Glancing around, Dela spotted the four Hunters. Not only had they been trussed up like a turkey, but they had been separated, each walking surrounded by a group of Angel’s men. They walked for hours until Dela felt delirious with thirst and her feet burned with fresh blisters.
Chapter Six
Dela closed her mouth with a snap. She didn't want Angel and his men to realize how in awe she was over their home. Angel’s society had made their home in the biggest building she had ever seen. From the outside, she saw enormous chimneys rising up to meet the sky. Being summer, only one of them appeared to be in use.
Inside the monstrosity, Dela found that most of it had been one room with enormous pipes running this way and that. She spotted circular holes in the cement flooring, suggesting something must have been attached to the floor at one time. Now, though, the large space had been divided into different sections. One area held hundreds of three-tiered bunk beds, evenly spaced out. Another area looked like it might be a sort of living area, with crude chairs, a few furs thrown across the floor, and a few tables for gaming. The entire living area circled one of the giant chimneys not currently in use.
Beyond the living space, Dela spotted crude structures built with short walls and thatched roofs. She glanced up at the ceiling and wondered if the original roof leaked. Eyeing the other portions of the “village,” Dela knew that couldn’t be the case. Slowly, she realized why the special little rooms had been made. They were for the enslaved women—women like her.
Before she could say anything, the men dragged the Hunters away, toward the farthest corner of the large building, well beyond her line of sight. At the same time, two men grabbed her arms and began pulling her toward the little huts. It took her a second to grasp the meaning of it all. When she did, she started screaming and dragging her feet, while trying to wrench her arms free of their grasps.
Other men—who had been busy with different tasks—turned toward the sound, those nearest coming to help. Dela felt hands press against her back, eliminating that chance of escape. As she struggled, she tripped, falling to her knees, and barked them against the concrete floor. From the ground, she pulled against those holding her arms. It did no good. Other men came to the front, grabbing her legs and hoisting her up. She squirmed this way and that, determined to fight until her last breath, but it did no good. With four or more men holding onto her, she might as well have been a squirrel fighting a grizzly bear.
They reached the little huts with only a few curse words from the men. Someone ran ahead of them, opening the door to one of the huts. They flung her in. She hit the floor with a thud, her head bouncing off something softer than concrete, but not by much. Before she could even move, they slammed the door shut. From within her darkened world, she heard the recognizable sound of a bar thudding into place to lock the door.
Dela stayed where she lay, taking a moment to recognize the truth. Her fate was far worse than a woman married off to five men. Now, she was a breeder in some man’s sick plan. Her mind spun, barely able to grasp the reality. Within the darkness of her hut, it was easy to float in a sort of suspension. As her mind returned to reality, she began to notice her aches and pains.
Her arms hurt, throbbing with the rapid beat of her heart. Her legs hurt, too, but not as badly. Her head, though, was a different story. Her head ached where she had landed against something in her fall. As she took stock of her aches and pains, she began to notice sounds filtering into her new home.
Some sounds were just men laughing, but there were others sounds, too. Metal against metal. Crying. Dela tried to focus in on the crying. As she did, she noticed another sound—a whisper.
“Psst. You okay?”
Dela groaned, rolling to her side. “Yeah.”
“You don’t sound okay.”
“Just a little sore.”
The other voice chuckled. “Wait 'till tonight.”
“What happens tonight?” Dela didn’t need to ask, but it kept the conversation going as she struggled to her hands and knees, and crawled to the wall dividing their huts.
The girl went silent for a long moment. “You don’t know?”
“I think I know.” Dela slumped against the crude wall, receiving a few splinters as a result. “But give me the details.”
It was a long moment before the other woman spoke. “They give you to a man. One man until you conceive. He’s allowed to come every other night.”
“Why just one man?”
“What? You want multiples like they do in the villages?”
Dela grunted. “No. Just wondering why.”
“I think it’s 'cause they want to know who the parents are.”
“Right. Can’t have inbreeding with our sex slaves.”
The other girl chuckled. “Once you conceive, you’re given incentives.”
“Incentives?”
“Better beds. More food. Some time out of here.”
Dela rolled her eyes. “Mighty fine livin’.”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far.”
Dela’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness. A few thin beams of light streamed through the slats in her hut. A cot filled most of the space. Dela suspected it had been the corner of the cot she’d hit her head on. The only other thing in the hut was a bucket in the corner—she guessed that counted as her toilet—and a bowl near the door.
“How long have you been here?” Dela asked to cover any noise she might make; she began to crawl around the perimeter of her new little world.
“Four years.”
“Four!” Dela wanted to ask about babies, but she couldn’t find the words.
“I’ve had two if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Oh, uh… boys or girls?”
“Boys. What else?”
“Do you get to see them?” Dela felt along the wall.
“No. Once they’re weened you have no contact.”
Dela frowned. She didn’t know what weening was, but it sounded awful. Her fingers trailed across the wall, searching. Dela wasn’t sure what she hoped to find until her fingers scraped across a raised portion of a slat. She traced it with her fingers. It was roughly triangular in shape. Using her fingernails, she began to pry the portion out of the board.
