Serpent's Touch (Serpent's Touch 1)

KYLLEN

Despite Amira letting him know about the move, he half-expected Ghata to dump his crate somewhere, with him inside it. He’d made it clear he was not participating in her sick schemes. Obviously, she still harbored some hope of him changing his mind because she didn’t discard him.

As Amira had warned him, a brack came by one day. The brute shook his crate, jolting him inside. Kyllen dutifully released a tortured groan to confirm he was still alive. A short while later, they loaded him into a vehicle and drove away.

He quickly realized Amira was not with them this time. For whatever reason, she stayed behind. Not having her around disturbed him more than she would ever know, and it wasn’t just the water she brought that he missed.

Without ever laying his eyes on the woman, he’d grown accustomed to her company. Deprived of it now, he felt bereft—lonelier than he’d ever been in his life.

The need to hear her voice was so strong, he battled the urge to burst out of the damn crate and roam this world in search of her, even if that meant turning most of its inhabitants to stone copies of themselves.

Deep inside, however, he knew the quickest way to get Amira back was to stay put. Sooner or later, Ghata would assemble her menagerie in a new location, and he’d be reunited with his little human.

So, he waited.

The journey to the place they called England proved uneventful and mercifully quick. The temperature inside his crate went from unbearably hot to intolerably freezing. The air, however, remained consistently dry. Without Amira supplying him with water, thirst tormented him again.

That would be all he’d remember from this world—incessant burning thirst and Amira’s refreshing presence.

His crate had been moved from one vehicle to another. He’d been jolted, shaken, and jerked inside it. From what he gathered, he spent a day or two, maybe longer, in a storage facility where it was dark, cold, and mostly quiet.

Patience was hard to come by as the time ticked away. The fact that only a flimsy wooden crate stood between him and freedom didn’t make it easier. But he didn’t simply want to get free of the crate. He wished to make it back home. And for that, he needed Amira.

She’d promised to find out about the portal, but he still hoped she’d join him in his escape, too. Obviously, he needed her in his life, since just a few days without her plunged him into complete misery.

The idea of leaving her behind, at the mercy of Ghata, left a disgusting taste in his mouth. He believed he could give Amira a much better life in Lorsan. And dammit, she deserved better.

From inside the crate, he could only go by the sounds reaching him to figure out what was happening on the outside. His crate had been loaded into yet another vehicle. When it stopped, the loud clanking of doors opening and the voices of bracks talking about unloading reached him.

He hoped this was their final destination.

The cacophony of noises quieted down as the bracks took some items and left. Then, the sound he’d longed to hear more than anything finally came—the familiar scurrying of a woman’s light footfalls.

“Kyllen?” Amira’s sweet voice called to him, and something inside him cracked.

She was here. And it was like a drop of water to his parched heart, a ray of light and a breath of fresh air in his dark, stuffy prison.

“Amira…”