4 Is this a life?!

"Mother let me." I took Amori from her as she was panting. I am used to travelling through the jungle, even then it was no small feat to run through it for one hour in the middle of the night, much less for my mother.

"Please rest. I will take care of her." I had to use force to take her away. Weight of a ten years old was not something I could ignore. I sat down with her in my lap.

"But how could they follow?" That was my biggest concern. There should be someone leading them, someone who knew the jungle.

"Someone from the nearby village?" Before I can think about it, the bush in front of me shook and a hog charged out. Startle I moved out of the way. I called for mother but there was no response. Lucky for me the hog took another way.

But mother was mumbling something with her eyes half-closed. Her body was burning and was sweating non-stop. I checked and soon found the mark I had been looking for.

'She is bitten by a snake.' I put my lip on the wound, but my head was pushed away.

"First thing to do was to suck out the venom then bind…" that was what father told me. But my mother stopped me. "It is too late," she spoke in a weak voice.

"But there is still time." at my weak protest she shook her head, "Leave me, take your sister away."

"But mother… there is a cave not too far away. If we can..."

"Listen to your mother. Save your sister."

"No I don't want to lose you too." but the intended words never got the chance to get out.

"Here." Fire torches appeared in the view.

"Go now. Leave me. Save your sister."

"Mother."

"You are not my child, to begin with, why do you care so much?" The voice was harsh, so was the words.

My heart skipped a bit. I would have never thought about hearing it from mother. But I understood. I hugged her, and whispered, "Please forgive me. I will save sister even I have to die. Thank you for loving me so much."

Mother should be surprised by my reaction but I took Amori and left without hesitation. The cat and mouse chase had started again.

*crackle*

Thunder stuck in the heart of night sky and soon rain followed.

"Brother where is mother?" the hoarse voice asked with expectation.

'Sorry sister, your brother is useless. But I will save you.' Alas! She couldn't my heart and started to shout, "I want to see mother. Brother let me go. I want to…"

That is the last thing I wanted. The harsh rain wasn't loud enough to hide her mournful cry and what greeted us was arrows. No matter how agile I was there was no way to escape all the arrows but I tried my best. It wasn't enough.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh" Even thunder couldn't drown the heart-wrenching cry of Amori. It drained the blood out of my body as I look at the arrow that was stuck at the heart of Amori. She was struggling like a headless chicken in my embrace.

"You should have given up long ago." soldiers started to appear from the jungle. I looked around to find I was standing at the cliff. Beneath which was the violent sea. More than twenty appeared from the jungle, some was holding sword some was armed with bows but I couldn't care less.

"At least the child would have survived. But…"

"What a waste? Even that girl was beautiful. The lord…"

Those words never reached my ears. "Brother I don't want to die. Please save me. Please save me."

The breaths were never taken, nor any tears fell from my eyes. No pain, no suffocation, nothing a human should have felt appeared in my heart. I was numb. No rain, no thunder, even the small nail of the child that dug in my skin touched me.

I looked up. Nothing was in front of me. Endless darkness. One question.

"What do you want?"

"Kill them all." There wasn't an ounce of feeling in my voice and I remembered nothing else. I opened my eyes to see the bodies around me. Some were charred, some with pierced heart, some were beheaded. With the bloody hand, I looked for Amori.

At the edge of the cliff, she was struggling for her last breath. The eyes were dilated. Forced me to remember the first day I looked at her, still, I felt nothing.

"Can I save her?"

"She won't be human any more."

I sighed. I can guess what the voice meant but I followed its instruction. Broke the arrow and jerked the shaft out of her heart. I lost consciousness for a moment at the next I woke up again with a missing heart.

I can guess it was my heart that was beating in her. I kneeled there with a hollow chest as the blue water continued to heal the hole on her chest. It wasn't long before no scar remained.

With her first breath, I sighed in relief and the ground under me crumbled.

"No…" I tried my best to send her away and I succeeded…

********

The rocking movement of my body made me realise that I am still on the sea. I opened my eyes to be greeted by dark places, lit by small crystal-like things.

'Where am I?' The place is damp, it was neither stone nor land. It was wood. Then there were prison bars. A small space confined by bars by 3 sides and wood at the back. This was not the only one, there were more than 30 prisons around mine.

