The Claiming

by Imogen Keeper

  Sleep was downright impossible. Her brain kept going on a loop. Going over and over the words the junkie-girl had said. The men, who took Leyla. Who were they?

  It had to be Manivietto. The more she thought about it, the more certain she became. He was the only person who could order around the Polizei like that.

  So fine. She’d get the gun. She pictured his face, so much like hers. Manivietto. She’d kill him too if she had too to save Leyla. And his psychopath rapist of a sidekick Quinton. She’d kill the Boss for sure, justice for Jonan. Kill the whole migane city if she had to, and get out of Didgermmion forever. And she’d never have to think of the enormous Prime who smelled like sex-incarnate and who moved as if gravity didn’t exist for him, and who had a voice like choco and sin and a look in his eyes that said he was broken beyond redemption.

  Fuck this place.

  She curled up in a corner of the stinky apartment and waited for the day to pass.

  NIGHT CAME, starless, cloud-covered and close, like the air waited on the brink of a storm as she walked to the center of the city.

  Since they were looking for a felana dressed as a boy, she changed it up. This time, she dressed like a humani chick. The same mid-calf black boots, but she added a pair of loose harem pants tucked in at the knee and a clingy black top. She’d still attract attention, but with the deodorant and the charcoal powder, she should pass as humani. Capitalizing on her looks couldn’t hurt either. So, she’d lifted some make up and smudged her eyes dark and fluffed her hair up.

  The Night Market stank, as it always did, of sex and cigarettes and garbage.

  The pong of zafa mixed with animal shit and rot. Stalls offered everything from lighters and straw hats, to bolts of lacy fabric and broken furniture. Grazer carcasses and fish guts rotted beside wilting heads of cabbage and bruised fruit. Items that restaurants and bodegas hadn’t used waited to be resold, long past their expiration dates.

  She resisted the urge to cover her nose. She was playing with fire being out in public this close to a cycle. She could feel it coming, accelerated by the repeated proximity to the Prime. Whatever he ate, he put off rut pheromones like it was his one and only job.

  The low-level irritability, the constant throbbing, insistent ache between her legs, the itch under her skin that nothing but a Prime could scratch. Tomorrow maybe, it would change to cramps and tenderness, and then it would hit, the soul-crushing emptiness, the overwhelming desire to be filled with big hard Prime cock. And she’d be able to do nothing but mewl desperately, twisting on her bed, writhing and berserk with lust. Without Leyla to chain her down, she didn’t know how she’d keep herself from roaming the streets, desperate for a Prime.

  She ducked out of the alley and walked down the central aisle, trying not to be obvious as she looked for a pusher. They’d know of someone who had access to black-market guns.

  Too early maybe. All she saw were normal vendors and bad food.

  These stalls and their miscellaneous crap were a front, the first of the many layers of the Night Market.

  The second layer was drugs. Zafa, prescription pills, opiate serums, coca-powders. But the last layer, the foulest, was the felanas.

  Flesh was the real commodity at the Night Market. This was the dark underbelly of Didgermmion.

  Every Humani in the city wanted a piece of felana. Few among the population ever came near one. The Primes hoarded them in their seraglios like the finest and rarest of gems. Or sometimes, the unluckiest ended up here.

  Everyone turned a blind eye to the plight of the felanas. Even the decent ones, the humanis and Primes who sympathized were blinded, overwhelmed, deluded by their own desires.

  It was nature. Biology. People caught a whiff of a felana and all they wanted to do was fuck them. Male, female, Prime, humani. It didn’t matter.

  She looked around for a junkie trader she knew, a tall guy with a missing canine who’d once had knives. Maybe he’d know about guns. She didn’t see him though, so she walked along the stalls, slowly.

  She feigned interest in some imported fruits, trailing her fingers along their bumpy, hard rind. The vendor must have gotten a good deal because there were hundreds of them, piled high, yellow and pock-marked. Her mouth watered.

