I’d been the one to do it just the same.
Since my rebirth, I’d done everything to avoid bloodlust just for this reason.
Someone else did this to me, and ultimately to them.
But I was still the one who’d been covered in their blood.Who’d drained them to the final beat of their hearts.The unfortunate lovers.Doomed.Heartbreak’s hand again, maybe.Probably.
Murderess, that was me now.It didn’t seem like an upgrade from my usualassassin.
As an assassin for the Crown, I was always fully in control.I defended Zaraga.It was an honored, if secretive, position.
When we reached the bodies, the parvnit looked toward the trees.I made myself study my victims.
There they lay, their bodies twisted, their skin pale as ice.The woman’s hair stretched behind her like tentacles slithering toward the ocean.Dried blood spattered their bodies much as it had me, though no holes or cuts punctured their skin.
Their expressions, at least, were peaceful.More than that, they were elated.They’d died in the throes of the intoxicating arousal of a sänglure’s feeding.There were far worse ways to go.That was something, if not much.At the end, they wouldn’t have experienced fear or pain.They would only have wanted to give themselves over to me completely.The blood was from my frenzied consumption.
“Come and get ’em,” the parvnit hollered, drawing my attention toward the sparse trees and the beasts who lumbered our way.
There were four of them, huge and toddling, leaving deep, gouging footprints in the sand.They were either more fat than muscle or the other way around.They had a whole lot of both, all that glistening, sweaty flesh on display, roll after shuddering roll.Their smell—like musty feet—assaulted my nose, overpowering the lingering scent of blood from the dead lovers.
“That’s why we need to find you clothes,” the parvnit said as I took in how the newcomers wore none, and how their dicks were smaller than their massive bodies suggested they should be, slapping against the underside of their overhanging bellies with every vibrating step.
Surely,thatwasn’t why we needed to find me clothes, no matter what the parvnit said.
“Pygmy ogres,” she added, as if that were sufficient explanation.
When thepygmy ogresarrived at the bodies, I stepped back.It wasn’t the smell of their unkempt flesh alone that drove me, more the scent of putrid animal meat in their veins potent enough to mingle with their sweat.
The sweltering sunshine glistened along their misshapen heads, bigger than their frames suggested—unlike their baby dicks—and hardened their eyes to stones.
Unlike men, they didn’t spare a glance for me or my nudity.
“These two bodies only,” the parvnit told the pygmy ogres with the kind of exaggerated censure that suggested the warning was very necessary.“No one else, no matter who comes up to you.Of these two, leave nothing behind.”
The four responded in greedy grunts, and descended on the bodies like the carrion scavengers they apparently were.Each tugged on a limb—leg or arm, didn’t seem to matter—ripping one free with brute strength.Tissue tore with revoltingsquelches andcracks.They discarded any clothing like wrappers keeping food from a marketplace, and brought the flesh to worm-like lips.
When the first one chomped down noisily, crunching through bone, I jerked around.So fast I was nearly running, I stalked away and didn’t stop until the sounds ofdevouringfaded, when the parvnit caught up.
I whirled around to confront her.“What the fuck was that!”
“Gross but efficient.”
“Efficient?”
“They need to eat too, and I had all I needed to conclusively conclude you’re the murderess, solely responsible for the double murders.It’s not like either of them’s gonna feel a thing.So waste not, want not, you know?”
I did and I didn’t.Mostly I didn’t.
No stranger to death, not even to death I inflicted, regardless I walked in horrified silence with her flying at my back.My silence turned numb, and I placed one foot after another until I didn’t know where I was going anymore.Until my skin was pink from the sun.
It still wasn’t long enough to erase the slurping chomps or thenum-nummoans.
It didn’t deliver the answers I so desperately needed either.
Chapter5
Built like a Horse, Moves like a Horse, and Smells like a Horse, So It Must Be a … Dragort?
