“Indeed,” Dontilvynsan said. “It was well done, Speedy.”
I beamed, tail writhing and wings shuffling.
Caleb, face scrunched, brought me a glass of graugg with his inner fire—telekinesis. The glass wobbled and spilled some of the maroon liquid onto the moss floor. He bit out a swear,and Zoltilvoxfyn dragged his tail over the back of Caleb’s leg. Gripping his cane, Caleb grunted as the glass began to move again. He was still struggling to master his gift, but Wyn, a close friend of Seth’s, had been teaching him.
I accepted the maroon liquid, tousling Caleb’s hair, and took a deep drink, relishing the bitter tang. All of my brothers and my cousin, who was basically a brother, followed suit, and I grinned. I loved them more than anything.
The similarities between us were beyond obvious. All of us brothers, besides Kalvoxrencol, had deep green eyes like our mother. My white hair matched Zoltilvoxfyn’s, though he had black scales as did Dontilvynsan. Kalvoxrencol and Hallonixmin both had blue scales, though Hallonnixmin was a shade darker. His purple hair matched Dontilvynsan’s. I was the lone man out with purple scales, as was Monqilcolnen with dark green scales and silver hair. But we all shared the same wide foreheads, long noses, and strong chins.
With a grin, I basked in the glow of my family’s attention. What more could I need?
Chapter 2
Racing by.
I fell onto one of the two cots in our cell and pulled my glasses off to rub my face. The black plastic frames had held up, but one of the lenses sported a crack from where I’d gotten smacked in the face. At least I was able to see well enough, not that there was much to look at. The cell was made of metal, rectangular in shape, and had two bare cots, a toilet, and nothing else.
Vince stumbled in a few minutes after me, covered in soot, blood, and general grime, much like I was. Both of our heads were shaved and our simple brown jumpsuits were ratty and thin, to the point of non-existent.
Almost two years had passed since our abduction and subsequent sale. Some of the humans who’d been kidnappedhad been sold to a restaurant that catered to rare tastes, which turned my stomach, but I tried not to focus on it too much, as there was literally nothing I could do about it. Some had been sold to brothels—I actually spotted those humans every once in a while—and some to private households as servants or pets. Everyone else had been offloaded to different planets.
The only human I saw regularly was Vince. The others were distant figures ghosting through the city, trying to survive. When I did see another human, we gave each other the same helpless look. None of us was in a position to save the other.
Vince and I had been sold to a fighting ring. Not as fighters, thank god, because we were scrawny as fuck, especially since Agk, our xoi owner, saw feeding us as an unnecessary luxury, but as cleaners. We cleaned the refuse, vomit, or piss left behind by the audience and dead bodies after the fight concluded. Not glamorous, but we were alive.
Vince collapsed beside me, and I grabbed his hand, interlacing our fingers. I was perfectly content to never touch anyone or talk—I was fairly self-sufficient—but Vince needed physical reassurance to cope with our surroundings. He was a tactile person. Me? Not really, but touching didn’t bother me either, so I gave him what he needed.
“The furnace is threatening to give out again,” Vince said, dragging his free hand over his soft features. He was lovely. There wasn’t any other way to say it. Vince was lithe and attractive, even with the grime. I was shocked someone hadn’t made Agk an offer for him.
I nodded with a grunt. The massive machine had been sending out more plumes of smoke than usual and giving us error codes that we couldn’t read.
“If it dies, Agk’s going to sell one of us to pay for it.”
I tightened my hold on him.
Our owner had been threatening to sell us since he’d acquired us. The restaurants would always buy us. Given how rough a shape I was in, I doubted a brothel, except the cheapest, would purchase me. Vince probably—that was the problem with being pretty. But then again, who knew what a xoi found attractive? They were purple watermelons with horns, stuck on to toothpicks in bad spandex.
In the end, if Agk sold us, it was to become food or a whore or fodder for some kind of monster.
“Come on,” I said, tugging on him. “Let's go watch that race everyone was talking about. We can probably see it on one of the screens around town.”
Vince groaned, but I dragged him up. He needed this. He needed to do things, to see people, to pretend that there was a life after this.
We were free to leave after our work was done. We both had an implant in our arms to translate for us, track us, and prevent us from going far. If we did try to escape, the implant would shock us until we fell unconscious, leaving us vulnerable to anyone who passed by. Besides, where was there to go? There was no escape from the planet’s surface. And if I was honest with myself, I wasn’t sure if I deserved to escape, let alone survive.
I shrugged off the memories and kept walking. The dirt streets were crowded with filth and smog. The buildings were all unfinished rusty metal. Aliens of all types pressed against us while hovercrafts flew overhead. Xome was where the watermelon-head xoi called home, and it was the ass of the universe according to the residents, though it was right next to Maykian space. Mayks were wealthy aliens with supposedly wondrous technology that everyone wanted, but they did not share.
We crowded around a screen behind a force field of a shop along with other aliens. The shuttles darted between theindicated lights as the drones followed them. I didn’t know much about the universe we inhabited, except that it was larger, meaner, and a whole lot more horrible than I’d ever thought, but the technology was amazing.
I chewed on my lip, watching the race—well, a sped-up version. Vince and the rest of the crowd groaned and cheered, calling out who they wanted to win. A large busk—an alien covered in thick brown fur with two huge tusks pushing out of their mouth—shoved me to the side to see better.
“Watch it, asshole,” Vince snapped, dragging me closer.
“You watch it, puny,” the busk snarled, the pink spines on their back lifting.
Vince wasn’t intimidated—he never was. It was a wonder he didn’t have his ass handed to him on a daily basis. “Back the fuck up.”
“Make me.”
