Legacy (Saga of the Bold People Book 2) by M.D. Grimm

Author:M.D. Grimm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, adventure, science fiction, aliens, gay romance, mm romance, interspecies romance
Publisher: M.D. Grimm

***

The whipping is a warning. We have to watch as a girl is whipped by an older boy. He is maybe sixteen? Seventeen? Doesn’t matter. He’s submitted himself to Priest, become his muscle, his guard. He’s no longer one of us. He thinks he’s better. Immune. He’s dressed better than he was a week before. Priest has obviously been feeding him better, too. The smug smile and gleeful glint in his eyes are all I need to know.

Twenty of us, all children, watch and wait for the whipping to end. The girl cried at first, and now she just flinches, barely a whimper escaping. She’s curled up on the hard floor, her thin clothes ripped, red skin showing through.

The benches of the cafeteria are folded and leaning against the walls, giving us some space for other activities. Like this one.

Without moving my head, I look up. The second-floor balcony overlooks the first floor, a way for Priest to keep an eye on us. He stands at the railing, pale hands gripping it, watching with eagerness. Ten other guards stand loosely ringed around us, silent and watchful. About half of them are his die-hard followers, the nuns. They are older than Priest. The other half are hardly older than the boy whipping the girl.

Priest’s new minion lifts the whip one more time. Down it comes, cracking over the bleeding back. And it’s done.

I swallow hard and lower my eyes to the ground. That won’t be me. Ever.

“Let that be a lesson to all of you,” the boy says. His name doesn’t matter anymore. He sold his soul to the devil. Priest claims to be a mouthpiece for God, but I think he’s the arch deceiver. “We all have our parts to play, and anyone who objects to that order is a heretic. But our noble leader Priest shows mercy and has now forgiven the blasphemer. Now you can all get back to work! The sun isn’t down yet.”

I glance up again as everyone scrambles. Priest is looking right at me. I try to disappear in the crowd. I need to put my plan into motion. Soon. Tomorrow. If I wait too long, Priest will either sell me or try to recruit me. I don’t want either. I don’t want to submit to him. The thought crawls across my skin like fiery bugs, nipping and itching.

Yet I also don’t want to be stolen in the night and forgotten in the morning. Not that I sleep in my assigned bed anymore. Or at night. It was hard at first, sleeping during the day, stealing away in corners unnoticed, a few hours at a time. Then it became better, easier.

I hurry to my assigned location in the quarry and start sorting through rocks on the conveyer belt. Adults climb up and down from the massive hole in the ground, ropes and pullies lifting chunks of rock from the mine. A few just have the job of making sure nothing frays or breaks. Don’t want the miners to die.

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