Underland(40)

“You almost bit it,” Chaz wheezed. His unhindered arm slapped his thigh. “You should have seen the look on your face.”

She heard a snarl and another slam against the metal door. “Is he going to be okay?” Kira asked, not sure if she was referring to Zeke or Warrick.

“Yeah, Warrick’s got him under control.”

“How do you know?” Her voice sounded so young.

Chaz pointed at his ears. “’Cause I can hear them. Warrick’s calming him down. He’s praying right now.”

“Praying?”

“Some call it mojo, others magic. If you ask Warrick, he says he’s praying in an ancient language to quicken Zeke. That was a pretty serious injury he got there. He’ll have to knock him out or let him feed…and if that’s the case. There’s one especially tasty treat right here.” Chaz leaned closer, his deep amber eyes lit up with mischief. His mouth came dangerously close to her face. He licked his lips and took a deep breath, his face almost touching hers as he moved it along her cheek. “Yumm.” She could hear a deep thrum in his throat.

Kira pushed him away in disgust.

“Relax, I’m not interested in eating you whole, but I may be satisfied with a bite.” He pulled back and bit his lower lip, his canines visible. Kira cringed.

The door opened and Warrick stepped out.

“How is he?” Kira asked.

“He’ll be fine. But it would be best if you are nowhere near him while he’s healing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s a zeke thing. When they’re injured, they can go a bit berserk. Their brain shuts down while their body is trying to heal. Eating… ahem… helps them heal faster.” He didn’t say it but Kira knew what he implied.

Her.

“It would be best if he doesn’t see you for a while. This was a bad one. He shouldn’t revert this fast. His history as a fighter is finally catching up to him. It’ll do that, you know. Some of us have been fighting a long, long time.”

Kira was about to ask him more questions, but Warrick told them it was time to collect. She had no idea what collecting meant.





Chapter 18

It was time to pay. As they lined up to leave Crystal Gorge and head back to Remus’s compound, they had to pass through a large machine that resembled an airport security device. Chaz had pressed through the lines and cut in front of quite a few monsters to stand precariously close to Kira’s back.

Kira, only a few bodies from entering, was wary of the whole process. With Chaz’s breath hot on her neck, she tried to keep an eye on what was happening to the creatures in front of her.

She elbowed Chaz roughly, and he backed off a bit. But then something caught his attention. He sniffed the air, and his feline eyes narrowed on the lizard in front of him. “Watch closely,” Chaz whispered under his breath. “You are about to get a show.”

“What do you mean?” Kira turned her head slightly so she could hear him, but still watch the line in front. The monster that was currently in the airport looking scanner passed through, and another one took its spot.

“I smell a shifter,” he whispered.

“You mean yourself?”

He chuckled. “No, I’m a lycanthrope—a werecat. I can only shift into my cheetah form or any stage in between. Shifter is different. They can morph into anything they’ve seen, and they have a unique scent when they shift.”

“You can tell just by smell?”

“Everything smells down here, and pretty soon it’s easy to pick out what doesn’t belong. But I think we have a cheater.” He nodded toward a runner with scales stepping up to the large machine. A short dwarf woman manned a computer console and screen behind a glass wall. She was the one overseeing the dispensing of tokens.

“Name?” Her voice came out with a static undertone.

“Targrit,” the guttural name came out of the tall, scaled monster. The dwarf looked over at him, her eyes cold and calculating.

Chaz was behind her, and he seemed agitated. “Don’t do it, man. It’s not worth it,” he breathed out. Only Kira was close enough to hear it.

“Owner?” the woman asked, her hand slowly moving to a large red button.

“Free. I was drafted.” The monster’s lizard-like skin began to show a sheen of sweat across his brow. Reptilian monsters shouldn’t sweat. What was going on?

The woman smiled slowly, her green teeth gnashing together in pleasure. “Enter.”

“What’s happening?” Fear raced up Kira’s spine at the dwarf woman’s pleasure.

“It’s payout time. They match up your brace with your body to make sure they are loading your freedom tokens to the right person. From time to time, a shifter will steal a band off of a dead runner and try to claim the winnings. A heartbeat can fool the band, but only the strongest shifters are capable of fooling the machine.” Chaz shifted his weight nervously.

“And that’s what you think is happening here?”

“Watch and see,” he answered.

As soon as the monster stepped up and into the machine, his body was scanned, and another face popped up on the screen. The shifter’s real identity, which was a pale white being with spots, quite different than the reptilian he was portraying.