“You ever had a kid?” the girl asked when Dela didn’t respond.
“Hell, I ain’t even been kissed.” As the words escaped her lips, she realized they were a lie—Mason.
“Well, you’re in for a surprise tonight.”
So are they, Dela thought to herself as she continued to work the large sliver out from the wood. The girl kept talking, needing few responses to keep the conversation going. Dela let her talk as she worked the wood out. Finally, when her fingers were battered and bloody, the splinter fell to the ground. Dela groped in the darkness, quickly finding it. She ran her hands lightly over it, guessing it to be nearly a foot long—pointed at one and flat on the other. She tested it, pressing the pointy end into the palm of her hand. It wasn’t sharp enough to puncture her palm, but she suspected with enough force it would drive deep into a man’s gut.
It wasn’t long after that Dela began to hear other noises coming from the huts—including her new friend’s. A few minutes after the noises began, her own door opened, revealing a short man with long, lean muscles. In any other circumstance, he might have been considered handsome. He stood in the doorway for a second, a lantern held high. From the light, Dela caught his upturned lips and the bulge in his trousers. He didn’t need any foreplay.
The man entered, shutting the door behind him and setting the lamp on the ground. “Get on the bed.”
Dela obeyed, hoping to lull him into a false sense of ease. He undid his pants, dropping them to his ankles, before leaning forward to drag her pants down. With his balance off, she rammed her foot into his chest. He groaned as he fell backward into the wall, his thud timed with another from the next hut over.
She grimaced as she jumped up. Bringing her make-shift knife down wi
th her, she slammed it into his gut. The man grunted with the impact, his eyes growing wide. Dela glanced down, finding the splinter half buried in the man’s stomach. Black blood showed on his lips, pooling around his teeth as he opened and closed his mouth. Slowly, his eyes lost focused and his breath grew shallow.
Dela didn’t wait for him to finish dying. She jumped up and eased her door open. The sun had set, but iron braziers dotted the enormous room with small fires. Beyond those pools of light, there wasn’t much to see by, though she could hear the raucous laughter of happy men coming from somewhere. She crept out, keeping close to the huts as she headed for the main entrance. At the end of the huts, she stopped.
Angel’s people had the Hunters.
Dela bit her bottom lip. She wanted nothing more than to leave them behind, but she had no idea what Angel would do to them. She couldn’t leave them to die. Though she had just killed a man, Dela was no murderer. Slowly, she turned back and inched her way back up the row of huts. At the end, she found the solid concrete wall of the building. She followed that, keeping herself in the shadows.
With every chorus of laughter, Dela froze, her heart rising into her throat. Dela’s eyes began to burn, but she had no tears to shed, no matter how much she wanted to. She inched forward a few feet before a loud clatter from nearby brought her to a halt. From her place in the darkness, she heard someone curse followed by a scraping sound.
Once the man’s footsteps drifted away, Dela continued her journey. How do I search for them while staying hidden?
With the next round of laughter—now sounding fainter—she crept forward again. Her heart continued to pound in her chest, running races through her ribcage. She would have sworn the men could hear it from across the enormous room. Still, she continued forward, pausing every few minutes to listen.
Finally, when she thought her skin might crawl away on its own, she spotted a change in the scenery. The nearest brazier threw shadows on the wall that looked like bars. Dela lowered herself to the floor, slithering across the floor in an attempt to stay out of the light. Slower than sap on a cold day, she inched her way under the light. As she crawled past it, her eyes adjusted again and she caught sight of a small room from the original structure with bars on the window. Inside, a brazier burned.
Dela reached the wall of the room and pulled her knees up under her chin, making herself as small as possible in the little shadow remaining. “Psst.”
Nothing.
“Guys.”
“Did you hear that?” she heard Lath say.
“You’re losing it.” Gareth didn’t sound happy.
“Seriously, dickheads,” Dela finally said just above a whisper.
There was a sudden crash and feet pounding. Then new shadows blocked out some of the firelight.
“Cap?” Mason asked from the window.
Dela eased out of her hiding spot and looked up at the window. All four men were jockeying for position in the window. The men each muttered their own expression of shock. “How the…” “Is it really…” “What the f…”
“Shut up. Sheesh,” she said, cutting off their exclamations. “Now look here: I let you out, and you don’t sell me off. Deal?”
Three of the four men mumbled to themselves, while Gareth said aloud, “Not a chance.”
“You’d rather I just leave you here?”
Again, it was Gareth who replied. “You don’t stand a chance getting away from Angel’s men without us… and as much as you hate the Harem House, you’d rather be there than caught in this trap. So let us out before Angel’s men come back.”
Dela considered his words. There was truth in them. More than she liked to admit. Finally, with a long, frustrated sigh, she said, “Where’s the door?”
“Around the corner,” replied Adrian. “But there’s a guard.”
Dela grimaced, wishing she had pulled the skewer out of the other man. She could have used it again.
“Got anything sharp in there?” Dela whispered up to them.
