NovelEnglishWith that said she was gone.
I was shocked and appalled. If I was injured she would sacrifice the child to keephealthy. I would just make another one. It was a numbers gfor her and it was truly sickening.
“Enough with this thought,” Christof scolded pushingtoward our cave, he felt the despondence creeping into me.
Night was falling fast. We didn’t want to be standing on a mountain ledge in the dark. Evan stooped and picked up the small package Nu-reeh had dropped. It smelled familiar.
The curse words were in my head. She was feedingand only me. The men could tolerate that, it would just be uncomfortable. Nu-reeh had doubled the punishment by feedingmeat soaked in tami. The smell would make the men crazy and she knew it.
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“We’ll split it,” I offered hopefully. I’d feel awful being the only one to eat. That idea was met with fury. Nu-reeh would just devise worse punishment if they did something like that. I’d eat and they would suffer. That is how it had to be for now.
None of us voiced it, but we all hoped, one day we would be free to make our own choices.
The men did not mind going hungry, they’d done it before. In the past they’d not been subjected to smelling tami all night, though. We settled just outside the cave and Evan opened Nu-reeh’s package. I would eat out here, so the whole cave wouldn’t smell.
Leaning against the wall Bane thought of whole new realms of curse words to describe Nu-reeh. The meat appeared to have been cooked just the way they liked it. She was being particularly malicious in this punishment.
I tried to eat quickly, but Damien scolded me. If I didn’t chew I was likely to get a stomachache, that was common knowledge. I slowed down, but ate as quickly as I could.
“Strange,” Evan said looking out over the mountains, “Ciara does not taste the tami the sway we do.”
As I ate dinner the men discussed my human differences. They suppressed their hunger by distracting themselves. We sat outside until I’d finished and left the fragrant container many steps from the cave’s entrance.
“A bit of this, too,” Kein said pulling a package out of the pouch at Christof’s back.
As we walked into our cave Kein handeda bit of the dried root that treated vomiting. Christof had thought to bring it in case we couldn’t get it in the mountains quickly. Lucky for us, he’d tucked it into the pouch at his waist. There was enough in there to last several days.
After we all took a drink from the back of the cave, we sat and talked a while more. The stars were coming out, so we sat and watched them until Damien declared bed time. Evan took the first shift on watch and sent the rest of us to sleep.
Stretched out on the stone floor I had to laugh to myself. I’d never slept on the floor on Earth, but it was almost becoming a habit here. I almost missed the uncomfortable chair on Mom’s front porch.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmThe men were not at all bothered by our circumstances. They trained in much rougher conditions than this. Being in a cave, sheltered from the elements, would have been a Luxury during their younger years.
“Still,” Bane warned laying on one side ofas Damien laid on the other, “the mountains are a dangerous place. We will not sleep deeply here, Ciara. You must not either. Be prepared, little Sister,
you must be ready,” he warned.
Damien found Bane’s concern unnecessary. “We will protect her, Brother. Let her sleep if she can,” he encouraged patting my hand.
Damien had no doubt of their ability to defend me. Neither did Bane and he was frustrated by Damien’s refusal to understand. He propped on his elbow and looked at his lead Brother sternly.
“She is part of the famil: he said with emphasis. “This is how the family handles this situation.”
Damien’s personal thoughts on the matter were fluid. If Bane wantedto integrate into this part of their life, he had no qualms with it. Damien shrugged and Bane lay back down relaxed. We were a family and this is how the family slept when we were in possible danger, with one eye open, so to speak.
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