Chapter 5 - The Queen of the Desert  Solene wished the cloth still covered her face. It would have been a perfect deterrent against the rotting smell of flesh around her as she padded onwards, together with her captors. After the whole fiasco in the tavern, not to mention Zaraat and Lilith’s second round of live show dog-style fucking, they finally left the area and traveled west, passing a red-light district with more debauchery on the streets and murderous glares on the alleyways and roofs of dilapidated buildings, until they reached the border where another desert greeted them. As opposed to black and golden sand like the ones Solene encountered in her first two days in Gehenna, this desert here had a red shade. And it damn smelled ghastly. Solene retched multiple times, but refused to expel fully her digested food. Zaraat said so himself. Their journey would be

Chapter 7 - The Queen Unchained Solene grunted the eighth time as she felt another tug on her chains. Gardon had been doing this for the past four hours of their trek from the bunker down to a snowy hill. She was sure it was deliberate and not because of his difficulty managing the walk too. All of them were, but he specifically took his sweet time bullying her. Twice or thrice did she end up falling face flat on the snow. No one laughed about her misfortune, save from Gardon himself, throwing a mischievous grin on her way. In reply to this, she threw him multiple sharp glares and in the back of her mind; she was going to make this man pay once she gets her voice and spells back. Gehenna’s weather and topography sure were unlike Earth. From a crimson desert earlier, they passed by an area with a bubbling lake and sulfuric steam. Then, they entered a tunnel of some sort minus th

Chapter 9 – The Queen Listens Not to hurt her? Solene’s mind scrutinized the words. It was a big promise, especially from a stranger who lived in Gehenna. Solene couldn’t immediately believe it. She could never be sure it was this land’s way of messing up with her mind. Fooling her. Playing with her. Making her believe there was hope when, in reality, there was none. Maybe the woman was just acting? Maybe this was just a dream? But Solene figured this wasn’t judging from the very pain she was feeling inside her bones now, the continued fever she felt and the stinging pain of her superficial wounds. The woman, Hope, had an unusual name. It definitely didn’t fit with the place they were in, but she had no less been tremendously helpful with her poor, fragile situation. She had placed her inside this suitable bedroom. She had kept her warm. S

Chapter 11 - The Queen Laid Bare Solene was sure this was what Hope meant. A kiss. Lilith did it to her to take away her voice, and it was only reasonable to undergo the same in order to retrieve it. But Solene couldn’t deny it was a heavy request. One that weighed far heavier than a boulder, and this made her shoulders slump. Without thinking, she retracted her hands from Hope’s touch and rerouted her eyes on the floor. A deep blush painted her cheeks then, much to the latter’s chagrin. “I’m sorry!” Hope quickly exclaimed; her face a picture of deep concern. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. What was I thinking...fuck. We are both females, after all. I’ll put that in my head again and again.” Solene didn’t understand her words. It was as if her newfound friend didn’t know which gender orientation she was

 Lilith took Hope’s answer as a blow to her pride. Nobody had said that word to her, ever. She always got what she wanted and more. So much more. Obviously, this woman knew who she was since she called her by name—and with conviction at that, but despite this, the woman still held her ground, clearly protecting Solene.“You have a death wish, maybe? I will oblige you here and now, bitch,” she said, her nails retracting.A slow grin formed on Hope’s face as she heard the words. She felt Solene hold her elbow as if saying to back out, but that wasn’t in her vocabulary. There never was.“Go ahead, Lilith, and make your movements count,” she encouraged in confidence. She stepped forward twice, doing a fighting stance, and then held Lilith’s gaze—one that was soul deep, literally.Lilith in response gasped. She saw something in this woman’s fierce eyes that she couldn’t deny.