  She hadn’t eaten in so long.

  A trio of humanis brushed past in loud conversation, their voices echoing, their street accents with the drawn out, twangy endings.

  She blinked, her vision blurring.

  The garish lights of the zapping neon signs made her head ache.

  The crowd sifted and moved, people strolling up and down the aisles, vendors shouting back and forth, delivery hovers being unloaded.

  There, on a corner was a skinny humani kid, hands in his pockets, a hat pulled down low.

  He eyed her up and down as she approached, nodding hesitantly. His lips parted to form a word, “zee?” and she saw it. The missing tooth.

  She mimicked his posture, and the tone of his voice, keeping it low. “I was hoping for something a little different.”

  “What d’you want?”

  She glanced around. “I’m looking to buy a gun.”

  He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, looking down the street into the distance and shaking his head all at once. “Get out of here.”

  “I’m serious. Just give me a name. I just need to know who to talk to.”

  His head shook back and forth, fast, like maybe he was arguing with himself. “I don’t want any trouble. Just trying to make some yen. Go on.”

  She stood her ground. “Please. Just tell me who to talk to.”

  He scuffed his shoe along the pavement for a second. “Try Frey–”

  A pair of Polizei stepped out of the alley behind them, right in front of them.

  Two guys with hard jaws, wide shoulders, enormous guns strapped across their chests, and of course, as always, they were looking squarely at her.

  Shit. Time to run. Again.

  12

  pussy like a tailpipe

  SANGER DRAGGED the heel of his boot through a pile of dried tammin leaves and waited for Vangeline to shut up. The vines had to have been left over from the previous autumn. The turquoise had long since faded to dull yellow. They crumbled to dust under his boot.

  The storefront where he’d chosen to meet Vangeline was as dilapidated and filthy as everything else within two blocks of the Night Market. Neon lights, junk, old food, black-market goods and felana cunt were all anyone came here for, really. A few countrified tourists might come in to see the produce, gawk at the strange ways of the city folk, and buy useless trinkets. But no local came here for noble reasons.

  He dropped his shoulder against the pocked wall, crossed his arms. Vangeline was a talker. She yammered about accidents and mistakes and replacing the order.

  He crushed another leaf. He had a few more days until he needed those guns inside the Didgermmion borders, until the whole country turned into a war zone.

  “And, of course, we will give you a discount on the new order. Twenty percent less. You’ll still get the same number of guns. The discount is just as courtesy, for the mix-up. A way of saying thank you for your business.”

  He gritted his teeth, irritable, a little turned on remembering the last shipment. The skinny felana grinding her pussy against his thigh in the alley.

  Vangeline shimmied her tits at him. Wiggled her hips. Preening and posing. She wasn’t a bad-looking woman, Vangeline, but sleeping with her would be like sticking his dick in a tailpipe.

  He sighed. “Where did they come from?”

  Her heels clipped on the floor as she moved closer, a little gust of perfumed air moving in her wake. “Sanger, you’ve always been decent in our dealings. You have to understand…these things happen.”

  “They really don’t.”

  Her shiny lips parted; no doubt ready with sugary lies.

  “Just tell me why.” He kept his tone light and even, but there was an undercurrent there. This close to the atta
ck, there was no room for mistakes.

  Her eyes darted to the door.

  “There’s no one there. Just us two. We’ve worked together for a whole year without a single problem. You’ve given me a lot of solid shipments, always on time. Never an issue. And now you’re fucking Draggor and giving me bad shipments. What changed?”

  She took a long breath. It was the kind of breath people took right before they started lying again. “I’ll double the next shipment.”

  “Not double. I need two thousand this time.”

  A tiny scoff. “That’s impossible.”

  “And the explosives you promised me.”

  Silence, the stubborn, irritable kind. Like she was stuck between two terrible options.

