Page 2 of Sohut's Protection

For the entire journey, they’d sat with their huge green leathery backs turned to the many cages behind them.

They didn’t seem to care that she and the other creatures in the cages were on a huge moving vibrator—only, she wasn’t getting any pleasure from this ride.

The rocky road the cart traveled over shook the cart bed so much that her teeth rattled in her head.

Gripping the bars tight, Cleo squeezed her eyes shut to stop her mounting headache.

Her cage was right at the back of the cart and she could see every rock and bump the wheels rolled over. Gripping on to the bars was the only way she was avoiding getting a concussion.

“What about the fuhol?” The aliens’ conversation continued.

His companion grunted. “If it survives the journey, we sell it to the dragars and buy woogli smoke.”

“You should give it some of that life fluid.”

The alien took a swig of what she assumed was the “life fluid” they were talking about and swallowed eagerly, gulping so hard she could hear the sound even above the noise of the cart.

The one drinking grunted again. “Waste life fluid on that ugly beast’s scales? I see you’re still suffering from our last time sniffing woogli smoke.”

At that, they both chuckled—a horrible wheezing sound that made Cleo’s blood boil.

They’d mentioned scales.

As far as she could see, there was only one creature in the cart that had scales, and it was lying in the cage across from hers.

Blue iridescent scales fanned down to fishlike fins.

It was a mermaid—or at least, an alien that looked a lot like one.

Red hair much like her own obscured the alien’s face. It was a real Ariel, if she were ever going to meet one.

The mermaid’s skin glittered in the sunlight, the blue moving over the scales as if the color itself was alive.

But that was the only natural-seeming movement.

Apart from the mermaid’s body jerking because of its own cage rattling, it didn’t move otherwise, and Cleo shuddered to think that the creature was dead.

Its four arms hung limp at its sides, and its body was set haphazardly in its cage.

The aliens’ conversation took on new meaning.

The mermaid needed water, and they didn’t care enough to let her have any.

The cart rattled again, jerking Cleo against the bars, and she accidentally bit down hard on her tongue.

God-fucking-dammit!

Tears sprung into her eyes and she tasted blood.

With that last bump of the cart, her cage shifted even closer to the edge of the cart bed and she eyed the ground below through the blur of her tears.

There was no safety barrier between her cage and the ground.

For the greater part of the journey, she’d been worried about her cage falling off the back of the cart.

All it would take was one huge jerk and off she would go.

And with every jerk, the bolts that held her cage together rattled as if they would pop right out.

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