Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
I direct Ire over to the hitching post off to the side of the inn. It’s off in a corner, behind some other buildings housing a restaurant and a saloon.
“Get down,” I tell Callistina, once we’re there.
She scoots back, swings her leg over, and hops to the ground. Bending her knees and almost falling to them because the drop is significant.
I get down too, then loop the reins to a hitching post and direct Callistina to enter the inn with a nod of my chin. She’s still mindlessly happy about being here, so she doesn’t even notice that I’m being curt with her.
Inside it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, so I stand behind Callistina, looking over her head and taking in the room.
It’s your typical low-class inn. A bar at the far end, tables and chairs—mostly empty—a stairwell that leads up to the second floor, and a couple of whores hanging on the banister.
I place my hands on Callistina’s shoulders, directing her to get out of my way, then approach the long counter where a man waits, watching us.
He’s not a man. I know this without smelling him or looking at the scales that hide just behind his ears. When he opens his mouth, the forked tongue gives it all away. “Greetingsssssssss. Do you need a room, friend?”
The old me—the real me, the me who isn’t traveling with a dethroned gryphon-chimera Queen of Vinca from the future—would slam his face down on that counter for calling me ‘friend.’ And even though I have the urge to do that, I force myself not to.
I don’t find most chimera particularly loathsome, but the lacerta are the lowest of the low in the chimera world. They were the first to be made, and thus contain all the mistakes that were fixed later.
They are part snake. This one, a cobra hiding his hood. Trying to, at least.
The gryphons, for what it’s worth, were the last to be made. They are the most perfect examples of the chimera experiments.
The snake is waiting for me to overreact, perhaps hoping to scare me with a flash of his hood and the baring of his poison-filled fangs. But I don’t give him the satisfaction. “One room, please.”
“Do you need a stable for your beast?” He nods his chin at Callistina.
In this moment I hear her—in my head, thankfully—demanding that he call her queen. But she has enough sense to shut up and say nothing as I handle things.
“No, thank you. She sleeps at my feet.”
“Very well, good sir.” The snake smiles at me, baring those fangs anyway. His head is bald and he has no facial hair at all. His eyes, though not reptilian, just look wrong. And if he were to step around that counter, there would be no legs holding him up. He has the lower half of a serpent. He’s probably balanced on a long coil this very moment. And if pressed or attacked, not only would he bite, but he would spring up tens of feet into the air to tower over me.
He would be killed without question if he attacked a human. So he probably wouldn’t do that. And I’m immune to his poison, because I am a god, not a human, so I wouldn’t care if he did.
But he wouldn’t be killed for biting Callistina. I would be compensated in gold by whatever seedy establishment holds insurance over him, and then he’d be imprisoned and given debt.
It doesn’t seem worth it to me, but the gryphon chimeras are universally hated in these times by their fellow beasts. And they don’t look, or talk, or act anything like Callistina. She is not some half-crossed mistake from the early days. Her golden mane and velvet body, not to mention her presence—which comes from being not only a royal beast, but a fuckin’ queen—are the pinnacle of success. She is a reminder of everything the others are not. All gryphon chimera are, but Callistina even more so since she is an example of lioness perfection.
In the end, the lacerta must agree that Callistina is not worth the trouble of killing because he just starts checking me in. And I’m just about to sign for the room when a human man pushes through a set of saloon doors and appears behind the desk. “What is going on here?”
He’s looking at me like I owe him some kind of answer. I don’t, but I have a feeling he’s the owner and this is not about me, or the snake, but Callistina.
“I’m about to pay for a room,” I deadpan back at him.
“We don’t allow pets.” He points at Callistina. “This one needs to stay in the stable.”
“No. She sleeps at my feet. This is not up for discussion.”
“Oh, isn’t it?” The man—who is portly and round, though very tall and rough-looking with a dark beard covering his chin and neck—leans back on his heels. “You’re breaking the law with that thing. I could call the wardens and have her stripped and you imprisoned. It is illegal to clothe a beast like that.”