“I have not.”
“Then you will find this enjoyable.” The second voice has an element of amusement within it, but not in a way I think will be good for me.
“Working with a new specimen is always an experience,” the first voice says, moving closer to me. Something fills my vision, something grey and green.
And a stench.
It doesn’t matter what they once looked like, you can always recognize an Ulep by their stench.
I attempt to recoil, but my body still isn’t prepared to assist.
“This one seems to have lost some of its ability to change form at will.”
My tail shifts. I can feel it. It swings from side to side as if unaffected by the hold these Ulep have on the rest of my body.
“You were saying?”
“Increase the gas.”
A puff of hot air goes up my nostrils. I attempt to gasp in some clean air, but that too is filled with droplets which coat my mouth and tongue. A bliss flows through me, not what I want, but what I’m getting.
“There we go. It’ll sleep now.”
“Good, because it isn’t going to like what we do to it.”
The voices fall away, everything falls away until it is me, floating in space, not sure if my wings are on or if I even still have a head.
One thing I do know is I will get back to my Lydia. I tried to tell her when we were in the cabin that something was wrong, that there was something filling my head with nonsense, but the words wouldn’t come out right.
I am never going to let her go. She is my soul, my heart, my shift, and my flame. Lydia is my mate and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
LYDIA
“Hey, I brought you some fee,” Maggie says, putting the steaming cup of the hot drink the Sarkarnii claim not to like down beside me. “How are you feeling?”
She’s being too nice. Maggie should have been waxing lyrical by now about how right she was about Deus and how wrong I was.
“What’s wrong?” I sit up, my head and body aching from the work yesterday and my heart hurting all the more because of my flight from Deus.
“Nothing at all,” Maggie says, a tad too brightly. “You need to drink your fee. I’ll get us both some breakfast and we can have a pampering session.”
“A what?”
“Scarlett said she’d come over with Kerra, Rosalie, and Gillian. Kerra’s bringing a new machine which she says can do hair and makeup.”
“Who are you and where have you put Maggie?” I push myself from where I’ve been sleeping on one of the higher ridges of a sleeping pit onto the side and rub my hand over my face.
“What do you mean?” Maggie growls, affronted.
“You know exactly what I mean. You’re never this nice.”
Maggie puts her hand on her chest, just above her large baby bump, and makes a mock gasping sound, putting her other hand to her mouth in a mocking exaggerated way.
“I am always nice.” She says.
“In your head, perhaps,” I grumble. “What comes out of your mouth is something else entirely.”
“Fine.” Maggie folds her arms. “Fuck you then. Deus has disappeared. Everyone thinks he’s betrayed Vorostor again.”
