ocean.
I poke a long stick at the bonfire in front of me but don’t reply. Tiago can’t be trusted with what I know: The No Ones have quit their jobs as the vow police.
“You should have allowed me to be taken,” he says.
Master, who’s sitting beside me, is staring directly at Tiago instead of the fire. He lets out a long, menacing growl.
“I think Master agrees,” I say. “But luckily for you, it’s not the plan.”
“I will not serve you.”
I don’t want to hear it. “Yes. You will.”
“Never.”
“You think you’re so strong, don’t you?” I turn to face him.
“Yes.”
“Wrong. Strength is overlooking how you feel personally and placing those you love ahead of your ego. Strength is saying, ‘You know what? I don’t want to give up my dream of falling in love with the perfect man and having a family, but maybe, just maybe, the children already alive in my world deserve a chance. So I’ll marry this fifty-foot dude.”
“You think yourself a martyr.” He chuckles spitefully.
“I’m practical. What good’s my happiness and holding out for Mr. Right if it means there’s no future for any of us? Or that every generation to come won’t be free to live, love, and enjoy the gift of life?” My personal happiness is not a fair trade for centuries of humans being ruled by the likes of the Blood King. He doesn’t care how we feel or what we dream of. The Blood King wants to suck every last drop of life from everything around him. Power. Control. Domination. He will lie, cheat, and steal to get it.
“Let us see how practical.” Tiago jerks his head toward a pile of jagged gray boulders that weren’t there before.
Master goes ballistic and starts barking wildly. The War People, now situated around their campfires, eating “squid,” scramble to their feet and grab weapons.
“Let me guess. The Mountain People?” I say.
“Their pet,” Tiago offers.
And now we’ve officially gone full Twilight Zone.
I nod at the boulders. “Hiya.”
Before I know what’s happening, I’m encased in stone, the faint voice of Tiago sounding off in the background. “Good riddance.”
When I’m released from the granite grip of my host’s pet, I’m inside a dark cave with a small campfire. In front of me is a man with a dirty-blond ponytail, wearing a beige linen tunic and leather sandals. His handsome face reminds me of a catalog model with glowing tanned skin and a perfectly trimmed short beard. Manly, but very clean and neat.
These are the people who were kicking the Wall Men’s asses? What’s their superpower? Grooming? “Who are you?”
“I just saved you from being eaten by savages. I’ll be asking the questions.”
He thinks I was their prisoner? “I’m not their food. They brought me here to make a deal.”
He laughs heartily. “Deals are for those who wish to exchange something. What could such a tiny woman—human, no less—have that I would want?”
Tiny? Yes, I’m five two, and he’s about six feet tall, but he’s hardly a giant. “I just want to talk.”
“You brought a war party, and you wish me to believe you’re here to talk?”
“They’re only protecting their queen, and I’m all alone now—no threat to anyone.”
He laughs again, but this time with more enthusiasm. “You are the new War Queen? How far the mighty giants of the lands have fallen. So you’ve come to negotiate on behalf of your new people.”
“Not unless you’re interested in a crappy piece of land near the wall without access to fresh water.”
“No.”
Thought so. “Then I’m here representing my world.”
“You would betray them, the War People?”
“Actually, no. I have a plan—an alternate idea that will lead everyone down a different path. Your people get a home, free from being hunted. My people get safety.”
“And the kingdoms of Monsterland?”
“They’ll get a new set of rules.”
He cocks a brow. “You have my attention.”
I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’ve been through the options a hundred times in my head. All the walking before we got to the ocean, through forests made of neon trees that glow in the daytime, groves riddled with huge eighty-legged spiders—Spider People! Run! Worse than your darkest nightmare—and strolling through grassy hills that speak because they’re made up of gabby Fern people, was oddly therapeutic. A dark, ridiculous dream. An escape from reality.