lost cause, even for me.”
We both chuckled when he growled at us and clenched his fists.
“What’s your name, boy?” I asked.
He pressed his lips into a tight line and turned his head away, refusing to answer.
“Doesn’t he have the prettiest violet eyes you’ve ever seen?” Bo asked, then guffawed when the boy’s cheeks reddened. “We can just call him “sis” since he doesn’t want to give out his name.”
“My name is Krey,” the boy blurted, and I couldn’t blame him for the hurry.
Bo looked at me and shrugged. “Strange enough to fit him.” Then he sighed and looked heavenward as the other boy fell off his xilde yet again. “Fucking idiot,” he muttered.
Krey leaned forward. “Vihn? Are you all right?” Then he glared down at me. “You’re going to kill him. He’s too thin to be falling off xildes all damn day.”
I walked to Vihn, yanked him up, then dusted off his shirt. “If you fall from the xilde again, I’m going to tie you to him and let him drag you all the way to the deadlands. Do you understand?”
If possible, his scaly face paled further. He nodded. “Yes, sir.”
I frowned. Damn kids, anyway. I cleared my throat and strode to my own xilde, a mount that made the boys’ animals look like tiny grosens. “Let’s go,” I ordered, and there was a flurry of activity as my men mounted up and prepared to follow me into the deep darkness of Corsov.
Chapter Seven
KREIA
I hated him. Dexx Tavin was a fucking bully and a bastard, and as I clung desperately to the enormous wild animal beneath me, I took my mind off my plight—and Vihn’s impending fall—by imagining ways I might smack the smirk off Tavin’s hateful face.
When he’d called me a girl, I’d nearly fainted. I’d gotten an immediate flash of what these brutes might do to me if they discovered my sex, and terror took over before I realized he was simply mocking his male prisoner, who apparently he believed was much too feminine.
I kept up my male persona on the streets and not for very long at a time. The longer I was here, the riskier my thin disguise. They were going to find out I was a girl. It was just a matter of time. My only hope, really, was to find some way to escape the overbearing, arrogant Dexx Tavin.
I’d heard of the deadlands but had never seen them. No one in his or her right mind would go to Corsov. It was, from what I’d been told, place of nightmares. A place of secrets. Criminals ran to Corsov. Normal people didn’t go there.
So why did Dexx Tavin seem so excited at the thought of entering such a dangerous, horrible place? Only one reason I could think of. Corsov was where he took his victims. He’d toy with us until he killed us. Perhaps they’d turn us loose in the deadlands and then hunt us for sport. Many men did those awful hunts. I shouldn’t be surprised that our captor was such a black-hearted individual.
Although he had been very upset over his little grosen. I didn’t know who had killed it. I only knew that Vihn had not. I had not. I loved all animals. Sure, I was afraid of some of them, like the xilde I was now precariously perched upon, but that didn’t mean I’d hurt it.
I watched him mount his xilde with a practiced, smooth motion that said he’d done it many, many times before. He was like a…a Thiridi shadow. Those scary people shunned automobiles and used xildes for transportation almost exclusively, from what I’d heard.
I don’t know how long it took us to get through the woods and into the deadlands, but it seemed like forever. The area was gray and dismal. Although there were trees and greenery, it seemed somehow dim and gloomy.
“How much longer,” I asked, but of course no one answered. They couldn’t be bothered to reply to their prisoner. They talked and laughed amongst themselves, but it was as if Vihn and I weren’t even there.
Honestly, being taken to this place to be taught lessons on how to ride xildes and be men, or whatever it was that Tavin thought we should learn, was much better than the alternative. I didn’t know his motivations—maybe he didn’t even know his motivations—but it could definitely have been worse.
At last, Tavin called a halt, and I nearly cried with relief when I was helped off my xilde. I lowered