There was a movement in the cell right beside me. Though it was dark I could still see. There were people having sex in the cell beside mine. The girl was gagged. One of the men was holding her down, while the other one doing it. It was rape.

"Stop it," I shouted in rage but regretted it at the next moment. And the result was as expected. It just startled them for a moment but they continued with a sinister smile.

'Why do I care? It is not like I can save her. I couldn't even…' The sense of that night was still fresh in my mind. Father died in front of my eyes, Mother is dead for sure. I am sure Amori had survived but not sure about her future. 'I want to save another one!' I couldn't help but laugh at my fate.

Looking at the bars around me made me worry but I understand one thing. I don't care. 'Come on God. You can try anything I don't care. Not like I can die or anything.'

But what surprised me most was the reaction of the woman. She wasn't even resisting them. Either she was drugged or she had gone through worse.

My train of thought was broken as they locked the cell. One of the men came in front of my cell while perfecting his lower garment.

"So the prince have wake up at last." The man's voice was sarcastic as he started to open the cell. And that was what I have been waiting for. Right at the moment, he opened the door I charged.

I was greeted with a smile. And with that smile, I can feel excruciating pain at my chest and slump onto the ground. The pain was unbearable.

'Was he too first or is it magic?' I had faced things like this before but it was different. Unlike the time I had experimented on, this constrains was there for a single reason to give me pain.

"Are you wondering about something?" the voice was still sarcastic while he showed a stone in his hand. There were marks on it but those were something that made no sense to me.

He kicked me at the belly again said, "This is the slave stone that can control the contracted slaves. You are a slave now, Mr Prince." He kicking session continued.

The one locking the cell beside mine came running. "Bouy, madam said there shouldn't be any spot on the boy."

"That is right, prince. You are high-quality merchandise. Stand up, madam is waiting for you." I wasn't on my feet but the man almost dragged me out of the cell. After a few tumbles, I was able to get on my feet and follow them.

One thing for sure this is a ship and a slave ship on the top of it. It wasn't long before I reached the deck of the ship. People, sailors were busy on the deck. With shamshir on their belt, they look nothing less than a pirate. But I can guess that they are not. The long shamshir was not suited for the naval battle and the top of that their dresses looked more like of a businessman than a pirate.

The ship looked like galleons. And the flag on the top of it was a white one, underneath was a blue one with lion's face on it and at the bottom was the black one with a seagull. I don't know the meaning but doesn't seem like it's a pirate flag.

"It's not the time for sightseeing. Madam is waiting for you." With the words, they forced me into the room.

There was a woman with black cat ears. It was my first time seeing a beast-people but what surprised me most was the cat ear woman was sitting there with another human, a woman to be precise, between her legs.

"If you don't suck me good, then you are not getting anything for dinner." Though she was saying those words she wasn't least bit aroused. There was a very sexy dress on her body but the body wasn't doing any justice to it.

"Undress him." The words broke my thought, as a naked maid came towards me. I tried to move back, but it wasn't under my control. I wasn't sure whether it was magic or anything else but the maid followed the command and there was nothing I could do.

"Come here." soon there wasn't a shard of string on my body. I couldn't able to do anything to hide my shame as I moved on my own towards so-called madam.

She grabbed my family jewel without any hesitation gave it a hard squeeze. "This one is virgin".

My inexperience was in stark contrast to her experienced hand. Soon it was ragging at its best form in her hand with little liquid leaking from the tip.

She tested the stickiness of the liquid between her finger, "Clean it up." She ordered the same naked woman. Without a single string of cloths on her body, she had nothing to clean up my ragging member, still tried to clean with her hand.

'It is not helping,' and her every try was having the opposite effect. The woman was of the twenties with the body that would have given me wood even in my dreams but, 'this is not the time.'

I tried my best to control. "Use your mouth." Shocked, I looked at madam, so did the woman. With a lusty smile, she added, "You have thirty seconds." She pushed the woman between her leg as she looked at us with expecting eyes.

I hesitated. Don't know whether it was because of the pleasure I have felt never before or… It was too late. Warm feeling wrapped around my member and...