“And the sun doesn’t call itself bright in the darkness of space,” Alma said. “Words are words. It is the meanings that matter, the meanings that shape us. Tribe is family, and family is tribe. Are you without both, Starla?”
My throat tightened as I thought of my father. If I didn’t get back to the Sector soon and warn him about what was coming, then I would definitely be without both. Still, another oddity piqued at my mind.
“How do you know my name?” I asked.
“It was I who stayed with you through the night. As I said, Asis’s fog can be a lot for some to handle. I am more familiar than most with its side effects.” She looked down at the bed, as though she had done something wrong. “You spoke in your sleep. You identified yourself, along with other information.” She shook her head solemnly. “I was saddened to hear of your father’s passing. You spoke of his murder with great clarity.”
“I did what?” I asked, my entire body tightening. “What did I say?”
“You spoke of the event,” Alma said. “You talked about the man in the center of the room, the one with the scar on his face. You said he slit your father’s throat while you were forced to watch. You even spoke of the way he had carved into your face.” She must have read the confusion and panic in my eyes, because her hand flew to her mouth. “This was not a memory,” she concluded. “This was a vision—a vision dampened and forgotten because of my brother’s fog.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Why would that damn fog have anything to do with whether or not I can remember my vision?”
“The fog changes things at a cellular level. Asis has trained for many years to master the art of his ability. He has never met one like you, though. He has never met another witch.”
I should have known that Asis was a witch. That crackling green energy fog should have been enough to tell me as much. But something about hearing the words spoken out loud and applied to someone else really hit me hard. The fact that it was this man, the same man my vision had told me would become my great love, seemed almost too much to take.
“What are you saying?” I asked, running a hand through my hair. “That I’m not going to be able to remember my visions anymore?”
“I’m saying he must have changed them,” she answered. “Inadvertently, of course, but still changed. And perhaps you won’t be able to remember the visions in the way you did before, but that doesn’t mean they’re not stronger.”
“I still don’t understand,” I said.
“I’m talking about this,” she said, pointing toward the mirror as if to ask me to turn toward it. “In your sleep, you said that man carved into your face.”
“So?” I asked, then did as Alma asked and turned toward the mirror.
I gasped when I saw myself again. The mirror was staring back at me once more, but now I saw something else in it. I still looked tired, still looked ragged, and still looked defeated.
But there on my face, where before there had been unbroken, yet filthy skin, there was now a huge, bleeding wound.
“So,” Alma said. “I bet it looked a lot like that.”
Chapter 11
My mind raced as Alma attempted to pull me out of the tent where I had wakened. How had this happened?
I had just looked at my own face. Sure, I hadn’t been at my best, but there certainly had been no huge mark across it. Had that just appeared painlessly on my cheek as I was speaking, and, if so, how? And what did the mark have to do with the vision I couldn’t remember, a vision that had detailed the horrible murder I was trying to stop before it happened?
“You need ointment,” Alma said, pulling at me.
I refused to move, jerking backward so hard that I stumbled a little.
“Fine,” she said, holding her hands out in front of her as a sign of relenting. “Just stay here. I’ll bring you the ointment.”
“What in the Sector is ointment?” I demanded, glaring at her as she turned to go out the slit of a door in the fabric wall.
“Just wait here,” she stammered, then rushed out of what I could now see was a large, circular tent.
I couldn’t help it. My hand went right to the gaping wound on my cheek. Turning back to the mirror, I inspected it with critical eyes. Maybe I had missed it before. Maybe these bastards had cut into me while I slept, and they were using my confusion to convince me of something that wasn’t true.
The damn thing was still bleeding, though. It still looked fresh, and I had tended to enough of my father’s work-related injuries to know what a fresh wound looked like.
None of this made any sense.
“Are you in pain?”
Once again, the proximity of the voice startled me. I spun around. This time I picked up the Remington, and aimed it forward when I saw that it was Asis standing there. He was wearing the same slip of a loincloth, had that same red streak across his eyes, and had the same skeptical look on his face. In his hands, a round clay jar sat open.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Asis scoffed at me. “The last time you used that thing, you nearly destroyed an entire swath of jungle.Put it down. I can’t risk you doing the same thing to my home.” He set the jar on the table alongside the tray of still-untouched food. “This will help ease whatever pain you’re feeling from the mark on your face.” He pointed to the jar. “My sister informs me that you are unfamiliar with the product, which doesn’t surprise me, given the barbaric nature of your upbringing.”
I winced. Was he being serious? He was calling me barbaric?Calling the people of the Sector barbaric? He was the one living in the middle of the jungle in a tent, with the ground serving as his floor.
“It’s a mixture of natural, medicinal herbs as well as plant extracts meant to help mend and soothe injuries.” He cleared his throat. “Sinceyour wound is very light, I doubt it will take long to help. But should your condition worsen, you’ll have to see our Shaman.”
“You did this to me,” I said pointedly, moving toward him with my finger extended accusingly. “With your damn green magic fog and your snobbish attitude.”
