The Den of Shadows Quartet - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [15]
Beside me Ather licked her lips and dropped her prey to the stained, dirty floor of the cell. She looked as satisfied as a kitten with a bowl of cream. I was horrified, but not simply because of the killing. I had been unable to draw away as an innocent woman died, even though I could have saved her life.
“It is easy to kill, Risika,” Ather told me. “And it gets easier the more you do it.”
“No,” I answered. How many times had I said that word in the past day? What meaning did it have anymore? I was not as sure as I wanted to be.
“You will learn,” she told me, taking the woman from my arms and dropping her to the ground with the other innocent. “You are a predator now, and survival is the only rule of a predator’s world.”
“I will not be a killer.”
“You will,” she said, walking behind me. I turned to keep her in my view. She sounded so sure, and I felt so unsure. “You are above the humans now, Risika, above even most of our kind. Will you let them rule you because that is how the humans taught you?”
I did not answer, because I could not do so without agreeing with her.
“The law of the jungle says ‘Be strong or be dominated.’ The law of our world says ‘Be strong or be killed.’”
“It is not my world!” I shouted. I did not want to belong to this fierce world of hunters who fed on the blood of innocents.
“Yes, it is, Risika,” Ather insisted.
“I won’t let it be.”
“You have no choice, child.”
“You’re evil. I won’t kill because you tell me to —”
“Then kill because it is your right.” She snapped each word off, impatient with my refusal. “You are no longer human, Risika. Humans are your prey You have never felt sorrow for the chickens you killed so that they could grace your plate. The animals you raised so that they could be killed. The creatures you put in pens so that you could own them. Why should you feel differently toward your meal now?”
She put it in a way I could not disagree with. “But you can’t just kill humans. It’s —”
“Evil?” Ather finished for me. “The world is evil, Risika. Wolves hunt the stragglers in a group of deer. Vultures devour the fallen. Hyenas destroy the weak. Humans kill that which they fear. Survive and be strong, or die, cornered by your prey trembling because the night is dark.”
CHAPTER 11
NOW
I LEAVE THE COFFEE SHOP and return to my home before the sun rises too high for comfort.
I go to bed, fall into a deep sleep, and awaken that evening in a foul mood.
I allow myself to hide in fear. Even as I say I will not let Aubrey rule my life, I let him keep me from the one thing in this world that can still bring me joy: Tora, my tiger. My beautiful, pure-minded tiger, who was once free and is now caged.
Aubrey has stolen so much from me. I have sworn to avenge the lives he has taken, but every time I have been too much a coward to challenge him.
My mood is as dark as Aubrey’s eyes, black without end, and I want to fight back. So I deliberately hunt in Aubrey’s land — the dying heart of New York City, where the streets are darkened with shadows cast by the invisible world.
I see another of my kind, a young fledgling, in one of the alleys. She senses my strength and cowers, blinking away like a candle flame in the night.
She is weak and not a threat to Aubrey’s claim on this dark corner of the city, so he tolerates her presence. Per haps he shows off occasionally simply to keep her afraid. But he knows she will never challenge him. I am Aubrey’s own blood sister, created by the same dark mother. If he tolerates me I could be as much a threat to his position as a mongoose in a cobra’s nest — not because I am stronger, which I am not, but because it will appear to others of our kind that he fears me, and his pride is too strong to allow that.
I hunt and leave my prey dying in the street. Perhaps it is foolish to bait Aubrey this way, but I have lived too long beneath his shadow and refuse to cower any longer. Aubrey himself does not