Fletch was a gobli who worked in the Ferardian mines as a slave. He was a little grunt of a gobli, scrawny, shorter than a collie, hairless, with long bat like ears, grey-green skin, and a pug-nosed face.

There wasn't any threat in Fletch and that's why King Saul had chosen him specifically.

Alvar spotted him under the dim lights of the mines pounding at a chunk of rock.

"I suppose you've come to take me to the over-world." The creature looked up at him with orange eyes and growled through his pointy teeth.

"Aye," Alvar said, resting his solid, muscular frame against the sooty walls of the mines. "Word is you are the best lock picker of any gobli in the mines."

"If I was, you think I'd still be in chains?" Fletch grumbled and turned back to pounding the rock. Despite his efforts the rock was barely chipped.

"You aren't much use in the mines are you?" Alvar grinned. He liked the foul creature. Gobli were treacherous by nature, but this one had a sense of humor.

"But I hate the over-world more," Fletch said.

"Why?" Alvar cocked his head.

"I hate sunlight. Don't you know anything about goblis?"

"As a matter of fact," Alvar stated, and laughed as he reached in his pocket for the pair of shaded specs he'd been given. "You won't have to squint wearing these, little one."

"Little one?" Fletch narrowed his eyes at the jab. "I already hate you."

"You can call me, Scarbrow." He didn't bother to extend a hand. Goblins didn't shake hands and hated physical contact with humans. "I have a feeling you've already picked your chain's lock."

"Master Scarbrow? You aren't as stupid as the slave masters. I'll give you that," Fletch said and yanked at the chain around his ankle, which immediately came off.

"Why haven't you run?" Alvar asked. If one had a chance at freedom one must at all costs take it in his opinion.

Fletch shrugged. "I have my reasons, but they aren't any of your business."

"Very well." Alvar turned to begin his upward climb back into the light with relief. Not that the tunnels bothered him. He was used to hiding in the dark.

"Hand me those specs first, gutter rat," Fletch said and extended a calloused and warty four-fingered hand.

"As you wish," Alvar tossed them at him. Fletch caught it with the accuracy of a jungle cat snatching a bird midair.

They walked out of the mines and into the sunlit barren pit the mines were dug into. A slave master passed them on their way, but didn't even acknowledge Fletch or Alvar.

"Whose lock am I going to be working on?" Fletch asked, adjusting the spectacles against his hideous little face, now even more hideous in the burning light of the sun.

"The lock of a high security temple," Alvar answered. "But I do not wish to discuss details in public."

"Look at you, all important and unable to discuss details," Fletch snorted. "You consider yourself a great asset to the king I'll bet too."

"If you don't want to be beheaded by our king I suggest you show me some respect," Alvar mumbled.

"Aye, and why is that?" Fletch asked. "The king wouldn't send his son down into the mines. No, I've already figure out what you are, Scarbrow."

"And what is that?" Alvar shot his gaze down at Fletch, wondering if he wasn't as dumb as he was ugly.

"You're wearing an elaborate collar around your neck, but not because you are royalty, that's a slave's collar and a special one at that," Fletch said.

Alvar's fingers brushed the cold metal that never left his neck. "What of it?" His mind swore him for not wearing more concealing of clothes.

"You are the king's very own pet I'll warrant, the Cursed one who's given him this kingdom."

"There you are wrong," Alvar snapped. "I'm no pet."

"Aye?" Fletch chuckled and shook his head. "Aren't we all the king's pets now in Ferar and all across Axus?"

"Just shut up and we'll talk more when we've reached the palace." Alvar noted the sky. The sun was sinking in the horizon and if he didn't get back fast enough he'd be late for the conference with the king.

"Now I have to shut up?" Fletch asked innocently. The wicked creature knew his words were hitting a nerve.

Alvar didn't bother answering. The sooner they reached the conference, the faster they could finish this blasted mission.

*

Alvar stood in the doorway of the conference room with Fletch waiting for the gesture to approach.

King Saul was growing as fat and ugly as a gobli. With a red arched nose and greasy black bean-colored beard the man held not a cents worth of royal countenance. Alvar remembered a day when Saul held a handsome appearance, but now the elaborate clothes he wore, a purple and gold tunic, white and gold turban, and gold shoes were too fine for him. In short, Alvar thought he could liken the man to dung covered in gold. A tawny-haired slave girl wearing only a thin piece of fabric wrapped around her waist popped food in the king's mouth while he sat at the enormous conference room table. The only women Alvar saw were the king's. This one wasn't new to his sight. Alvar had observed her serving King Saul for the past month. He strived to keep his gaze in check. Gawking at the king's women when they were uncovered was forbidden. Her lighter colored hair indicated her to be from the north. She was most likely one of the barbarian captives .

