“What is my name?” I repeat the question calmly.
It never occurred to him to ask. I am not a person to him. I am a human thing. A pawn to be played with, a hole to be filled. I exist only insofar as I am useful to him in relation to the games he plays in his household. Any kindness he shows me is an attempt to manipulate someone else.
He stares at me with those beautiful, regal eyes of his. They contain the dumbest, blankest expression I have ever had the misfortune to behold.
“What is your name?”
“If you have to ask, I don’t want to tell you.”
“Of all the impudent, petulant, human responses…”
“You took my virginity! You didn’t care to know who I was. I am allowed to be offended.”
“I may not know your name, but I know exactly who you are.”
He takes me by the hand, my slim palm clasped between his large, clawed fingers.
“You are a fighter. You are a survivor.”
He is describing me in generic, albeit flattering terms. Terms anybody could use without having to know me at all. He is flattering me in the way shady fortunetellers rip off dim clients, and it only serves to piss me off even more.
“I do not need to know your name, human. You are my prisoner. I have treated you kindly. I have given you what hundreds of women were prepared to fight and die for.”
He is referring to his cock. Korabi or human, it doesn’t matter, males consider their man-parts to be the universe’s greatest gifts. I should not be surprised that a korabi king is arrogant. He is arrogant beyond compare. He is angry. He is furious at his circumstances. He has to rule over a kingdom he would much rather be a part of. He has to court females he does not wish to mate. Krush is trapped as much as I am, and he knows it.
“Why are you looking so smug?”
“No reason,” I say. My feelings are supposed to be hurt, but they’re not.
“What is it, human? Tell me this instant.”
“I feel sorry for you.”
He lets out a massive snorting laugh which contains no humor. “You, sorry for ME?” He laughs again. “That is the funniest thing I have ever heard.”
“I fight for myself. For my family. I love my family.”
“Your family turned you in,” he says, throwing my words back at me. “And they haven’t come to rescue you, either. You’ve been in my dungeon. In my bed. I have defiled you. Torn your virginity from you. I have taken what was left of your innocence and feasted on it…”
I shrug.
That really pisses him off.
He lets out a roar of rage, picks me up and carries me through the palace in a high temper. I am trying to guess where we are going to end up, but I can’t imagine. Maybe he’s going to throw me off the back of the royal mountain upon which the palace sits. I don’t think so. I don’t feel threatened by him anymore. Krush is many things, but he’s not actually cruel. He might wish he was, just as he wishes for so many other things he can never have or be.
He throws me into the back of a vehicle and closes the trunk lid. I am cast into darkness.
When I am allowed out of the trunk, I discover that we are in Megaris. Krush drags me into a bar for elites. None of them seem to notice Krush, or me, for that matter. Then I remember why. Their augs will be filtering us out. With a few keystrokes, he can make himself invisible. Except to scum, of course. Anybody without augmentations will be able to see us without issue.
Drinks are brought to us without the bartenders knowing that they’re mixing them or bringing them. We’ll just be little blank moments in time, barely noticed and easily overlooked if they are.
I sit next to Krush’s massive bulk, stunned that I seem to have become a true companion for the king. I’m not flattering myself. I know the reason he wants me here is because I’m not anybody that matters. I’m just a mind he can be with. A body he can use. A nameless, unimportant, and overall disposable human thing.
We sip our drinks in silence at first. Mine is very good, a traditional wine. Scum have to rely on fermenting what we can find. It is never a bunch of fine grapes. I relish every sip I take. This is my first glass of wine and may be my last.
“I’m done,” Krush says.
“Done?”
“Done with the castle, the spies, the intrigue, the fuzking bucolic paradise we pretend to live in. This is where I want to be. The city. This is the real Megaris. Everything above the wall is bullshit and make-believe.”