Page 2 of Phoenix Chosen

“Uhh… No. Definitely not.”

“How the hell did you end up in the middle of Erpetosi clan territory?”

I fiddle with the lock, but nothing about it looks like anything I’d seen in my lockpicking videos.

“Told you. You’re not finessing it,” the mystery man says.

“Well, I’m not going to sit here and wait to get turned into lunch for a bunch of frogs.”

“Lunch?” he says in an amused voice. “Someone like yourself will fetch a high price on the breeder’s market.”

I must not have heard him right. “Say again? Breeder’s market?”

“How does a young omega wander into Erpetosi territory without knowing the frogs trade in slaves?”

“Slaves?”I repeat, shocked. I press my face up to the wall in panic, trying to get a better look at the man in the cell. It’s dark, and I can just make out the silhouette of his form. Both of his arms are up against the wall like he’s holding an invisible bar behind his head. He’s shackled, I realize.

“Slaves,” he says. “You’re gonna be put up for sale on some breeder’s slave line, sold, and impregnated by the highest bidder.”

Now I don’t know what to believe. He must be insane.

“In case you can’t tell, I’m kind of, like, a man,” I say. “No one is getting me pregnant, alright? Unless… Oh, god. Frogmen…”

My mind goes to all the sci-fi horror movies I’d watched with Jeff, with alien creatures bursting out from chests.

Jeff.

My heart lurches. If this is all as real as I know it is, then I’m a long, long way from home. A long way from him.

“You’re not an omega?” the man in the cell says. “You sound like an omega.”

“What the fuck is an omega, dude?” I demand angrily. “What the hell are you talking about? One moment I’mgetting off at my bus stop and the next I’m being marched through a swamp by a bunch of anthropomorphic frogs like I’m some kind of backwater furry convention.”

I’d been in a kind of shell-shocked daze this entire time, and now everything was hitting me all at once.

I hear a creaking sound as the man leans forward towards the wall separating us. The restraints holding his arms to the wall are made of some kind of fiber, like a braided rope. The shadows move across his body as he enters a spot of pale light, and my heart does a flip as I see that he’s completely naked.

“What are you?” he says in a low voice that sounds suddenly cautious, like saying the wrong thing might catch him on fire. “You sound human, but… Are you a soul reaver?”

He can’t see me through the tiny gaps in the wall.

“A soulwhat? Of course I’m human.”

I quickly realize that in a world with frogmen, it isn’t such a silly question. And if it needs to be asked, then what other kinds of weird shit are there in this place?

Even though the light is dim, I can tell his body is extremely shredded. My mind again goes back to Spartans. I hate that I’m staring.

“You’re naked,” I say dumbly.

“Thank you for telling me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m too dangerous, otherwise,” he says with a chuckle. “Or at least, that’s what our captors think about me. Stripped me bare when they caught me. It happens sometimes.”

“Sometimes? How often does this happen to you?”

“In my line of work? Enough. What’s your name?”

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