Human Pet Prison (Possessive Aliens #7) - Loki Renard Page 0,57
at the entrance to the bridge with his arm around that human who does not deserve to draw breath. They both look smug, though the human beside him looks worried. She's not worried for herself. She’s worried for her child.
I swing back around to Tusk. “What have you done?”
I hate that I asked that redundant question when it is patently obvious what he has done. He has backstabbed the backstabber. He has betrayed the betrayer.
And then it gets worse. The bridge starts to fill up through every access point with the rest of our brood. The same scythkin who have been humoring me with their alleged obedience now glare at me with fiery eyes and I know in that instant that they have all been in on this from the beginning.
“We’re loyal to Warden, Scizzor,” Tusk says, as if I should have known that. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I should.
“But he abandoned you for a human.”
“He did what he always does. What he did when he took you and Saya instead of slaying you. He saved the weakest among us.”
“NO! He left us. He took the human to reclaim her whelp…” I don’t know why I am bothering to argue. I am a dead scythkin walking.
“Which she will now do,” Hermes says. He has left the medical bay. He has left the human alone! I thought I could not be more furious, but my rage flares even hotter at Hermes abandoning his medical post.
“Accept it, Scizzor. We don’t want to lose anybody else. Saya was enough of a loss.”
“But you came with me. You were there. You…”
“Tusk and I came along to ensure that nothing happened to anybody. And nothing did. We’re all safe. Including you, Scizzor. Don’t fight this.”
Warden looks at me. He is yet to say a word, and I am not looking forward to the first word he says. I’ll never admit it, but I have always been terrified of him. Not because he’s dangerous, but because his danger is matched with an unpredictable kindness. Kindness is not always a good thing. It has a tendency to result in worse results for all concerned. I am not afraid to die, but I am terrified of him taking pity on me once more, as if I were still a skittering lost broodkin.
He should kill me. That’s the only way to really put an end to this. I betrayed the first hatched, and the penalty for that is always death. Always. Except with Warden. He doesn’t kill. He imprisons.
“Why? Why did you run? Why did you not simply kill me to begin with? Has this all been one big charade to impress your human? Or are you so twisted that you needed to fuck with my head as well as hers? Is this just a game to you, Warden?”
“When I took Silver, there was a need to run. You had them convinced, Scizzor. Then, one by one, the brood made contact with me, regretting their part in what had happened. We are what humans would call family, and in the end, we always come back together.”
“And you forgave them all? And you trusted them enough to come back? It could have been a trap inside a trap for all you knew.”
“It could have been. But I trusted them, even after they made mistakes based on pain and grief. And I will trust you again too, once you atone for yours. Your cell is waiting, Scizzor.”
I don’t believe a single one of his words. I wonder if he believes any of them, all that bullshit about family. He sounds more and more like a human every day.
“You don’t have the courage to fight and slay me, so you want to put me in a box to rot.”
“I’m putting you in a box to give you time to cool down,” Warden says. He’s so patronizing. Every word out of his mouth his like being cut with a salted blade. Maybe he’s not as kind as he likes to think he is. Maybe he just likes to make the pain last as long as he can.
I could resist. I could attack him and I could force the others to subdue me with violence, but that would be begging for a humiliation I do not need. I betrayed Warden, but the others all betrayed me in turn. Poetic justice.
“I want to see my daughter. If you have harmed her…” The human is talking. Silver. The male who mated her must have been of