The Mayaware's reign must end.
In a world of demonic beings with a hunger for human flesh and thirst for blood, Hesi Renen knows it well. When her siblings are taken to the harvesting farms, she must do everything she can to get them out, even if it...
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"Don't move," a voice hissed in her ear. Deep. Masculine.
Instead of following the order, Hesi grunted, squirming against the grip snaking around her body. "Let go," she snarled, but with a hand plastered over her mouth, it came out as "Mff pho."
The grip tightened enough to crush her ribs. "How did you end up here?" the voice asked, more to himself rather than her. Then, he cursed—an entire creative string—and dragged her back into the cloak of the corridor's darkness.
She growled and swung her head back, hitting the man's nose. She heard a strangled grunt. The grip loosened. She whipped backwards, flinging an arm and catching a sturdy lump of flesh. Another grunt. Finally, she rammed her elbow into his stomach. Something slapped the floor with a heavy thud.
"Don't touch me." She gritted her teeth at her tone. Give her a forked tongue, and she could pass off as a Mayaware.
As her eyes adjusted, she glimpsed a silhouette of a lean man with a curly mop atop his head. He coughed and shuffled up. In the faint light of the moon, she traced wavy locks, dark skin, and passive, hooded eyes scanning her from head to toe. "Yeah, I apologize." He dusted his clothes—oddly composed of a knee-length shirt belted at the waist with braided twine—and massaged his sore abdomen. "You are not supposed to be here. They will sense you soon."
She narrowed her eyes. "So will you." She studied him the same way he did. He wasn't a Mayaware—that much was clear. That meant he was the only other option—human. "What are you doing in this palace, in Berheqt of all places?"
Instead of answering, the man snatched her wrist. He pulled her forward. "Stop that." She slapped and clawed at his grip, but it wouldn't budge. Was this man made up of Mayaware skin? How come he was this strong? "Let me go."
"How stupid can you be?" he chided. The darkness added more acid to his tone than he probably intended. "Your scent is all over the palace now! I don't know how to explain this come morning."
The royal palace's walls registered when her eyes adjusted completely. They passed columns taller than the ones in the trading courtyard. More statues of hissing and frowning Demon Kings lined the dim corridor, their gazes following her across. She stuck her tongue out at them.
"Where are you taking me?" She asked the man after a silent minute. His grip hadn't loosened. He turned a corner, not telling her. Her shoulder bumped against a rough, stony surface. A hiss flitted out of her mouth. Darpeh, that hurt. Her soles skittered against the floor, but the man, even half-scurrying, walked so quietly he could have been hovering over a pool of feathers. How come he wasn't afraid of being sniffed out by the guards? And...how did he know where to go, even in the darkness?
Who was this man?
"You should know better than to wander in the dark, alone and with nothing to mask your scent!" he ranted.
