Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
“Wrath wants to see you. He’s not happy you didn’t come out with us and ran off after the meat instead.”
Chaos does not mince his words. The moment I discovered Lettie was missing, I did abandon the journey to the wilds to come back to the city to find her. I did not ask permission. Under Alpha Thorn’s regime, that would have been unforgivable. But Wrath runs a den of outlaws. Being impulsive, following instincts, and ignoring orders comes with the territory more often than not. He won’t be happy about the situation, but it will not be in any way suspicious.
“I recovered what I needed to,” I say.
Chaos doesn’t reply. He turns, expecting me to follow. I do, hoping that Lettie keeps her mouth shut for the duration, as this will be an interview with potentially dangerous outcomes.
Wrath is waiting in his war room. He looks as he usually looks, dangerous and yet self-contained. He wants an explanation, naturally.
“How did she escape from a locked and barred room, Shan?”
“She triggered my safe’s detonation, recovered her suit, and used the tools therein to disguise herself while she travelled out of the burrows.” I tell a lie that is mixed with the truth. It is the best kind of lie, one that has the flavor of realism in it.
Wrath stares at me for a moment, then laughs aloud. “Is that so? These humans are more intelligent than they seem.”
“This one is. I can’t speak for others. This one does whatever it wants, whenever it wants.”
He laughs, enjoying rebellion for rebellion’s sake. Wrath is a strange leader in that respect. Somehow he is both completely dominant and utterly reckless. It is easy to fall under the spell of his charisma. His dominance is very different from that of Alpha Thorn. Wrath rules over the roiling, chaotic underworld with a light touch and a heavy fist. We all know that if he stops laughing, real trouble is on the way.
“She tried to get to the alpha’s mate and the enforcer’s mate,” I add. “These humans are going to keep trying to get their captains. They obviously know where they are.”
“That one under your arm should be questioned,” Wrath says.
"She won’t tell you anything. She’s resistant to good sense.”
He laughs again. I know he enjoys dealing with chaotic creatures. I am sure that is at least part of the reason he wants the humans under his control. The greater reason is he sees them as a limited resource, and he’d rather they belonged to him than anyone else. I believe that the breeding side of things is something of a red herring. He likes it because it’s twisted and regarded as wrong. I’ve had a lot of time to observe Wrath, and what I’ve learned about him is that he’s the pure embodiment of criminality. He does things because they’re wrong, and he revels in the wrongness of them. The more perverse the act, the greater his drive to do it. He will sacrifice anything in order to commit crime, including himself. Every saurian in this underground bunker is risking their lives to follow a madman — and it is the madness that they find appealing. Even now, standing in front of Wrath, I feel myself getting caught up in his charisma.
“You missed out on some excitement today when you abandoned our mission in favor of your own,” he says, addressing me directly. “Where we are moving, no alpha will be able to tread. Thorn would shit himself if he were to find himself in the territory we have scouted. We are going to build a new city, founded not in the grave of an ancient beast, but in the living shadow of the primal.”
“But the primal is aggressive and destructive. The only reason Grave City survives is because it instinctively respects the domain of the dead.”
Lettie pipes up with her interpretation of the situation, which happens to be entirely accurate. She, or perhaps all the human crew, have put some real thought and effort into understanding the way our society works. She knows just enough to be dangerous, triggering Wrath’s annoyance.
“We are not going to live like maggots crawling around the sockets of a moldering corpse. We are going to live free and bold. We are going to live as our ancestors did, in the very path of the primal.”
He’s going to get us all killed. There is no way to survive the monstrosities that roam the exterior of the city. Few have ever seen the primal, because few have the nerve to wander those wild lands. There was an outlaw bar that was destroyed by the first human arrival, and that is being rebuilt on orders of the alpha, which one might consider odd if not for the fact that Thorn likes to outwardly keep a friendly relationship with Wrath.