"Go away," King Saul told the girl giving one of her lovely apple-sized bare breasts a squeeze with his chubby hand and ending with pinching the nipple. The girl's gave a little squeal of pain, and her nose wrinkled as she turned from the king carrying the bowl of food with her. Her dark blue eyes flickered toward Alvar and he turned his face from her even though her gaze aroused a part of him he wasn't allowed to express. The silver chains on her ankles clinked as she walked out of the room.

Fletch snarled and glared his spectacle clad eyes up at Alvar. "I have no patience with a man who uses a female of his kind that way," he whispered.

"Hush," Alvar hissed.

King Saul sucked the food noisily off his fingers one by one and motioned with his other hand for them to sit. Alvar pulled out a chair for Fletch. The gobli struggled to climb atop it. After they had sat and the king was finished licking his fingers, another man hooded in red entered the room. A priest of Hedomas, the god Saul worshiped.

"Now that we're all here," King Saul began. "I must first say this mission is highly classified and must remain so." His dark eyes went to the goblin first.

"So Scarbrow has already told me," Fletch said dryly.

Alvar would have kicked him under the table, but Fletch's little knobby feet barely reached over the edge.

"You shall not speak unless I ask you to, goblin," the King barked.

Fletch mumbled something in his own tongue Alvar assumed were curse words and crossed his arms before becoming silent.

Alvar looked to the man hooded in red. The priests were everywhere in the palace. They served the king's god, Hedomas. Alvar hated them. They were wicked and made up half their prophecies to satisfy their own lust for wealth and power.

"I have brought you together to obtain a possession for me," King Saul smiled, his browning teeth showed. "The good priest, Hyphus, will explain the rest."

Hyphus' shadowed face broke into a crooked grin. Something about him was familiar to Alvar, yet since he was heavily clothed Alvar couldn't figure out how he knew him. "There are rumors a great Memori has been found in the north by the Sylphs. The king wishes for us to attack the temple and obtain the Memori and bring it back to him." The voice of the man was smooth as glass.

"Don't you think Scarbrow and I could make the trip ourselves?" Fletch asked. He glared at the priest with a suspicious gaze. Alvar knew Fletch had no idea what a Memori meant or why the king needed to send a priest.

In truth Alvar wished he were like Fletch: an ordinary slave who didn't know anything.

"I have my reasons for going," Hyphus answered, "I represent the king's best wishes, and I will make sure those wishes are carried out."

"See that you do and your reward will be great," King Saul said as he handed Hyphus a key with a ruby stone embedded in its handle. The priest's eyes glinted at the honor of such power in his hands. Alvar, however, winced.

"The Memori is being kept in a Sylph temple," Hyphus continued. "It will be guarded extensively. Since we do not want this theft to be seen as reason for attack on Ferar we have chosen the goblis to be framed for the deed."

"So my people will get the blame?" Fletch rolled his eyes. "That sounds more than fair."

Alvar was shocked the gobli hadn't been thrown out of the conference room for his impudence yet.

King Saul laughed, "You are quite entertaining. I shall have to have you brought to entertain at my dinners, gobli."

"I would believe my ugliness would ruin your appetite, majesty, but I fear you are far uglier than I," Fletch growled.

"He speaks truth!" King Saul couldn't stop laughing now and he wiped tears from his eyes.

He waved a hand at Fletch, Alvar, and Hyphus. "Insure Fletch is given a bedchamber he can be well rested in. Scarbrow you are to go to your hole."

"Give me a stone floor. Much more comfortable than your smothering pillows and sheets," Fletch grunted at Hyphus as they followed the red clad man from the conference room.

"I know how to find my room," Alvar told Hyphus as he turned from them. A hand on his shoulder made fire burn in his throat. He wished to be alone. He wished to always be alone. The moments in the "hole" were the best of his life. "What is it?" he asked Hyphus.

"I am your master now, Cursed," Hyphus whispered in his ear, out of earshot from the gobli. "This will be more than enjoyable. The one blessed to be Cursed blood now the lesser of us."

Now he knew why the priest was familiar. In another life they'd been family. 

"You will never be my master, Ashtar."

"You insult me by addressing me by that name, slave." Hyphus' grip on Alvar's arm tightened until his nails-kept long as a priest-dug into the muscled flesh painfully. "They left me to tend the goats and be beaten for your shortcomings? I have not forgotten. Mother burned for you even though she loved me and not you."

*

The young woman was dressed in a lingerie piece leaving little to the imagination, the gold encrusted in the bodice and brassiere twinkled in the flickers of candlelight. She stood like a dream by the door to his cell and he recognized her as the same slave girl he'd seen attending the king. Her eyes, the only visible part of her besides her hands, gave her away.

"Scarbrow," she whispered.

"What are you doing here, woman?" Alvar glanced behind him to make sure Hyphus hadn't decided to follow for a visit to the cell. "Do you have a death wish?" He snarled.

