Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
“I’m telling you because you’re getting older and your bloodlines are going to start to manifest,” Gelden told him. “You’re half Scourge, boy—that means you’re going to have the sexual urges of a Scourge. Those urges are not those of a Kindred—they are dangerous.”
“I…I don’t know what you mean.” Sirex spoke through numb lips.
“Yes, you do. I’ve seen you sneaking out of your bedroom to throw your sheets down the sanitation chute in the middle of the night. You’ve been having pleasure dreams at night, haven’t you?”
Sirex felt hot all over, as though his whole body was suddenly on fire with shame.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of—all males have them as they grow older,” his uncle assured him. “But now that you’re having sexual urges, you need to know which ones are acceptable…and which ones will get you banned from Kindred society and branded as a Broken One.”
“A Broken One?” Sirex looked up at him uncertainly.
“A male who derives pleasure from hurting or forcing a female—especially sexually,” Uncle Gelden said, frowning. “The Scourge are rough with their women—they tie them down and hurt them—sometimes they beat them. They demand total sexual submission. That is not the Kindred way.”
Sirex’s shame grew exponentially. Only the night before, he’d had a dream where he tied up Shaylla, a girl in one of his classes at the grotto school. The dream didn’t go much further than that—just him wrapping the rope around her wrists and tying her hands behind her back. But the way the new posture caused her breasts to thrust out at him so that Sirex could almost see her nipples through the fabric of her tharp and the way she was moaning softly as he forced her to submit while he bound her had caused a deep feeling of pleasure. Pleasure so intense that Sirex had woken with a sticky mess on his belly and all over his sheets.
He had been ashamed of the mess that he’d made, but not the contents of the dream. Now he realized what the brother of his mother was trying to tell him. These urges inside him weren’t normal. The wish to tie up and sexually dominate a female wasn’t right. It made him sick—a deviant.
A Broken One.
“You must fight your Scourge side—you’ll probably be fighting it all your life,” Uncle Gelden told him. “You must never give in to it under any circumstances.” He had gripped Sirex’s shoulder harder and looked down into his eyes. “I’m telling you this because I care about you—because I’m the only father you’re ever going to have.”
“I don’t understand. My mother told me that my father—”
“Went away to heal in a distant Med Center, I know.” Gelden shook his head. “That’s another lie—a kind one to make you hope that you might yet meet him someday, no doubt. The truth is I killed him when I came to rescue your mother. She was already too far gone with you to do anything about it, but I killed the son-of-a-bitch who hurt her—who took her against her will.”
Sirex felt sick to his stomach. It seemed like his whole life up until now had been a lie. His father wasn’t the loving rogue his mother had described—he was a monster and a rapist. Even worse, Sirex now knew he had part of that monster inside him—he had the same violent urges his father had given in to and he would have to fight them all his life.
“Remember this, boy,” his mother’s brother had told him. “You will continue to grow and mature and you’re going to be huge—I can tell by your height and how fast you’re growing. You’re going to be immensely strong—the question is, what will you do with that strength? You can either be a protector of women…or a predator of them. You must be sure you fall on the right side of that line. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Sirex had nodded. He wished he could go somewhere and let out the feelings that were crowding up inside him like bile. All the shame and sorrow and hatred for the father he had never known. He didn’t know if he wanted to weep or punch the rock wall of the grotto until his knuckles were bloody. He only knew he felt like he was going to explode!
“I’m sorry I had to tell you all this.” To his surprise, Uncle Gelden had pulled him into a rough hug. “I want you to grow up to be a good male—the kind your mother and I can be proud of,” he told Sirex. “I’m trying to help you avoid a dangerous trap—a trap in your own DNA. You must never, ever give in to the Scourge side of yourself, boy. Never!”
“Never,” Sirex murmured to himself now.
“What?” Phoebe looked up at him, a frown on her lovely face. “Did you say something, Sir?”