  He bit his lower lip. “Vangie. When you lay down in your bed tonight, I want you to ask yourself a question. Who scares you more? Me? Or Manivietto?”

  Her nostrils flared. “You’d slit my throat in the night. Manivietto would keep me around for days, just to toy with me.”

  “You underestimate me. And overestimate him.”

  Her eyes darted around, rat-like and fast, like she was trying to figure out how to play both sides. “I’ll get you your two thousand guns.” Her chin tipped up. “But when Manivietto is dead, I want a seat in whatever government you replace him with.”

  He didn’t bother being surprised she knew he intended to topple over Didgermmion. It didn’t take rocket-science to put together the sheer mass of guns and the breadth of his armies.

  “A humani on the council?”

  A feline smile curled her lips. “A Prima.”

  “A Prima?”

  “Yes.”

  He tilted his head to the side, considering. He’d never met a Prima. But a female crime boss. She was tall for a woman, statuesque in her build. And there was something about her. He’d wondered.

  He spread his hands wide. “If you pull through with this shipment, I’ll consider th—"

  A series of shouts on the street interrupted him, the noise echoing off the alley and through the side door.

  More shouting from outside in the market. “Polizei. Stop, now.”

  Vangeline narrowed her eyes. “Are they on your payroll?”

  “Maybe.” A good number of the Polizei were, but he had no idea who was out there shouting, or why. Nonetheless, any Polizei, anywhere near him while he was working made him uneasy.

  The shouts resumed. They’d have to cut this short. Maybe she had called them for this exact reason, but he couldn’t risk it. “How do you get the guns over the walls?”

  She pursed her lips. “I protect my sources.”

  “If you’re reporting to Manivietto, he’ll kill you soon. You know that.”

  Her gaze shifted, hardening. “He can try,” she hissed. “And so can you. Worse men have.”

  He doubted that. He really did. There was no one worse than Manivietto. He’d murder his own children as soon as look at them. There was some insatiable need inside him for more. He’d burn down the whole planet just to rule the ashes.

  “I’ll deal with you later,” he said over his shoulder.

  “I’m sure you will.” She melted into the shadows behind the alley.

  13

  crashing into a wall

  TESSA FROZE, and so did the kid. Both of them, for a single second, staring at the Polizei with eyes, wide and round and stupid, and then he bolted. Just booked it. The Polizei glanced at him, then glanced at her, and she didn’t give them time to even think.

  She took off too, sprinted a straight shot down the market’s central aisles a few blocks, then ducked into a smaller one, the whole way, the Polizei shouted behind her.

  Since she was already on the run, she sticky-fingered a bun from the baker’s stall. She’d need it later, whenever she stopped running. His shouts joined the Polizei.

  Shoving the bun in her pocket, she dodged a lady with way too many vegetables on a carrying pole.

  A glance over her shoulder. The baker was chasing her too, now, and he was the closest, belly bouncing, face shining and red.

  “Really?” she called out to him. “Over one bun.”

  The look on his face, had her picking up her speed a notch. He looked mad.

  Down one more row, she cut a loose right and headed toward salvation: a blackened alley. A quick three blocks toward Shimmeryan Park, where she could cross over and be in back in her own arondi.

  She’d have to start over later.

  With a low hum, a rusted-out hover set down, right in front of her, blocking her exit.

  She skidded to a stop, crouching low.

  The baker shouted louder, shaking his fat fists. People turned and stared at her.

  The Polizei were only a hundred feet away. “Stop, felana!”

  A beefy guy in a tight, blood-spattered apron set down the carcass he’d been butchering and rose to his feet. His eyes locked on hers.

  Another guy turned at the edge of the market.

  The baker shouted, so close now.

  Leyla was right. It can always get worse.

  She spun a one-eighty and ran for the alley opposite.

  She’d gone about ten steps into the alleyway when a black shape moved directly into her path, too quickly for her to dodge.

  The shadow was enormous, tall and wide.

  It was shaped like a man.

