Read 97 (Rise of the Battle Bred) for Free Online Page B

come to worship her beauty. She made no such invitation.
    “It wasn’t painful, I trust?”  I managed to ask.
    Her shoulders shook almost imperceptibly.
    “Zainel didn’t abuse you…” my voice had an unexpected hard edge to it. I, of all of us, knew what our plans entailed. Knew what had to occur in order for the Battle spawn to be created. Surely it wasn’t as unpleasant…certainly much less unpleasant than the dark interviews often conducted against a woman’s will in the back of dingy taverns or bales of hay.
    I didn’t know if I should approach her. Her head shook slightly. Appeased, I took a step closer.
    “I couldn’t tell you. I knew you wouldn’t agree to it,” I said. Nothing but the truth would do for Agnes.
    She turned slowly, looking over her shoulder at me. Her auburn hair shone from the squares of light in the cell’s ceiling. I was struck with her beauty…a sensation I thought I would never feel again after the Coven changed me those centuries ago. Could my heart be growing back?
    “It’s true that it didn’t hurt, nor did Zainel abuse me. It was a vial…”  She said in an even tone with a shrug. I felt a ‘but’ coming on.
    “You betrayed me, and I will thank you to leave my cell,” She finally finished. She turned back to stare at the naked stone wall.
    I felt uncomfortable. Angry. I shouldn’t care.
    “You’re the best of them,” Was all I said to her. Then I left. What else could I have done?
     

10
    Xex
    Xex sniffed the air around him with distaste. The scent of human detritus filled his nostrils in the small fenced-in collection of trash bins he hid beside. His massive bulk was difficult to hide behind the puny plastic cans he found in every neighborhood, so he had to use his cloaking ability which exhausted him, or find someplace like this. His prey nearly spied him as it was.
    The cagey Warriors he’d trailed since the Midwestern part of the country had settled in a small town. Such surroundings would be more difficult to disguise himself in because of the absence of tall old buildings. With luck and skill, he’d not be here that long.
    Xex unfurled his long tendril-like tongue and licked lips and nose like a dog. He smelled his prey, and the female companion with him, even though they had moved on.
    He showed primordial teeth in a gruesome grin.
    Their last conflict in the middle of the country left him with the taste for blood.
    Masters ordered him with the crack of whips and chains. Hunt for the Ones Who Fought Back, use the death spell and return for a new chant. The buzzing noise of their commands always originated behind his left ear.
    Every command had been followed unquestioningly, until the battle at Toe-Lee- Doh.  Xex’ companion had fought viciously, but had fallen. It had been her last life. Something cracked inside Xex.
    Masters always forbade the taste of human flesh, instead feeding them some unrecognizable offal, but only after returning from each hunting trip.
    When Xer fell for the last time, Xex felt the spark of something feral spiral upward inside himself. It was powerful, whatever the feeling was, and he unleashed it without remorse or thought for the Masters’ retribution.
    Humans snapped like twigs beneath his powerful stone-like talons. And they tasted sweet.
    Xex felt a rush of memory flood his mind, and his maw watered, leaving a puddle of desire on the cement slab below him.
    The Masters had sent him to kill the Ones Who Fought Back, but they had not fallen. They’d risen again and fled. Xex sensed that if he returned to the Masters to report Xer’s death and his own failure, he would be the next Lochspawn’s offal.
    He decided to hunt on his own.
    He wanted revenge for Xer. He wanted to consume more human flesh. He wanted to return to the Masters and snap their necks for years of cruelty.
    Hunting without a new death spell would be more dangerous, but he was not afraid. He was a hunter, bred to smell out the Warriors and kill them,