“My fog doesn’t have the capacity to do harm to anything,” he replied, moving closer himself and bridging the gap between us. “It does nothing more than return things to their natural state. If your abilities are like this, different than you expect, it’s because they’ve always been.” He shook his head. “And I’m not sure I’m the one with the snobbish attitude. After all, one of us lives behind a wall the other is barred from crossing, and it’s not me.”
His words cut into me. I had never thought much about the wall surrounding our Sector. It had been there since everyone I knew could remember, since my father could remember. It was a part of the world I lived in, as ordinary and everyday as the market or the chapel. I had thought about the people beyond the wall, but never like this. Within the Sector, the Savages were painted as…well, savage. We were taught to view them as merciless creatures who killed for sport and who were barely evolved enough to speak to each other, let alone reason.
My first experience with Asis had told me the speaking part wasn’t true, and what I had experienced with his sister had told me that the merciless part wasn’t true, either. Otherwise, why would I have this ointment right now?
“My powers were never like this,” I stammered, realizing I had little ground to stand on with regard to the other argument. “My powers have always been sort of hit or miss. They’ve always been muted, and certainly they’ve never affected me physically. You changed them.”
“My abilities are of a restorative nature. I have the power to make things as they were, to a certain extent. That’s what I’ve done with you—nothing more, nothing less. If your abilities have been augmented, then they were augmented by someone else. What you’re experiencing now—that is the truth of who you are.”
That was a big assumption. He didn’t know me. He had only met me a few hours ago, and for most of that time, I had been unconscious. To say he was responsible for bringing out t
he true me was utterly ridiculous.
“You’re saying someone altered my powers somehow?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “That’s insane. You’re insane.”
He tilted his head as he looked me up and down. “I have no sense of that word. Insane? Whatever it means, I will take it as a compliment and assume you mean strong and virile. As to your other point, I suggest nothing about your past other than the fact that it was almost certainly sheltered and without depth. What happened to you and your abilities is a mystery I have no interest in solving.”
He turned, and as he marched toward the slit of a door, he said over his shoulder,. “I have brought you your medicine. I have done my duty.”
A surge of anger roared up through me. Who did this cocky bastard think he was, anyway?
“You kidnapped me!” I yelled, starting after him as he went outside. “You don’t get to kidnap me and then proclaim that you have nothing to do with what happens next. That’s what makes you insane!” I pushed through the slit of a door myself. “And as for your information, it most certainly does not mean strong and virile!”
A rush of warm air hit me as I took in my surroundings. In the light of day, the jungle showcased a range of colors I had never seen before. Everything was bright, everything was vibrant. It was as though I was looking at the world, at the true world, for the first time. And it was breathtaking.
I saw now that I was in a sort of a community. Makeshift cloth spirals ran up into the air, tied together by vines and wood. Paths had been beaten into the grass, a sure sign of heavy foot traffic, and a huge fire was roaring in the middle of the circular set of cloth spirals.
Around the fire, sat more Savages than I had ever imagined in one place before. They were of all shapes and sizes. Men, women, children, teenagers; they all sat together talking and laughing over what I could now see was a roasting boar.
My heart leapt as they caught sight of me. Was I about to be next? Was the boar the appetizer, with me as the main course?
They stood, almost as one, and my entire body wrenched.
I stumbled backward, unsure of where I could go. I hadn’t been able to fight off one Savage before. How was I going to take on an army?
But then, like leaves falling from a tree, drifting to the ground below, they began to kneel.
One by one, until I was surrounded by an army of Savages who seemed to be worshipping me.
Chapter 12
“That’s enough,” Asis said, turning around to look at me, giving me the hardest of stares. “I said, that’s enough,” he repeated. “On your feet!”
Quickly, the Savages surrounding me snapped back upward. Their bodies rose to attention, and their faces hardened.
I winced. This reminded me more of what I had always imagined the Roamers to be than what the Roamers had actually turned out to be. These people were loyal and obedient. But what did that make Asis? Was he their leader, and, if so, then what was I?
He started toward me, his pace growing faster as he neared me. “Do you see what these people think of you, the way they respect you? Do you feel you have earned that respect?” he asked, his mouth twisted downward in disgust. “Do you feel as though you have carved out the right for good men and women to kneel at the sight of you?”
“Of course not,” I answered. “I’m not the Regent.”
“The Regent isn’t even the Regent!” he spat back. Turning, he addressed his brethren. “Does the Regent hold dominion over these lands? Does the Regent access the earth’s energy? Can the Regent dance with the moon or rise with the sun the way our forefathers did?”
The sound was loud and booming as his people responded. “No!” they bellowed. I could tell this was not the first time they had run through this particular mantra.
I stared at them, half awestruck, as Asis turned back toward me.
“The Regent is but a man, and an old man at that. There was a time when magic flowed through the veins of those who held the seat of power in the Sector. Those were good times. Those were right times. Those times are gone now, as dead as the lands in which your people live, as dying as the Outpost itself.”
“How do you know about the Outpost?” I asked, swallowing hard. “What spell did you put on our lands, Asis? People are suffering because of that spell. People go hungry because of it.”
