Chapter 31: What Secret?

Anurak

There she lay, my mate, her neck the shade of a purple orchid, and her eyes frosted; exploded capillaries remained as a reminder of today’s price for freedom. As I knelt down to wrap my arms around her vulnerable marbled skin, seemingly lifeless and limp, my mate motioned me elsewhere.

“D-d-dt—” Arisara tremored, unable to form a complete word.

“Pheuan, don’t exert your energy,” I suggested. Following her pointed finger, I noticed a harrowing site: thrashing rain plummeting from the sky, battering Dtengmo’s sterile body, her black hair in the marsh of mud as if she was an abandoned doll left behind by a careless child.

“DTENGMO!” Disregarding the airhorn sirens, the mutilated carcasses of shifters, and the sea of clouded prisoners loitering around the massacre, I dropped down to Dtengmo’s level, gracing my hand on the underside of her wrist, reading for a pulse.

Nothing.