Their heads disappeared for a moment before Gareth returned with a bottle made of darkened glass. She took it, the smooth glass nearly slipping through her blood-slick fingers. Holding it by the neck, she scooted to the corner of the room and peeked around the edge. The man appeared to be pacing, having just turned away from her end. Dela didn’t give herself a chance to think, but tiptoed up behind him, smashing the bottle into the back of his head with all her remaining strength—which wasn’t much.
The bottle shattered, cutting into his scalp but doing little else. What remained in her hand was the neck of the bottle with jagged points. The man spun on his heels, a fist already raised. He slammed his fist down, catching her in the shoulder and sending her down onto one knee. She fell backward with the force, landing on her back and hitting her head yet again.
Stars danced before her eyes as she swung wildly with her makeshift knife. The man collapsed on top of her, his large hand going for her neck. Dela gasped, her airway cut off. Using her neck as leverage, he pushed himself up until he was straddling her waist.
In the flickering lights of the brazier, Dela caught sight of his wide eyes as they took in her female form. With one hand still on her throat, he began to work his trousers. Darkness began to seep into her vision.
With what little fight she had left in her, she drove the jagged bottle into his side, twisting it just like her father had taught her to do with a knife. Like the man before, he grunted, gasping for one last, tiny breath of air before he toppled forward, crushing her. As his grip loosened with death, Dela gasped, half her brain worried it had been too loud. The man’s weight crushed her, making it hard to breathe. Slowly, Dela pushed the dead weight off by inches. She got him halfway off her body before crawling out from behind.
“Cap, you okay?” Lath asked from the small, barred window in the door.
Dela coughed, unable to speak after being strangled. She dug around in the shadows, searching the man’s pockets until she found a single key. Praying it was the right one, she groped around the door. When she found the doorknob, she used her thumb to locate the hole. Carefully, she slid the key in and twisted it.
The door swung open, and four men exploded from the room, each one trying to examine her body at the same time.
Chapter Seven
Dela felt the hands sliding down her arms and groping over her tender head, but the words they whispered to her made no sense. They sounded as if they were coming from a world away. Their touch jostled her body nearly tipping her over, but she barely took notice.
“I think she’s in shock,” Adrian said.
“We have to get out of here.” Gareth slipped out of the little room; Dela heard noises from beyond the door, but she couldn’t decipher it. “Pick her up!”
Suddenly Dela’s world tipped to the side. Strong arms supported her weight, bouncing as whoever bore her left the room and followed the others. The flickering light faded away and they were plunged back into shadows. Dela’s head hung over someone’s arm. She stared up at the ceiling of the large building, trying to make out the distant shapes running this way and that. Dela tried to remember what she had seen when she first arrived, but the memories were blurry.
She heard gunfire and shouts. Whoever carried her, adjusted her weight, half her body draped over his shoulder. She knew the new position hurt, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to care. Even the loud gunfire didn’t faze her.
Finally, cooler, fresher air caressed her arms, and she let out a contented sigh, drifting off into unconsciousness.
Adrian turned to look at the barred window. He was certain he had heard something. “Guys,” came a whisper. Bolting for the window, he was the first to peer through the gaps in the bars.
“Did you hear that?” Lath said, a few steps behind Adrian.
Gareth didn’t move from his perch in the corner. “You’re losing it.”
“Seriously, dickheads,” came the same voice from beyond their cage.
Gareth an
d Mason joined Lath and Adrian at the window, crowding the small space.
“Cap?” Mason asked.
The girl scooted out of her hiding spot. Adrian took an elbow to the side as his mates tried to see through the bars.
“How the…” “Is it really…” “What the f…” Adrian remained silent.
“Shut up. Sheesh,” she snapped. “Where’s the door?”
Adrian winced as the flickering light of the barrier revealed the myriad of new bruises forming along her neck and arms.
“Around the corner,” Adrian replied. “But there’s a guard.”
“Got anything sharp in there?” she whispered.
He and the others ducked back into their cage, each one searching through the debris littering their holding cell. Gareth came up with an old, grimy bottle. It wasn’t sharp…yet. Gareth handed it through the window. The girl took it and inched toward the corner. Adrian wanted to peek through the window in the door, but he didn’t want to alert the guard to the threat.
A second later, he heard the glass shatter. Like the others, he crowded around the tiny, barred window in the doorway. The girl had crashed it down onto the man’s head. The guard’s steps stuttered and he nearly toppled to the side. The girl looked just as unsteady as the guard, his blood dripping down his neck. She held the remainder of the bottle.
Before she could get her own bearings, the man spun on his feet having regained his balance. As he spun, he slammed his fist into her shoulder, sending her toppling downward. The girl fell backward, leaving herself prone.
Adrian willed her to get up, but she just lay there, dazed. The man straddled her, one hand gripping her neck until she began to struggle and gag. At the same time, the man started working his belt, oblivious to the fact she still had a weapon. Slowly, when Adrian thought she was long unconscious, she raised the jagged bottle, shoving it into the man’s gut and twisting it.
Dela's Hunters (The Harem House Book 1) Page 4
