I couldn’t feel farther from my home than I do now.
Breathless and trembling, my lips touch his. Our feathery kiss whispers secrets to my marrow. I forget to breathe until Kyon responds with languid brushes of his lips to mine. His gentleness lulls me. I’m safe. My lips part; I deepen the kiss. The first stroke of his tongue is a rush of fire that cuts through me. Battle lines appear. The impact of our kiss invades my senses. I try to retreat. Kyon doesn’t allow it. He draws me closer to keep me from escaping. I’m burned from my home. A chaos of emotion blossoms between us. I’m not the hunter in this game; I can hardly keep myself from becoming the prey.
The music stops; the silence is shouting around us, and still he kisses me. I’ve been in trouble all of my life. I’ve never felt it more so than now.
“Lightning has struck,” one of the Brothers behind us says sourly.
A rumble of laughter comes from Kyon. I feel his smile against my lips. He moves his face away a few inches so he can see me better. The sledgehammering of my heart must be apparent to his sharp eyes. Kyon doesn’t look away from me as he says, “You probably never even knew it was raining, Gannon.” I look in that direction. The faces of the Brothers are bone-white and grim. I doubt any of them has heard Kyon laugh before.
Kyon presses a kiss to my temple. “I will always remember this,” he murmurs against my hair. He pulls away from me and goes to the other side of the room to have conversations with the monsters who want to kill us. A part of me wants to follow him. We’re supposed to be a team in this. How am I supposed to scare the hell out of them from way over here? I sink into my seat and weave my fingers together wicker-basket tight.
“He’s in love with you,” Phlix says from her seat beside me.
I want to laugh my head off. Kyon doesn’t love me. He wouldn’t know love if it stabbed him in the chest with a pink, puffy heart. I’m a means to an end to him.
“He’s in love with my savagery.” I feign a dreamy sigh.
“Are you still a savage?” she asks with doe-eyed innocence.
“Yes,” I say. To them I undoubtedly am. That works for me. I’ll play to their expectations and give them what they think they know about me.
We watch and listen as the exquisite priestesses create music that sounds like it comes from some ethereal plane of being. Every so often though, I detect a raw note, a misshapen bow stroke that is discordant from the rest. The musicians annoy me, I realize. They’ve spent a lifetime playing music while I’ve spent mine trying to survive on my own.
“Do you enjoy this melody, Kricket?” Phlix asks.
I’ve never heard it before in my life. “It’s my very favorite,” I mumble. I look over my shoulder; Kyon is watching me while one of the Brothers discusses something with him in hushed tones.
“They’re Virulences,” Phlix whispers, nodding toward the beautiful women playing instruments in front of us. “Trula, Greer, and Doe are designed to influence thoughts with their melodies.”
“Excuse me?” I choke. My head snaps in her direction.
“They’re trying to control you right now. I’m blocking them from influencing me. I’ve tried to block you as well, but you don’t seem to need it like I do.”
“What are they trying to make me do?” I wonder as I scrutinize them.
“Kill yourself,” she whispers without a hint of deception. “Their music is designed to infect others. They despise you and they’ve been instructed to make you sick if they can’t get you to kill yourself. Can’t you feel the venom they’re directing at you?”
“I feel nothing. You’re doing a good job of protecting me.”
She beams at me. I recognize her smile. It’s connection. Bridget, my ex-roommate on Earth, smiled at me like that the first time I met her in juvenile detention. “You’d feel it if it was working. You wouldn’t be able to keep anything in your stomach and you’d bleed from the nose and mouth.”
“They’re killer stereo, huh?” I mutter.
“I can’t block it all. Are you sure you cannot feel it?”
I shake my head. “No. Nothing.”
“Perhaps your physiology is different than ours—you’re not pureblood.”
“How come it doesn’t seem to be hurting anyone else in this room?”
“We’ve all been required to build up a tolerance to it, but look there.” She indicates the group of priestesses in a different cluster away from the game table. One of the priestesses is ill. Hunched over, she holds her middle as if she may be sick. Her companions are speaking to her in low, concerned tones. I can’t hear what they’re saying. A very tall priestess adorned with a diamond-studded headpiece signals to the Virulences playing behind me with wave of her hand. They play a different song. The sick priestess blinks a few times. Straightening, she drops her hands from her stomach before speaking as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred.
“The Virulences may need to concentrate on a different frequency of sound in order to hurt you.”
“Who ordered them to hurt me?”
With a fearful glance, she searches the room to ensure we’re not being overheard. “Not here,” she mutters.
“Okay.”
“Do you think you’ll try to escape from here?” she whispers. I don’t reply. “When you do, will you take me with you?”
A small, heavy stone game piece hits the chair between us. Turning, I look in the direction of the priestesses at the game table. A blue, gemstone bird catapults from the center of the game board on its own and strikes Phlix in the shoulder. She winces at the impact, but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge it. The priestess with black lace on her eyebrows giggles with delight over the prank. The lace adornment gives her catlike eyes that she uses to glare at me. I glare back.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
Phlix glances quickly over her shoulder at the priestesses before turning away, saying, “Don’t look at them!” She gives me a timid look. When I continue to glare unabashedly at them, she whispers quickly, “The one with the black lace cutouts is Brighton. She’s telekinetic.”
“How good is she at it?”
Phlix shrugs. “I think what you just saw is the best she can do. It still hurts though.” She looks down at her hands that she had clutched in her lap. I size up Brighton. She’s annoyed that I haven’t been cowed by her death-gaze. She says something with a derogatory twist of her lips and her friends beside her both snicker. It’s plain that she believes herself to be very powerful. She has no idea that she’s dining at the kid’s table. Giffen could eat her for breakfast with his gift.
“And the other two with Brighton?” I wonder.
“Ryker is the one with the thin dark lines on her brow.”
“What can she do?”
“She can speak telepathically to animals that are of higher intelligence, such as canines, spixes, and primates. And before you ask, the last one is Ashland.”
“What’s Ashland’s gift?” I study her. The gold chains she wears over her nose make her look regal.
“They call her a lotus. Her kiss is intoxicating. It makes the recipient forget all of his ambitions so that he worships only her.”