Niala 48

Gaff drifted in and out. Breathy Wildling words touched his lips. He’d be scrambled for a while, but he spoke Anil and Acir back and forth, plain as day, and told me that he loved me with all of his fires. I had no doubt he did. Also, because I didn’t think he’d remember, I told him I loved him too, in the weird way. I didn’t want the Grells to choose me or the songbirds to take me away. I wanted to be wild, be free, wander, and stay with my ada, adas…. Both of them.

Part of me wanted to test other fires, kiss another boy. Gaff had; I knew he had. We talked about it. I wanted to sneak off giggling into the dark and…

Whenever I thought about sneaking off into the dark, holding hands, melding fires, kissing… It involved Gaff.

Eugh.

When the voice spoke to me, I held my tongue, bartered for information, and Gaff tried to stop me. I reasoned that they knew a lot already if Rolyn worked for them.

As I suspected, the floor had been lined with live wire, and I got Gaff up enough to keep the brunt of the shock from hitting him. He had his phone in his hand in a few movements. Maybe I still had mine; hope rose and fell when the voice told us that there wasn’t a signal here. He texted at first, and I wanted to ask him what it said, but he smashed his phone in a sudden jerk of anger. I winced. That might have been the only thing that could save us, and I whimpered low in my throat. Maybe my phone still worked?

The bombshell dropped, and I felt revulsion and fear ramping. BREEDING!?

‘Breeding pair,’ He called us.

A breeding pair!? Gaff caught the edge of it like I hadn’t just taken a few thousand volts for him, and every sweet word he’d said, yep, all gone. I’d never live it down. I reserved my disgust for later because I had to keep him on his side, his head in my lap, and the harsh voice on the other end as happy as possible.

“Might not want to let your boyfriend sleep—concussions and all that,” The speaker said.

“We’re not human,” I reminded him, and my eyes flared with a warning. I could feel my mana, the black fire within me running wild with anger. A torrent roiled that I’d never felt before, but I’d only had my fires for such a short time. It all felt new, though. This ran deeper, hollow, from pits and vast reserves that I’d not known I had.

“Keep him happy, heal, plan,” I whispered to Gaff, not that he’d hear or remember.

“So, is he going to live or not?”

I had to answer the voice.

“If I can take care of him, maybe,” I said as I prickled my black fire over my fingertips and touched his hands. His fingers laced with mine, not giving me fire back but taking.

“You don’t seem too torn up about it,” The voice spoke.

My shoulders rounded. “I’m more torn up than you’ll ever know. We bond for life. There is nobody else; there is nothing else. I am sixteen. We grow up fast. I’ll be an adult in a few years, and then I’ll slowly age. It will take me hundreds of years to die, waste away. You, your children, your grandchildren, and then their grandchildren will not outlive me. If my bondmate dies, I’ll be alone forever. I might as well die, myself. I’ll do it, happily. I’ll be reborn, and maybe, if the stars align, the creator wills and the seraphs sing, I’ll meet him again, and we’ll have those years of happiness. Now, if he dies, I’ll die. You can have fun playing with a corpse, and I don’t know if you know what happens when one of us dies.”

I said every word with conviction.

“Self-destruct,” the voice said.

“Exactly. Our mana consumes us, leaves nothing behind. We are not of your book. We exist as viruses, plagues. We can’t be deleted. We’re just moved,” I kept saying. I felt vindictive. In return, I received the kind of silence that meant I had power. Finally, a click of the speaker rang out. He depressed the button, then released it—at a loss for words.

Bingo.

“How did you find that out?” I asked.

Slow and dark deliberation laid behind the voice. “You were there.”

I pulled myself back into my mind. I remembered my mom tossing me in the air.

There was blood on the snow.

Blood on the snow.

There was snow…blood.

The blood turned black…. There was black soot on the snow. There was black soot on my shoes.

“Dyana,” I whispered, a whimper in my voice. The deep hollowness and caverns within me grew. I fought my urge to lash because Gaff couldn’t handle it.

Part of me, after all these years that hoped beyond all hope, beyond anything that my mother was still alive, that one day I would find her, and she would see me and be so sorry for losing me. Now, I knew the truth. I lost her because someone else wanted a plaything, an experiment, an animal. “Was your goal her or me to begin with?”

“You. Children are easier to curb,” He laughed.

“Why me? Do you even know what tribe I am, where I came from? Because I don’t. Probably a good way to get me to cooperate with you since I’m going to be such a problem to handle.” I tamped my desperation down.

