Lore of the Underlings: Episode 6 ~ Meeting Minyon Read Online Free PDF

dried pit mud at his feet and the
scars on his back where the shirt tore away.
    Then she smirked and her lips formed the
shape of a kiss as she prodded his chest with the tip of her
spear.
    “We must get you out of those rags, my
dear.”
    The Guard, who’d been waiting off in the
wings, suddenly seemed concerned.
    “Please have a care there Miss Myne!” warned
Moon-syr.
    “That one’s a handful,” the other chimed
in.
    Eela smiled and reached in a pouch, producing
a ripe red pom. “So, is it alright to feed him then?”
    “Just watch your fingers.”
    “Look sharp!”
    “He might bite.”
    Her eyes opened wider. “Mmm, that’s what I’m
hoping…”
    Meanwhile, John Cap’s heart all but beat
through his rib cage as Eela moved closer and closer to him. Now he
could feel her body’s heat and smell the scent of her salty
skin.
    She pressed the fruit against his lips. He
willingly bit deep into it.
    “Come with me boyfriend,” she beckoned him,
whispering in his ear. “Let’s mark this date with more than a taste
and far away from here.” Her sweet breath blew like desert wind
that filled his mind with storms of sand, scenes of a land made of
mirages… blurry… bizarre… daydreams bathed in half-light.
    “Soon you’ll be begging to be my sole
mate.”
    John Cap swallowed the pom’s cool nectar then
looked up as if wanting more.
    “Intoxicating, isn’t it?” Eela took a long,
slow bite and licked her lips to watch him wait. Then she dropped
the rest in the dirt, crushing the core beneath her feet.
    The stranger gazed at her longingly as if
ready to vow his all right now…
    Until the voice of Axon Myne broke his
sister’s spell.
    “Eela! End it! Cool the heat. And save that
mating dance for your kind.”
    She swung her spear at him. “Mind your own
groin!”
    But he caught it and cast it to the ground,
all with the might of his meaty free hand. The other still held his
talon blade, which he leveled at John Cap’s open neck — an easy
target, naked and thick.
    He squinted, looking the stranger over.
    “I see this one’s had run-ins before… By the
marks that score his back, a dungeoner or former convict — no
stranger to the whip and lash. Sister, those scars are not badges
of honor, but signs of thieves and galley slaves…”
    “Sounds like just my flavor of man — an
inmate who’s not out for good behavior.” Eela spat in Axon’s face.
“Bad boys make the best toys, brother.”
    John Cap, for his part, still seemed dazed,
fogbound despite the sunny day. The love-struck stranger stared
back punch-drunk at the red-haired pair.
    “Where am I?”
    Axon, reeling from Eela’s attack, did not
seem to hear him.
    “Right in the eye this time. Trying to blind
me? Lucky for you you’re blood, you serpent, but keep your venom to
yourself.”
    He reached for the bear fur slung over his
shoulder and wiped his swoon-worthy face with it. The singlet he
wore opened wide as he did, to the delight of the gathered girls —
and the approval of their mothers…
    “Make hay ladies!”
    “Looks like rain…”
    “Another storm trooper just dropped in!”
    “Send in the clouds.”
    “Then a husband monsoon.”
    “My kind of weather.”
    “Ah men!”
    Axon, unimpressed by their forecast, focused
his black eyes on John Cap again. In fact he’d barely raised his
fist when one more squall rolled in from the west.
    “Don’t look now, Boxbo.”
    “I see it, Ixit.”
    “Could this be?”
    “Finally?”
    “Yup.”
    “It’s…”
    “The suspect!”
    An unkempt band of swarthy plainsmen paraded
a teenage boy toward the tent. The youth, their prisoner, was
slight of stature, light as a feather the wind might take and fly
off into the warm summer air. An easily bent and bowed little twig
with a girlish mop of hair.
    But so tightly did they surround him that it
was hard to tell more than that.
    “Looks greener than your usual leaver.”
    “More of a sapling I believe.”
    “What’s his name, his