“If people are hungry, it is because they allow themselves to be hungry. There is more than enough to share out here.” Asis spread his arms. “In the bounty of the jungle. But your people spread lies. They call us brutal. They call us savage. But we are kind to each other. We treat each other with the respect that all people deserve.”
“Even the people in the Sector?” I answered, flatly, looking at the Savages around me and realizing just how outnumbered I was. But that didn’t matter. I had to speak my mind. I had to let the truth be heard. “If all people deserve respect, then the people in the Sector and the Outpost do too. So, why is it that you think it’s right to dry out their lands, to strip them of food and water? So many innocent people are hurting. You don’t want to be called savage?” I demanded, pointing a finger at him. “Then stop acting like it.”
The crowd gasped, though, it seemed to be more directed at my pointed finger than the content of my words. They ducked down, as if to shield themselves.
“Do not be afraid,” Asis said. “Her powers are inactive. She is as harmless as she is uninformed.”
He glared at me, his stare lighting something primal inside of me, something I didn’t want to think about at the moment.
“I have nothing to do with the turning of your lands,” he said. “Neither do my people. Your kind turned their backs on magic. They have crowned as Regent people who were not in contact with the earth’s energy, and, as a result, the earth has punished you.”
“That’s not true,” I answered quickly. “That’s an old wives’ tale. Magic has nothing to do with water. It has nothing to do with the things that grow in the ground. Unless, of course, some self-righteous, cocky guy with an ill-defined power set and an almost fundamentalist mentality combines them somehow. Let me ask you a question, Asis. The grounds began to dry ten years ago. Isn’t that about when you came into your powers?”
He glared at me for a long time. “I am not a liar, Starla of the Sector. I am son of the Shaman. Holy blood runs through my veins. Magic rushes through me, connecting me to the earth herself. I only speak truth. I only know truth.”
I started to respond, but he cut me off. “And you, Starla of the Sector—you , are a disgrace. You, who have been given so much power, perhaps the greatest of the powers, have chosen to do so little. You bury your head in the sand, deciding that saving one person is more important that saving the world at large.” He shook his head. “You disgust me. You are all that is wrong with the Sector and the decadence in which it finds itself drowning.” He pointed a finger at me now, but, angry as I was, I moved to slap it away. “You are a waste of—”
As my hand brushed against him, I felt a rush of energy. It was different from the way the visions had always come on me before, but it was familiar, like water spiked with something I had never expected.
My entire body shook, and then I was gone.
When the world reappeared in front of me, I was somewhere else Asis’s bare chest was dripping with sweat and as it pressed against me. I could feel his heat. I could feel his heart as it beat in tandem with my own.
His lips, plush, hot, and inviting, found their way to mine. He pried my mouth open with his tongue, invading me and deliciously searching through me.
His hands were on my body, pulling at the cloth over my shoulders until they slid off as though they had never been there in the first place. His fingers were rough but deft as they moved over me, finding the sweetest places and tweaking them just enough to make me even more anxious than I had already been.
Words eluded me. So, instead of trying, and failing, to express what I was feeling, I leaned up and returned his kiss.
His heat se
eped into me as he drew me closer. Lifting me off my feet, he grabbed at my body, bracing me by my rear and squeezing.
I loved this feeling, of being so close to him, of being so intertwined with his legs, arms, and lips. Asis’s breath felt hot on my cheek as he moved down to my neck, nibbling at my skin. His hands, hungry and skillful, moved up my back, tracing my spine and resting at my shoulder blades.
“Where are we?” he groaned before biting at my earlobe.
“I—I don’t know,” I panted, running fingers through his coarse black hair.
While he was definitely involved with what was going on here, his voice sounded different somehow. He was confused, truly taken aback by what was going on, but why would that be? I was in a vision. It was me who should be confused, who had been thrown into the middle of an already happening situation. Why would he be acting the same way?
A new kind of heat ran through me. Was it possible that he had come along with me? Was this Asis the same AsisI had been arguing with just moments ago? Was he just as confused and titillated as I was?
“A vision,” I moaned as his fingers kept searching me. “We’re in a vision.”
“I can’t control myself,” he answered, his lips moving over me and lighting me up in a million different ways. “I can’t control my body.”
I tried to speak, but could only nod. I knew that feeling, but I knew another sort of feeling too, a feeling I was having right now. I wanted this more than anything I had ever wanted before. Asis leaned down and ripped at my clothes. It split open and fell off of me. My breasts spilled out, hard nipples exposed to the air.
Asis’s mouth curled up in satisfaction. Clearly, he liked the look of me like this. Leaning over me, he cupped the mounds in his hands and lowered his mouth to them. He bit at my nipples softly and flicked them with the warmth of his tongue. I groaned in ecstasy.
I had never felt more appreciated, more tended to than when his mouth was on me. This was all about me, all about satisfying my needs.
Savage: an Adult Dystopian Paranormal Romance: Sector Seven (The Othala Witch Collection) Page 7