“You’re from the Acerrai. We have some intel from the enai,” He said. I’d never heard the last word before.

“I do not know what Enai is.” I knew I’d heard Acerrai before, so similar to our Acir. I remembered my old tongue as a child with childish ways. Of course, words muddled and replaced one another over time, but in my deepest moments, it came too easy.

“That’s the glorious thing about dealing with the wild bloods, isn’t it? They don’t work with the Enai. They’re the governing force that keeps us from your kind. They’re the vaulted door that protects you. Too bad your own people sold you out, well, not your own people, but people were invested for a time in getting some children out of the tribes, and we were happy to take you back.”

“There are more of us that were taken?” I asked.

“Rolyn gave us another child before, another little girl with pretty green eyes and long red hair. I could tell you more, but, honestly, I want your cooperation. So, what is it we can do to help you and the redhead?” The speaker took the cruelty down in his voice, a soft edge taking over. He spoke in a patronizing voice with the same saccharine sweetness as a man in an old van offering free candy.

“You can let us go, for a start,” I said.

“No. This is me doing you a favor. Give and take. You’ve been paid for. The data we’ll get from you will help everyone immensely; now, what can I do to help your boy not die?”

I needed to keep my energy up, keep my mana fed, and stay alert.

“Food and water are a start,” I said with reservation, “We need special food.”

“Go on.” The speaker crackled.

“Meat, raw, fruit, vegetables, also raw. No corn, no grains. No milk. Yogurt is okay,” I rattled on, “As long as there’s no sugar added… I think.

The wildlings cooked their meat rare. The wanderers would grill all the time, laying out great feasts of food. I’d only eat the vegetables for the longest time, the fruit. Kiromir couldn’t make me eat the ‘scorched food.’ I could taste the soot and ash in it. I could taste the flame. Fire belonged from the hands, not on the food.

Kiromir had tried everything, and in the end, he caught me sneaking raw chicken breast off the grilling platter, and it had been our polite little ‘we don’t talk about it’ thing since. Of course, it made people uncomfortable, though Kiromir had tried it once and was surprised that it didn’t taste nearly as bad as he thought. The texture was off-putting to him, too soft and wet, but I loved it. My teeth sank into it, and it satisfied me on such a primal level. Sometimes, I went too long between meals where I could get meat that I cried when I could finally sink my teeth into it.

“Raw meat. You eat raw meat?”

“I’d say the same for you and cooked meat.” My mouth watered as I thought about it and remembered the blood on my lips, the taste I’d gotten from biting my own kind. I licked my wet lips with nausea and hunger.

“Give us a few minutes. It’s a fairly easy request,” our captor spoke.

It was silent for the longest while, and I felt the urge to drift off to sleep, but Gaff’s labored breaths kept me alert.

“Hang in there,” I told him and tried giving him my fires again. Then, finally, I could feel him taking them, and I felt relief.

A panel in the wall slid open, a small chamber on the other side, reinforced, large enough for a plate, and I laid Gaffriel to my side as I looked over what they sent.

I sniffed over the food, checking carrots, celery, half an eggplant for whatever reason, and a few raw slabs of some sort of skirt steak. The steak was processed, and I could smell the dye and preservative they used, but I could eat it. It just wouldn’t taste good and wouldn’t be as juicy.

“Can we sleep after we eat?” I asked. I felt so tired, sore, and bruised. I’d been banged around about half as bad as Gaffriel, and I needed to heal.

I heard the click of the speaker.

“We can reconvene in the morning, then.”

“What do you expect of me?” I asked, waiting to hear the worst.

“Blood samples to start with, a few feather samples,” he went on.

“I’m covered in blood. Take your pick, and I’m molting, so the feathers aren’t a problem,” I scoffed.

“Trade you some feathers for some blankets,” The voice offered.

I let my wings free, shook them, and gathered a few loose ones. The meal tray slot opened, and I stuffed the feathers in. Without sustained mana around them, the feathers would crumble and curl into ash after a few days, like our dead, only slower.

It closed, then reopened with a few thin blankets I took, trying to peek through to the other side before it snapped shut.

I bundled one up and put it under Gaff’s head and one over him. I looked up at the speakers.

“Light?” I asked, wanting the bright incandescent whining bulbs turned off.

The lights went out, replaced by tiny motes of red LED lights lit in small orbs around the room.

Cameras. I thought as much. I didn’t like being watched eating.

“Gaff,” I said, prodding to him. Thank the creator, he stirred.