Page 47 of Finding Her Heart
Annabell let her temper loose. "You know they dragged that woman away. You big bulls couldn't get to her fast enough because they purposely cut you off. You just can't admit how unprepared you were, can you? You needed help."
He snarled in anger, not liking the truth.
Oh, he was angry. Here comes the real male, she thought. Finally, he would show her who he really was behind the silence and the muscle. The gentle giant would show her his man-self. Orki or not, he was as male as the rest of them. Experience taught Annabell that males hated to be wrong, more than they hated to be called out. He'd have to put her in her place now and show her who was boss.
"Orki unprepared for many, many, many hungries," he admitted, pushing ointment into a cut until she knew she was bleeding. There was agreement in his tone. But his hands acted with petty meanness, squeezing and pushing on every cut he found.
"That hurts,"
"Yes. It hurts."
She flopped like a fish across his lap, yelling at him, "Would you stop then?"
Instead, he explained, "Orki know of nests, watch nests. Ri gives last queen mercy under the red moons and flooded the nest with water. Hungries death blight too close to Homeland. Hungries dead after queen's death, but not all. All should die. All did not. A chamber was left. Hungries whither without a queen, but other queen call them. Hungries go to new queen. Other hive far away, in grasslands of easy fire. Lands of grass far. But dormant pupae everywhere. All over land. Only solid land, rock, or water, or Orki nesting grounds safe. Orki cautious, prepare, protect redress. Orki not prepared for many, many hungries."
"You’re saying an Orki killed the last queen twenty years ago. And the survivors just left and found a new queen."
"Some queens smart. Some queens dull. Find queen smart. Unexpected. This queen very smart," he said.
"They want women for queens. Are you saying a smart human queen sent them after us?"
"Start human. Not human now. Poisoned. Changed. Never human again."
That sounded horrific. The science of the mutations was strange and too awful to contemplate. This was almost her fate—if she allowed images to form—she might never get them out of her head. "The hungries are disgusting. Why are they called hungries? Does the hunt for a queen make them hungry?"
"No. Hungries eat dead. All dead. All heartbeats, dead, dying. Eid tell."
"Who is Eid? You said that before?"
He answered her with a combination of Orki and common words that made her think of a school library. "Eid knows."
Having finished his torture, he sat her up again. Annabell's head swam and buzzed with the quick movement. She'd woke up with energy, feeling fantastic and physically herself for two days in a row. Woe threatened her in the shadows.
This must be a stress response.
Her stomach rolled, hurting like she swallowed something so cold it burned.
"Doku-ni not know why Anna disobey and see others."
"That rule is stupid. I had to try to save that girl. I told you. The pig-insect-deformed hungries were letting themselves be chopped to pieces on purpose to separate you."
"Anna risk life."
"I will not bring woe to your people. I didn't want to stand there and do nothing. That girl's Orki must love her like I love you."
"Love?"
Opening his hand around her throat, he turned her to face him, tipping her head back. She liked that. Oh, how she liked that. If she felt better, if her stomach ache wasn't ramping up to be awful, she would melt right there into soft, oozing heated bee's wax all over him. She mouthed the words, "Annabell sees Doku-nini-orki-ror-ess."
"Doku-ni sees Anna. Anna will stay with Doku-ni." He lifted her high and rubbed a tusk against her cheek and then his lips against hers.
Annabell wanted to respond. Half of her lurched up towards him in eagerness, but the other half continued to buzz, the sound on the verge of turning into clicking.
Overly familiar with falling apart and fainting, she knew darkness pursued her yet again, but this was different. This dark pushed inward from the outside. Hundreds of hands pushing her down, under, trying to drown her in the sucking mud of the soft underbelly of the world.
"Anna fight, redress will stay with Doku-ni."
She tried to call out, but her lips were too stiff, and her numb tongue refused to shape words. He called her name, his voice fading away.
