Chapter
Six
LARELLIN
“Come now, little pet. I know you’re awake.” The deep voice drags me to full consciousness.
I sit up, my head swimming as I look around. “What?—”
“You fainted.” Vander, the creature from before, sits across from me. We’re in some sort of parlor. A roaring fire is to my right, and I’m sitting on some sort of couch. We never had anything half so nice back in Raingreen. The fabric feels soft under my fingers as I scoot back into the corner.
Vander is across from me on a similar couch. The furniture is huge, but he almost dwarfs it, sitting with his arms splayed out across the back, his body relaxed as he watches me.
“Do you do that a lot?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“Good. I’d hate to have to go around catching you all the time.” He sighs.
The fire crackles, and I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them.
“What was that—” I glance toward some wide doors that I assume lead back to the dining room. “That monster?”
He smirks. “I’ll rather enjoy telling Brin you think he’s a monster.”
“Brin?”
“He’s a wolven. Surely, you’ve heard of those?” His face is lit by the fire on one side, the other in darkness. The hint of scales along the bottom of his throat glisten in the dancing light.
“I’ve heard of lots of things that live in Oblivion.” My voice is scratchy, faintly trembling. “None of them good.”
“I can’t dispute that.” He drags a hand through his hair, the locks falling past his ears but not quite to his shoulders. His golden hair has a slight wave to it. “Nevertheless, Brin is a wolven, one of the few I allow into the keep.”
“Wolven steal babies from their beds.” I tear my gaze away from him and look at the fire, a statue of a dragon poised in the center of it, the fire licking all around it and lighting up its eyes a shade of deep crimson. “They kill them in the forests of Oblivion and leave their bones for the carrion birds to pick.”
A sharp burst of laughter shocks me, and I cringe back against the couch.
Vander has his head back, another bark of a laugh ripping from him before he meets my gaze again.
“That’s funny to you?” I ask.
“In fact, it is. Is that what they tell you about the creatures of Oblivion over in the mortal realm? That we steal babies?”
“The wolven do. The witches too, for their dark sacrifices. The vampires?—”
“Let me guess, they drink babies’ blood on the full moon or something?”
“They drink it to extend their lives.” I nod.
He scrubs a hand along his jaw, the raspiness of his shadowy beard loud despite the distance between us. “Gods. You mortals really know nothing of us, do you?”
“We know enough to never set foot beyond our borders,” I shoot back, pulling bravado from some unknown place inside me. I don’t feel brave. I don’t feel anything except scared, sore, and hungry, but I’m not going to tell this creature any of that.
“I can’t fault you for that, mortal. Oblivion is a deadly place for your kind. Not out of spite, as you seem to believe, but simply out of necessity. Oblivion is an unforgiving land, even for immortals. But we adapted to thrive here, despite the constant threat of death. Mortals, however, lead soft lives. They’re brief and full of carelessness. You are far too breakable, too delicate to survive in our world.”
Something new blooms inside me. Something hotter than the fear and hunger. Anger. “‘Soft lives?’” I scoff, and I enjoy when his golden eyebrows rise in surprise. “‘Careless?’ You don’t know what you’re talking about. You know nothing about mortal lives, nothing aboutmylife.”
“I know you were thrown away by your own people, offered to what you consider to be a monster. Was that not careless?”
