Kin to the Sky Serpents: Blood Waters 3

By Eve Hathaway

From the Publisher that brought you popular YA short story series Song of Teeth, Children of Time, Children of Two Futures, Chains of Darkness, The Magaram Legends, The Night Sculptor Series, Requiem for a Dream, The Taken, The Whispering. And now, Blood Waters...

AS TOMAS/IKAN LEARNS OF HIS TRAGIC PAST, HIS TRUE SELF AWAKENS
HE ISN'T MEANT TO BE A HUMAN TRIBUTE—BECAUSE HE IS OF THE GODS

The hurricane comes—and with it the awakening of Tomas's consciousness of just what he is.
He helps Mila and the others escape from the village. Unfortunately, he gets retaken by the villagers. But he realizes that he is no longer the boy he once was, nor even the young man he grew into. And that he can call upon the jungle to help him escape.
He begins to believe.
In the meantime, Mila and the others must navigate their way through the dense jungle, surviving hunger and thirst—and each other. In their struggle, Mila and Tim grow closer.
But can she truly leave Tomas behind?

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EXCERPT
Mila got away, Mila escaped, he reminded himself. She would be on the shore, or close to it, by now—the storm would only weaken once the eye passed—they would make it back to her parents’ house. He could imagine the surprised looks on George’s and Gloria’s faces.... His thoughts were so focused on Mila that he didn’t even notice the man pissing on him until a warm stream hit him in the face.
It was Chac, the man who had been groping Mila and Meredith on their way to the village. Ikan jerked up as far as the rope would allow, which was less than a foot. Chac laughed at his impotence, and Ikan was hit with the memory of every last insult, taunt, and beating Chac had ever given him, riding on waves of hot, angry pain.
Thinking was painful. Anger was painful. Better to feel nothing—be nothing. He would soon be dead, anyway.
But, for just once in his life... and he thought, Why not? What is Eztli going to do, kill me?
So he did it again, for the second time—he envisioned a snake, coiled around the man’s throat, choking him to death. The first time, in the jungle, the others had stopped him. But there was no other this time. Only Chac.
And Ikan, despite being tied like a lamb bound for slaughter, lying in the mud, felt giddy with power as Chac gasped and started to turn purple and began to claw at his throat. The serpent—it wasn’t real, and yet to Ikan it was as clear as day—around his throat bobbed its head staring back at Ikan with cold, beady eyes, an unasked question flicking about its forked tongue.
And Ikan, hearing the voice in his head, answered, Yes.
Eztli was almost right, he thought as he watched Chac stagger away from him and collapse in the middle of the village. Shocked gasps came from the houses around them. I do not have a god within me. I am a god.

Next in the Series:

1. Borne from the Sea
2. Tribute to the Sacred Waters
4. God in the Wild

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Sandra Ross
• Release date: Nov 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311702791

Book preview

Kin To The Sky Serpents

By Eve Hathaway

Published by Publications Circulations LLC.

SmashWords Edition

All contents copyright (C) 2014 by Publications Circulations LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, companies and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

~ ~ ~ ~

Chapter One

THE SIGHT OF the man Eztli brought back everything.

His-Tomas, Ikan, he didn't even know who he was anymore-identity was so bound up with Eztli's prophecies that just seeing the man looming above him choked his breathing, even though they were as far from standing water as could be. As Mila, Tim and Meredith were being shoved into the empty shed where he had spent many a long week or month (there had been a time when Eztli sentenced him to a year in there, but eventually Cuali, his wife, needed his help more than she needed Eztli's blessings so she let him out), he felt as though his soul were being split into two-Tomas, whom he had come to accept as who he was; and Ikan, whom he wished he could still forget.

Eztli grabbed him by the ear and dragged him to the house. Tomas thought to protest, Ikan didn't dare. The truncheon Eztli used materialized in his hand-even now, Ikan still had no idea where the man kept it-and Tomas shrieked as Eztli rained down blows.

You-should-be-dead! Eztli hissed. How-dare-you-come-back-

The Alvarezes weren't exactly a loving family, not in the way that families on their TV had been, but the hatred and anger in the man's voice shocked Tomas. The part of him that remembered the man's vicious temper prayed that he would be exhausted soon. For a moment, he saw himself from above, cowering under Eztli's blows. And he was ashamed to have remembered anything at all, for the memory made him a boy, and he was a man.

Yet, he couldn't fight back. This man, cruel though he was, was the only father he had ever known. Eztli had once dragged him five miles through the jungle on a makeshift stretcher when he was too ill from malaria to sit up. He had stayed there for two months before he was well enough to walk, and another six weeks before the doctors considered him well enough to send home.

He didn't dare ask how much it would cost them, but Eztli had insisted that he be made better, even though he knew the man could not afford it. But Eztli had found the money somehow; it was only later that he learned that Eztli had sold one of his kidneys on the black market. The obligation he had always felt towards this man crushed his soul after that.

Stop.

Cuali stood in the door of their house, her hands on her hips, a menace in her voice that made Tomas shrivel and Ikan quiver with fear. Even Eztli, still panting with his rage, was caught up short. He looked at her as if to say, What have you done with my wife?

I have watched you beat that boy for eighteen years, Cuali said. Her voice was low; barely louder than the wind picking