Serpent's Touch (Serpent's Touch 1)

AMIRA

Somewhere between the nightmares of the night and the horrors of the day lay a few fuzzy moments of early morning. Wrapping my arms around me, I kept my eyes closed, trying to stretch these moments just a little bit longer.

Few sounds filtered through the fabric walls of the tent—chirping of the birds, distant hum of traffic, rustling of wind between the strings of lights outside. There was no noise of people moving around yet. I was usually the first one to rise.

Without a permanent accommodation at the menagerie, I slept in whatever hidden corner I would find. Last night, it happened to be a storage room with the spare rolls of oiled canvas. Piled together, they made a decent bed for someone like me, who never had a bed to compare it with.

I slept fully dressed, but the chill of the morning snuck through the tent walls and under my clothes. I hugged myself tighter, huddling into my hoodie.

Like a new dream, dressed in the golden haze of the morning, the memory of the young couple kissing in front of my ticket booth entered my mind. The girl was giggling as the boy cradled her head with one hand, his other hand splayed on her back under her shirt.

A tingling sensation spread down my body—pleasurable and warm. I slid a finger along my bottom lip, trying to imagine what a kiss on the lips would feel like. Soft and tender and barely there?

Then I thought about the girl’s back arching as the boy leaned over her. Wouldn’t the passion like that be more punishing, claiming, invigorating?

I had no idea.

Living at the menagerie, I was surrounded by Madame’s bracks—all young, strong, and conventionally handsome men. But bracks weren’t human. They felt no need for a woman other than Madame.

Radax treated me like his little sister, to be looked after and protected. The rest of the bracks paid me little attention. They put up with me, begrudgingly, sometimes with annoyance, oftentimes with clear disdain. And, I preferred it that way. The thought of a brack touching me in any intimate way brought fear with a dash of repulsion.

Madame chose one or two bracks to take to her trailer nightly. If I happened to pass by, I heard their growls, grunts, and groans coming from inside the trailer. The sounds filled me with dread rather than excitement.

I knew what was happening between Madame and her bracks at night. I knew of sex, even as I’d never had it myself. I’d seen animals’ couplings in the menagerie. I also read. I regularly found abandoned paperbacks on the fairgrounds all over the continent. Most of them were heart-racing thrillers or blood-curdling horror mysteries. But some were romance novels that sent my heart racing for different reasons.

Occasionally, the fair set up next to a drive-in movie theater. Then I’d stay up every night, hiding behind the chain-link fence that separated the drive-in from the fairgrounds and watching every single movie that played. I heard no sound, of course, and the screen would often be positioned at a wrong angle for me to see it properly. But movies were like a window into the ordinary lives of people of my world. The life I’d never experienced—family, school, friends… Love.

Longing warmed my body. Some of it was physical, pressing between my thighs and tingling in the peaks of my breasts. But a huge part of it lived much deeper inside my chest. Loneliness crushed my heart. Sometimes, it felt like there wasn’t enough room inside me to contain the desperate need for something or…someone in my life.

Silence had kept me safe at the menagerie. But sometimes, the need to hear a kind word from someone, to have a simple conversation with another person seemed even more important than life.

I tried to imagine kissing a man openly, in front of the tents, for Madame to see…and I couldn’t. Terror gripped me, like it always did at a mere thought of Madame.

I drew in a long breath, then released it slowly.

In a few seconds, I’d have to get up and start the string of endless chores. The worries of the day already threatened to rush in. I chased most of them away, but the memories of Madame’s confrontation with the person in the crate came crashing in.

I didn’t fully understand what had happened yesterday. Krin was nowhere to be seen today, which didn’t surprise me. Madame sulked, but made no announcements about him or her prisoner whom she’d called “gorgonian.”

If I asked Radax about that, he might not reply or he might get in trouble if he did. Most likely he’d just brush me off as he usually did when I asked questions about the many puzzling things that took place at the menagerie.

“Some things are best for you not to know, Amira. It’s safer that way,”he’d say.

With a long sigh, I opened my eyes and climbed off the pile of the canvas rolls. I left the tent and padded across the parking lot to one of the bracks’ trailers. There, I used the bathroom, then started to prepare breakfast for Madame. My chin buried in my scarf, I quickly fried some eggs, the way Madame liked them, toasted a slice of her favorite bread, then arranged berries and yogurt in a bowl.

The thunder of the bracks’ snoring shook the trailer while I worked. Only a thin partition separated the tiny kitchenette from their sleeping area with rows of bunk beds.

I hurried, wishing to be out of the bracks’ quarters as soon as possible. Once awake, they would take up the entire space, huge as each of them was. I would surely get in the way and make someone angry.

After quickly arranging the food and a pot of tea on a tray, I sneaked out of the trailer and headed to Madame’s trailer parked nearby.

Hers was far more lavishly decorated than the bracks’. A red runner lined the stairs, with a colorful tapestry hanging over the door. Mystical beasts and plants I’d never seen were woven into the tapestry, but I never had the time to stop and study the beautiful picture, always rushing from one chore to another.

“Breakfast.” I knocked on the door quietly.

“Well, bring it in!” Madame ordered.

If she ever slept, I didn’t know. For over a decade now, I’d unfailingly served her breakfast daily, unless she stayed at a hotel. And whenever I showed up with my tray, Madame was always up, no matter how many bracks she’d had in her trailer the night before.

Madame sat in front of her dresser, brushing her long, red hair.

“Set it on the nightstand over there.” She waved her hand. Candlelight from the candelabrum on the dresser broke into a million tiny sparks in the precious stones of the rings on her fingers. “Did Vuk bring Lorsan Lily honey from Nerifir?”

“No, Madame.” I put the tray down on the night table. “He said the honey was very hard to find where he landed in Nerifir.”

Bracksdidn’t report to me about their trips to Nerifir, of course. But they often spoke to each other in my presence. I’d overheard Vuk complain to Leslo about not finding the honey Madame liked having in her tea.

“Hard, doesn’t mean impossible,” Madame hissed through her teeth, shoving her golden hairbrush into my hands. “He obviously didn’t make enough effort. Lazy, useless slave.”

Her displeasure sent a shiver of dread down my spine, as if it was my fault that Vuk didn’t find the honey. Chances were Vuk would be punished now, and I flinched, as if already hearing the sound of the whip splitting open the skin on his back.

“Braid my hair,” Madame ordered curtly. “Then give me my tea, with that disgusting local honey, and get out of here.”

I did as I was told, trying not to tangle her luscious fire-red locks with my trembling fingers. She preferred elaborate hairdos that had taken me a lot of practice to get just right. Tiny little braids interweaved with each other into flower-like designs on the back of her head, then merged into one wide plait running down her back.

I ran the brush down a strand as gently as I could. Yet it tugged at a tiny invisible knot.

“Ugh!” Madame inhaled sharply, snatching the brush from me.

“I’m sorry…” I mumbled, fear solidifying my insides.

“Useless!” She struck me across the knuckles with the heavy metal brush. “You just never learn.”

Sharp pain lanced through my hand. I sucked in a breath, holding in a whimper. Any sound of crying or complaining would make it worse—so, so much worse. Madame had an explosive temper, and her cruelty knew no bounds.

“Finish it!” She tossed the brush on the dresser. It landed among the framed pictures of her dressed up in elaborate silk gowns.

Holding my breath to the point of nearly passing out, I adorned her braid with a few bejeweled clips. My fingers shook so badly, it was a miracle I didn’t pull on her hair again.

“Done.” I exhaled the word, not meeting Madame’s coal-black eyes.