Page 47 of Land of Monsters

Dzsinn’s voice finally snapped my head to him. He stood just slightly around the curved elevator, waving me on to follow him. Confused, I peered around, thinking it was a dead end, but a small hallway trailed behind the elevator to another section of the underground labyrinth.

The rough cut of the walls, the fresh dirt and rock dusting the unpaved path, suggested it was a newer addition, sending a warning up the back of my neck.

Dzsinn and I held our guns, slipping down the passage, when noises started echoing through the tunnel, booming roars and high-pitched shrieks. Every hair on my body stood on end, my system flooding with alarm. The path turned, becoming a metal walkway with a bridge opening up to a cavern below.The entire ground floor was filled with at least thirty cots with young women chained to them. Wearing almost nothing, some human, some fae, they all appeared beaten, drained, and shut down.

My stomach rolled again when I spotted Celeste, Viorica, Brându?a, and a few others from the camp among the women chained to the beds.

However, the beings watching them, moving through the beds, guarding the women, turned me to stone. My brain struggled to understand what I was seeing, trying to classify it so I would understand.

“What the fuck?” The words barely made it out. Unfathomable fear drove a stake through me, pinning me to the floor. Every ordeal I went through in Verhaza, every horror I experienced, hadn’t prepared me for this.

The stomach-turning beasts were below me.

And right in the middle was Raven.

Chapter 10

Ash

?

Monsters.

There was no other word for them. They were not biologically from this earth, nothing but atrocities to nature. Their magic even felt off, stronger than it should’ve been, their genetic makeup making me nauseous, the sensation grating up the back of my throat to my tongue.

One had crocodile skin, with a mouth full of sharp teeth and a thick tail that slid over the ground as he strolled between the beds. Another man on guard had snake skin, fanged teeth, dark beady eyes, and a rattle-like tail, but with a human body. My gaze finally took in a monster rutting into one of the women at the far end, his grunts huffing off the walls. He had a thick, stocky build with a rhino nose and tusks. While the fourth one watched his friend fuck, he rubbed at the tusks at his mouth like it was his cock. With his snout, ears, and coarse black hair running down his spine, he resembled a wild boar.

Bits and pieces of creatures, the things looked like a horror movie, the real monstrosities living in the walls of a castle whose legend was based on fiends and predators.

“What the fuck?” I repeated again. Bile seared my esophagus, my mind still not wanting to accept what my eyes were seeing. I expected more humans in tanks, more Istvan-style experiments. Not this.

Dzsinn stood still, his eyes on them, but he didn’t seem as shocked as I was, as confused as to what the hell they were. He peered at them with a sense of knowing.

“Dzsi—”

My words fell off as an enormous figure stepped through a doorway below, his frame barely making it through the wide archway. Shadows glinted off the rocky walls, the firelight flickering over him.

I took in the beast, the oxygen ripping from my lungs. The man’s heart-shaped face was scaly, with piercing green eyes. He wore patchwork pants cut to fit him, but nothing else. His arms, shoulders, and legs were like a man’s, but were overly muscular. He had no neck and a short torso, making him appear deformed. But that was nothing compared to the thick shell overlaid down his back to a thick, barbed scorpion tail.

“Z.” The snake-man dipped his head like this scorpion-man was their leader.

“Show me the new breeder.” His strange, scratchy voice reached my ears.

“She’s strong. Her magic is nothing I’ve felt before. I want to request to mate with her.”

Dread plunged into my toes, breaking through the floor.

I already knew who they were talking about.

My gaze snapped to Raven. She was unconscious, and both her wrists were cuffed to the bed with goblin metal, her body limp like they had drugged her as well.

“Imate with all the strongest females,” the man, Z, snarled.

“Of course I meant after you.” He motioned for him to follow him. The two creatures traveled through the rows of beds, allthe women sleeping or staring blankly at the wall, as if they had disappeared so far into themselves that they were no longer there.

They headed straight for Raven, stopping at her cot.

Z’s gaze went over her, his lip curling with lust. “Yes, this one is special. She is exclusively mine to breed with.”

---