But somehow the rest of them weren’t there—well, of course they weren’t there. She’d hardly have… with an audience. But Harathes had stormed off somewhere, and Dion and Penthos were doing their respective mystical errands, and even Lief had apparently found someone else to shack up with, and so…

Nobody need know. Perhaps even Enth would not remember. And if he did, well… She could tell him to say nothing, and he would have no choice. That was how it worked, after all.

The thought made her wince.

And then Harathes blundered in, pasty-faced and red-eyed.

8: Unnatural Relations

HARATHES LET OUT A ROAR that was equal parts rage, righteousness, horror, and frustrated passion. What words there were within it resolved themselves into, “Get away from her, you monster!” He threw himself in, slamming his boot into Enth’s supine body hard, three times. The first, ill aimed, glanced off Cyrene herself, knocking her sprawling, and then Harathes was at work. He hauled Enth up, saw the creature in his full naked glory and hurled him aside with a shriek of disgust. Enth struck the wall hard enough to shudder dust from between the beams of the ceiling. He slid down to crouch there, staring up at Harathes with his alien eyes.

“Get out!” Cyrene shouted. Trying to hold a blanket to her, she groped for Harathes’s shoulder with the other hand. “Just get out!”

He turned on her briefly, and the black anger in his face made her back off.

“Whatever it did to you, I will avenge it,” he swore. His eyes and ears seemed to be receiving information from some close but separate reality where things were more to his liking: he was the rescuing hero, Enth the despoiling monster, she the damsel in distress.

She lunged for him, and he threw her back easily before turning for his main prey. Enth was standing now, hunched a little, arms by his sides and hands twitching, but waiting patiently as Harathes pawed a knife from his belt.

“Once and for all,” the big man declared, some highlight of his inner monologue. “It all went wrong when this thing came to us. It was a mistake. It was always a mistake.”

Cyrene, who had tripped back over the mattress, was struggling to her feet. Why wasn’t Enth reacting, as Harathes and the knife neared him? A jolt of understanding shook her: the strictures that Penthos had put in place.

“Enth!” she shouted. “Defend yourself!”