There’s nothing noble about this man. There never was. I’ve been lying to myself all these years, and I can no longer do that.
Javier Garcia is now dead to me. I have no father. No home. No family.
I’m on my own, and I have to do whatever it takes to survive.
The orc moves closer to me, blocking the sun and casting me in darkness. I shiver as much from the loss of sunshine as from the sheer size of the beast looming over me.
“Come, female,” the male who kept my father from hitting me says. “We must leave the human colony before sundown.”
I can’t go with them. I’m not ready.
Two orcs flank me.
There is no out. No Escape.
When I landed on Kovos, the men in charge of our colony assigned me to farming. The pale-yellow fruit in my section of the fields is twice as large as a beefsteak tomato, has a thick skin similar to a pumpkin, and grows on vines. I spent most of the past two years cultivating, staking, weeding, and laboring over those vines. Women’s work, according to the men. I never complained because when you’re part of a colony, you do whatever’s needed to survive.
That never included the possibility of being sold.
To hell with them and their treaty. I’m not going to be a breeder, especially to a monster. I will fight him with all I have and regain my freedom.
The first chance I get, I’m going to do exactly what my father warned me not to do. I’m going to fuck this up.
Big time.
CHAPTER THREE
ATOX IM GRAK
Twenty minutes earlier
As my warriors and I walk through this horrid human colony, people reeking of fear race inside their flimsy homes. Doors slam shut. As if those thin pieces of wood would protect them from us... Humans are a weak species in so many ways.
“Are you sure about this, Atox?” my second, Verig im Neld asks as we approach the meeting point to accept the female I’ve been offered.
“Yes,” I lie, my head held high.
I’m not sure about taking a human into our settlement, but I won’t tell Verig this. Or share my worry that we could be letting a potential spy into our midst to learn our weaknessesand betray us from within. While I trust Verig with everything, including my life, I cannot afford to show any hesitation about taking a human female.
We have no other way to correct the imbalance that the war on Orcos created. Too many females died before and during the journey here. I often wonder if any of the ships that fled before the final purge escaped.
We may be the last of our kind.
Once we landed on Kovos, our numbers declined further. Nearly two dozen females killed, their skin covered in welts, their bodies drained of blood, and never any animal tracks nearby.
When I sent guards to accompany the females on their daily tasks, setting and clearing the small game traps, they returned safely. We thought the danger had passed until a female clearing a trap witnessed narsi vines throttling an animal.
Narsi vines grow at the base of many trees. I had dismissed the harmless-looking vines as a threat, assumed they were just another flora. I didn’t realize the white variegated green leaves emitted a fragrance at sunrise, when many of our females forage for berries and check the traps. The females had been drawn to the fragrance and approached the vines to investigate a potential source of food. Their deaths are on my hands.
I can’t afford any more mistakes.
“But they’re so ugly, Atox,” Verig says. “And frail.”
“If we don’t want to die out as a species, we need females.”
“That must be her. The one standing with the councilman by the crude abode. She is so…” Verig doesn’t finish his thought, because he knows she is mine. Insulting her is the same as insulting me.
I recognize this female from the market, and I’m not pleased at all. She’s not the one I selected. While I admired her strength of will, I’d dismissed the idea of taking her because her defiance might be an issue. And her hair is too short to grab to control her when I mount her. I’d chosen a female with long hair, one whonever raises her voice to the males of her colony, but this morning the humans said she was already mated. It’s this one or none.
