Pursued(138)

I must not give in, he told himself as he walked through the public reflection area, looking at the snowdrop trees, which were in full bloom. Their delicate, lacy white blossoms looked like palm-sized snowflakes caught just before they melted. Can’t let them get to me.

But it was getting harder and harder to control his rage, to put it away and not give in to the cold hatred that wanted to consume him. Especially when the others teased him about not being a true male. Merrick thought the shame of not letting his first blood yet would kill him sometimes.

I should go out on my own, he thought as he walked past the quiet waters of the pond. I know where Jonquil keeps his shale. I’ll kill a vranna and drag it back to the grotto on my own. That would shut the bastards up. They’d never dare to call me half-breed or a child again. I—

“Hey, half-breed!”

The unwelcome shout came from his left and Merrick turned, frowning. It was Rattis, the leader of the males who bullied him at the learning house, and he had his whole group of followers with him.

Merrick glared at them. “What do you want? It’s a nice enough day—we even got out of learning house early. Can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Now why would we do that?” Rattis swaggered over. He and the other males in his group all wore blood-red tharps and red fur boots, a symbol of their gang of pure-blooded Primes. “When it’s so much fun to teach you a lesson?”

“And what ‘lesson’ would that be, Rattis?” Merrick growled.

“The lesson that hybrids and half-breeds aren’t wanted here. Especially ones not even male enough to kill a vranna and let first blood.” Rattis came right up and stood toe to toe with him. He was a head shorter than Merrick and not half as muscular, but he acted with the assurance of someone who is confronting a coward, someone who won’t fight back no matter what is done to him.

I’m no coward, Merrick thought, his hands curling into fists. I could kill them—kill them all without even trying. But if he did that—if he so much as laid a finger on them—Jonquil would cast him and his mother out. It would kill his mother if she had to live with her sister again and their only other option would be the frozen tundra above, where nothing warm-blooded could survive for long. Tranq Prime was a closed world—those without kin or someone willing to take them in died in its icy grip.

So Merrick took a deep breath and pushed the cold, killing rage that wanted to rise in him back down below the surface. “I have no quarrel with you, Rattis,” he said in the most neutral voice he could manage. “Leave me in peace and I’ll be on my way.”

“If we did that, then you’d never leave, hybrid scum.” Rattis spat on the ground at his feet. “You and your whore of a mother would stay here forever, polluting our grotto with your impure filth.”

“What did you say?” Merrick took a step closer to the other male so that he was towering over Rattis. “What did you just call my mother?”

For the first time, Rattis looked uneasy. “I only spoke the truth.”

“He’s right,” Nadire, one of the other males in the gang sneered. “My older brother visited her yesterday.”

“So did mine.” Rattis laughed, apparently forgetting his unease. “He said she has a mouth sweeter than any female in the grotto. And her cunt—”

Merrick could feel the rage rising in him and this time there was no stopping it. It was one thing to put up with the insults and jeers about his own mixed parentage, but no one was going to speak ill of his mother. His arm shot out, and he gripped Rattis by the throat and hoisted him into the air. He shook the other male as though he weighed no more than a doll. “You dare!” he roared. “You dare to tell filthy lies about my mother? I’ll kill you!”

Rattis’ face turned as red as his tharp and he scrabbled at Merrick’s hand frantically. “True,” he wheezed. “Not lying. Ask…anyone.”

“Let him down!” Nadire shouted. “He is telling the truth—we all are.” He looked at the other pure blooded males. “Aren’t we?” They nodded their heads and murmured ascent.

The rage inside Merrick died down a little, giving way to confusion and disbelief. It couldn’t be, could it? Surely they were just trying to hurt him—saying the worst possible thing to wound him to the core. Then he remembered the strange males he’d sometimes seen leaving the domicile as he came in from his hours at the learning house. He’d assumed they were friends of Jonquil’s. Jonquil, who never did any work but somehow always managed to have plenty of money to spare. Jonquil, who looked at his mother with those pale, predatory eyes, as though he was calculating how much she was worth…