longer than expected, the chute tighter and darker, but thankfully her lung capacity hadn’t been tainted by her origins. Like the rest of the pack, she could hold her breath for long periods. As she’d learned from painful experience, Others were not so well equipped.
Bobbing along, she sought to orient herself, the churning pink and orange rapids cooling her skin while never quite reaching the fire burning between her thighs.
Or the bleeding wounds in her chest.
Her captor had never used a dagger or whip, never broken her skin, and yet she’d felt cut to pieces all the same.
She needs approval. Praise. She’s been told she was worthless her whole life and is desperate to hear otherwise.
With a shuddering breath, she surveyed the rocky underground river canyon.
Glittering crimson- and gold-colored stalactites, stalagmites, and domes covered every inch. Like so many of the subterranean waterways that snaked beneath the planet’s surface, the churning water had created something unbelievably beautiful. It was also nearly inconceivable, given the harsh, dry desolation at the planet’s surface.
But so much of the Ancients’ creations, like the pack itself, existed mostly in secret.
She paddled closer to the middle of the raging water, ignoring the pleasure pain of the friction as she moved, her muscles still tight and wrung out from her captive’s touches. Usually, Sharluff was with her and she could ride him easily while his bulk carried them both along the current.
This time, she’d be required to do all the work.
She could only hope her animal friend had run all the way back to the safety of the pack. The thought of him alone and having to fend for himself pressed heavy on her chest. But isolated creatures tended to look for the familiar herd—she knew the instinct well—and so she had hope.
For herself, not as much.
The waterway twisted around a corner. She bobbed along with it, trying to stay as still as possible so as to resemble waste rather than food, on the lookout for sharp spikes, rocky shallows, or the shadowed creatures that lived within. Since this was not a network she’d used before, she had to be alert. In this section, the water crashed directly against the tunnel walls, but in other sections the tunnels were much wider. Some even had rocky beaches or twisting boulders where the water never reached. She’d need to find one of those sections and a cave in the tunnel wall that led to the outside so she could make her way back to the surface and access a more familiar network.
Clearly, Grif and his people knew even less about the underground waterways. Otherwise, he’d never have been so cavalier about showing her the bathing hole that was an obvious chute to the water tunnels beneath.
She wasn’t surprised he was unaware. Such networks were the lifeblood of the pack, used for travel as well as transport and sustenance. However, not once had she come across a live Other using them. She wasn’t sure they could. Along with flatter teeth, Others seemed to have diminished lung capabilities that made the use of such waterways more treacherous, especially if they did not have the proper animals to use for transport.
She and Sharluff had used them many times since Talg sent her away to live as the go-between with the Others. Hitched high on the back of her beast, the treacherous currents had been no problem.
This time, however, would be different. This time she was utterly and completely alone.
Something flickered up ahead to the east. The faint wavering light of an above-surface opening. Freedom.
With a small cry of victory, she paddled toward the side, her center sparking with the heat of Grif’s touch even now. She pushed the foolish longing aside.
It would take all her focus to grab a handhold and pull herself to solid land before the twisting waterway dipped and narrowed, potentially pulling her deeper underground.
With a grunt, she kicked upward and grabbed hold of a pointed edge before it raced by. For an instant, her grip held, her palm cutting into the sharp edge as her body slammed into the rocky wall beneath the water’s surface. But the slickness of the rock proved too much.
Her grip slipped. She dropped beneath the surface, the surging water a roar in her ears, her palms and legs stinging from the scrapes.
A voice that sounded a lot like Talg whispered through her mind. It would be so much easier to just let the water pull her under. To go into the Void and