  He didn’t smell like a Humani man.

  Her sneakers screeched on the concrete. She collided full-force into a rock-solid wall of Prime.

  14

  like a thousand

  exploding suns

  “YOU,” TESSA BREATHED.

  Hard fingers closed around her upper arms, digging in. “Me.”

  She tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong.

  “Vaniyya, what do you bathe in?” she said.

  He smelled like hope and the promise of dirty, dirty sex, and nothing you could put in a bottle.

  It burned in her blood—the call for a Prime. Unavoidable, undeniable and totally fucked up. Her skin buzzed, elated by his mere proximity, whispering of pleasure, reckless fulfillment, pathetic dependency. Her guts cramped.

  “Soap.”

  Shouts spilled down the alleyway, and Sanger’s gaze flicked behind her.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said.

  His grip on her arms tightened, and she remembered suddenly that she didn’t know him. Not at all. He might be anyone. He might do anything and all her hopes rested on a single fact. He’d let her go, not once, twice. And now, she needed him to do it a third time.

  He wasn’t moving. His body may as well have been carved from stone.

  She shoved at him and succeeded only in slipping as the soles of her boots lost purchase in alley slime.

  She pitched sideways and nearly hit the pavement, but his hands pulled her back up.

  “Let me go!” She whipped up, staring at his face, but it was too shadowed to be clear. His silver retinas flickered. The lucky fucker with his Prime vision.

  She shivered.

  More shouting came from behind her.

  “What did you do?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. The baker stood at the mouth of the alley, the light behind him. “I didn’t do anything.” She twisted so she could face him—at least the fat bastard wouldn’t be able to attack her from behind—but Sanger stopped her.

  He moved fast, as only Primes could, shoving her behind his body.

  Protecting her? Or staking a claim?

  Either way, standing behind him beat standing between him and the baker, who apparently had friends. The kind who looked like they enjoyed beating people up for fun.

  And the Prime, the one in the Togata stood there, shoulders frozen, staring at her like he was starving and she was dinner.

  As she peered around his massive shoulders, another man stepped into the alley, nostrils flared, and tall as he was, he had to be a Prime too.

  What the hell?

  She needed to disappear, fast.
The last three years, she’d only survived because she was a damned good runner.

  “Run.” Sanger’s voice was low, dangerous.

  Chills broke across her skin as his rumbling voice tickled her spine.

  Maybe he didn’t even mean her. Maybe he meant the baker and his merry band of brawlers, or maybe he meant the pair of Primes, but it sounded like good advice for her, too.

  She didn’t need to be told twice.

  Maybe she could find a ladder and get up to the roofs.

  A rumbly growl echoed off the cracked stucco walls of the buildings on either side, and she didn’t bother to find out what happened.

  She left the light behind her and raced down the alley. There were a few bangs, trashcans overturned. A fjarra crunched under her shoe and she winced. Rodents squealed, their protests echoing off the walls of the buildings around her, as she chased her own lengthening shadow.

  The alley opened onto Breaker Street, and she burst through it so fast she nearly bowled over a humani couple out for a walk. The guy shouted at her, and the woman let out a pathetic little squeal, probably worried about her fancy shoes.

  She couldn’t even imagine what it would it be like to be that humani woman. Strolling smugly down the street, arm in arm with a humani-man without a care in the world. No fear. The woman had no idea how lucky she was. She probably had a job, working at an office where people listened to her. Even men probably respected her. Tessa would bet her life the woman had never had to hide, afraid she might be captured, imprisoned. Bred.

  A stab of pain sliced through her abdomen, and a fire blasted between her legs. Not now.

  Sweat dripped down her neck, tickled between her breasts. The heat was coming, intensified by the latest run-in with Sanger and his Prime stink.

  Steps beat a rhythm on the street behind her and she risked a glance over her shoulder. The shadows rippled. A massive form took shape moving fast. It could only be one thing. Him.