"Yes, I do," she said, her lashes hooded her eyes as she looked down. "Will you devour me?"

"Why would you want that?" Alavar asked. His voice went hoarse at the end. Damn it. If he were caught fraternizing with one of the king's pleasure slaves he'd be beaten and possibly worse. Alvar cringed. 

"The king wishes for my virginity tonight," the girl stated.

Alvar closed his eyes. He didn't want to picture what she'd told him, but the images taunted his mind.

"You looked at me when you weren't supposed to," the girl said. "I know you want to eat me. I want to give you what you want."

"The king would flog me if he knew I'd eaten his virgin." They thought he ate humans. Of course they did. To everyone who knew what he was, he was only a monster. "How did you get here without notice?"

"That doesn't matter, what does matter is that you eat me," she pleaded, her small soft hand grasped his calloused one. The tenderness of her gesture and the softness of her hands were like a volt of primal energy. His senses burned with awareness of his own sexuality as touch of the opposite sex was so deprived from him, and he cursed himself for it. The last thing he wanted was to mirror King Saul's lust. It pitted him lower than his current physical servitude. He was not a slave to his desires as King Saul was. He did not worship Hedomas as Saul. Alvar secretly worshiped the God of the Light who called on men to be loving and respectful of women, to treat them as their equal.

Alvar withdrew his hands from hers and everything inside him settled.

"I want to help you, but--" Alvar began.

"What are you doing?" Hyphus' voice sneered, interrupting their solitude. "A lovers' meeting? I thought the king forbade you to pursue women?"

"This isn't a lovers' meeting," Alvar growled.

"Then what is it?" Hyphus circled the two of them. His red hood covered his head once more and cast menacing shadows over his pale skin. "However, I am a generous, benevolent, priest," he drew out those last words as he put his hands on the girl's shoulders. "What is your name?"

"Triss," the girl whispered. The hope that had glimmered in her eyes at the prospects of being eaten were snuffed out like a candle after a prayer.

"Triss," Hyphus let the name slither out over his tongue. "Why did you come to see Scarbrow, Triss?"

"I want to be eaten by him," Triss replied.

"Eaten?" Hyphus laughed.

"She truly wanted to be my meal, she is afraid as the king desires her virginity tonight." Alvar couldn't take another minute of Hyphus's crass mockery. He felt the Cursed inside his body burning to emerge from the human shell it resided in.

"You're a virgin?" Hyphus' eyes glowed beneath his hood.

She nodded. "All he says is true."

"Now I know why the great Hedomas put us in this position! You are just the thing we need to take with us on our mission." Hyphus clasped his hands together with giddy delight.

Whether or not Hyphus held the key Alvar wished to tear him to pieces right here and now. He could feel the claws waiting to burst from his fingers.

"When the king calls for you tonight, give him this message." Hyphus took a scroll from a pocket in his priest gown and penned a short letter. He handed the scroll to Triss. "You need not fear losing your virginity tonight, Triss dearest."

The girl bowed her tawny head at Hyphus then hurried away from them.

Alvar sighed and reached for the handle of his cell door. He didn't know what Hyphus had planned for the girl, but it couldn't favor much over what the king intended for her. He needed to hide in his cell and seek out solitude so he could purge this exchange from his mind.

"Did I tell you that you could leave my presence?" Hyphus snarled.

"What is it?" Alvar turned to face Hyphus and glared at him.

"I will have that girl of yours for myself," Hyphus gloated.

"She's not mine," Alvar said with gritted teeth.

"From what I saw that wasn't the case." Hyphus withdrew the key from his pocket, "I don't intend to stop at just controlling you, Alvar, I want you to know how it feels to be helpless, just as I was for your misdeeds."

A puff of smoke rose in Alvar's throat and he let it out in Hyphus' direction. "I told you long ago I had nothing to do with father's actions."

"You are wrong. You possessed all that power and you did nothing to stop him!" Hyphus snapped.

The collar burned, and Alvar knew he'd lost all free will. As long as Hyphus clutched the key to his enchanted collar, he could make Alvar do whatever he wanted him to do.

Hyphus was right. Alvar did care about a slave girl he'd just met. And like everything else he cared about, her fate resided in darkness. He stepped down into the pit which was the hole he resided in when Saul hadn't a use for him and unleashed the Cursed. Letting his body stretch into the monster he truly was and always would be.

Hyphus watched him transform, watched as the pain of it seared through Alvar's flesh, the wings erupting from his back.

"You will attend the ritual as I spill her virtue blood on the alter of Hedomas. Isn't it wonderful, Alvar? I will always have everything you can't."

*

"Lucy," Alvar's voice echoes in my head and the scene I'm witnessing is misting over again. "Let go of the amulet, Lucy!"

The rest of this book, and the next two books in this series are available on Amazon.