Page 27 of Sinful Curses
“They’renotgoing to point a weapon at you, and that’s final.”
“No one tells us what to do!” Puth declared.
A second later, a sharp sting ran up from his shin. He glanced down to discover one of the creatures had stabbed him with its spear.
Before he could restrain himself, instinct took over, and he kicked the thing. “Motherfucker.”
He managed to pull his foot back enough not to kick the rat with all his strength, but the brownie soared through the air and spun around before crashing onto the ground. All its friends watched in horror until it bounced up, spitting like a rodent on a rampage, and charged back toward them.
In a flash, the ones before him disassembled their tower and pulled their spears free to charge at his legs.
“I can stomp some rats,” Orin told them.
“Enough!” Sahira shouted. “All of you, that is enough! And you”—she pointed a finger at him—“stop instigating them.”
“Hestabbedme.”
“Yes, he was wrong, but you’re not helping this situation, so let’s allsettle down.” She shifted her attention to the brownies. “We don’t want to fight you. We’re here in search of a way out of this realm.”
“He kicked one of us!” a brownie shouted and pointed at Orin.
Orin lifted his leg to point at the hole and spot of blood on his pants. “He stabbed me first.”
“That’s because you’re a dick.”
“They have you there,” Sahira muttered.
Orin shot her a look. He was defending her, and she was siding with the little rat monsters. Typical, but he still wasn’t leaving her side.
“We’re searching for a way out of this realm,” Sahira said. “We came from a townmanymiles away, but it’s similar to this one. All the buildings here are also in that town, except the immortals there have grown and expanded by building more residences and businesses. They also have the symbols, but those are different there.”
As her words sank in, the angry chatter of the rodents ceased around them. “Do you think she’s telling the truth?” one whispered.
They all had similar features and wore brown clothes, but some women wore skirts while the men wore pants. A few of the women also wore pants.
“You didn’t travel here from Belda’s town?” Sahira asked.
“Who’s Belda?” Puth inquired.
“She’s the alpha lycan who runs the town we came from.”
“Did she chase you out?”
“No, she’d welcome us back if we returned, but we’re trying to find a way out of this realm.”
“There is no way out,” one of them murmured.
“Why do you say that?” Orin demanded.
The brownie lowered her spear. “We’ve never been able to escape.”
“Have you ever left this town?”
“It’s a little too big for us out there,” Puth said.
“So, you don’t know for sure there’s no way out.”
“No, not for sure.”
