Page 70 of Orange Tundra
While Sim talked shop to the merchant and Nim shielding me, I slipped my laser pointer from inside my robe and pretended to examine it as though it were just a harmless trinket. Flicking it against the crude lock, I concentrated until I heard an almost inaudible click. One by one, the bars gave way underneath the scorching beam. I could smell metal burning.
“Hey... Come on out,” I whispered, keeping my voice soft, coaxing. But the child refused to budge. Nim’s voice rolled low behind me, snapping at the merchant to mind his own business. Sim stepped around the side, ready to shield me if it all went south.
Suddenly, the hiscat turned from jostling the bars to nuzzle the air, pushing its narrow muzzle through the newly opened space. It shoved its angular head against me, purring in a rumbling growl that felt like living thunder against my legs. Another hiscat that fell to my charms. Lovely. I had no idea why this creature trusted me, but it was as if it sensed something in me I hardly understood myself.
The manastian boy’s eyes widened. He paused and I could see on the blue and white markings on his face the exact moment he decided it was okay to trust me. Crawling on hands and knees, he inched closer to where I stood, never taking his gaze off the hiscat. I slowly opened my arms. Without warning, he crept right into my robe, heart pounding so loudly I felt it through the fabric.
That was when the merchant finally noticed I’d messed with his lock. “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” His voice cracked. “Thief! They’re stealing my property!”
How ironic to shout like that in a place like this!
My temper flared. I gathered the boy closer, letting his small frame disappear against me. “Keep your head down,” I murmured. His fingers clutched my pants as though his life depended on it.
Sim spat a curse. “Great. The one thing thieves hate more than anything is a bigger thief.”
We were exposed, and the last scraps of pretense fell apart in seconds. The merchant’s outraged yell triggered a frenzy in the nearby stalls. Dozens of manasties and black-market guards converged on us, demanding we pay or back off. Before I knew it, Xy and Nim both lunged forward to block the closest attackers, while Sim whipped around with a blade in each hand, fending off two brutes who tried to grab my arms. Cries of alarm and roars of challenge crashed through the corridors of the dank market.
“Brynn, move!” Nim roared at me, slicing the air in a swift arc that knocked aside a desperate paw reaching for my hood.
But I barely got three steps away when someone wrenched the boy from my arms. An enormous manasty with patchy fur clutched him by the waist. The child screamed, tiny hands scrambling for a hold, and I saw raw panic carve lines into his face. The surge of my own protective rage almost blinded me.
I heard my own roar tear from my throat, a ragged war cry I didn’t know I had in me. “Put him down!”
I charged the manasty without thinking, ignoring the fact I was pregnant and barely half his size. My furious momentum slammed me into him, and while he reeled in surprise, I grabbed a loose piece of wood left near a toppled cage. I swung it like a club, connecting with the side of his head.
Nothing happened except his face contorted in rage. I backed away slowly until my back met a wall. There was too many shouts to hear my mates.
Something caught my vision. I saw an abandoned silver sphere—the base of some broken décor—rolled nearby, and I snatched it up. The wood in my other hand was rough and splintering, but it felt like a bat. I planted my feet wide, chest heaving, and tossed the orb into the air. For a heartbeat it hung, weightless and gleaming, then dropped.
Saying a little prayer and using muscle memory from my junior baseball PE, I shifted my weight forward and swung. Hard.
The wood cut through the air with a savage crack as the sphere connected, my whole body behind it. The sphere launched straight at the manasty’s skull with bone-breaking force.
The blow hurled him sideways into the stacked cages. Several toppled over, flinging exotic animals into the fray. Wings, fur, and scales tumbled in a chaotic blur. A raptor-likelizard screeched, flapping metallic feathers. Two more hiscats bounded free, hissing and spitting at the onlookers. The crowd screamed, scattering in every direction.
For a heartbeat, confusion reigned. Then I felt something soft brush my calf. The first hiscat was back, weaving around my legs, pressing its side against me in a strangely affectionate gesture. Around us, the other manasties shrank away, clearly afraid of the cute albeit malnourished kitty cat's presence.
The child poked his head out from the stunned manasty’s side. His gaze locked onto me, limbs trembling i terror. I opened my arms, breathed through the adrenaline pounding in my skull. “It’s okay,” I told him. “Stay close, we’ll get you out of here.”
He stared at the hiscat circling me, then glanced back at the scattered watchers. Despite the terror, he crept toward me again, his eyes shining with reluctant trust. I tucked him against my side, shielding him as best I could. The heat of his little body felt alive and desperate.
Suddenly someone in the crowd gasped, pointing directly at me. “Look—it's - she’s pregnant!”
Half a dozen voices erupted in baffled alarm. “That can’t be. She smells like a manasty!”
“No pregnant altered female manasties exist,” another hissed.
A third realized the significance of the hiscat nuzzling me. “Hiscats only behave like that around manasty females... That means—she’s a real manasty?”
No time to process that. The circle of onlookers began fanning out, curiosity, hope and greed warring in their eyes. If they suspected I was carrying a precious child with manastian fathers—and if they believed I was some mythical female manasty—I’d be a prize beyond their wildest dreams.
Before the crowd could swarm, Xy’s roar echoed from behind me. Then came a violent surge of wind that gusted hot, nearlyknocking me off my feet if not for Nim's hard body behind me. Xy lunged forward, red fur bristling. Someone screamed "The Crimson Beast!". It made me realize Xy's beast form was well known. The moment that bright scarlet figure crashed into view, everyone in the area went deadly still. I heard the hush of shock pass through the crowd, a wave of wide-eyed terror. Even in a black-market hell like this, the Crimson Beast’s reputation held.
But of course he was. He was the leader of the Red Guards. Maybe ex-leader given we were running away from the Purple Tribe Alphas.
Clutching the wide-eyed child, I eased a step back behind Nim’s broad frame. The hiscat stuck close to my ankles, letting out a low purr-like rumble. Our entire group braced for the next wave of panic or violence, but for one long breath the only sound was dripping water and ragged breathing.
I sucked in air, heart racing. One thought burned in my mind. We had to get out, fast. We’d come for Zirc, but now we had this child, and we’d torn open a secret no one was ready to face. Pregnant female manasty or not, I’d fight as long as it took to protect what mattered.
