STORY DESCRIPTION Part One of the yet to be titled series... Alarin is a skid living in the dark and dangerous underside of Washington-America, where the sun can no longer be seen through the buildings and streets of the upper levels. He's a pickpocket and a thief, and sometimes a whore when he's hungry enough, until the night he picks the wrong pocket and falls victim to a vicious beating.
A mysterious benefactor whisks Alarin away from the mean streets and offers him a life of luxury, ninety floors in the sky?but who exactly is Maleus Bryant and why does he want Alarin when he could have his choice of companion? What is it he knows that Alarin doesn't?
Adding to Alarin's discomfort is the image in his mind of a killer with blood on his face, a Rysykk, rising out of the black of night and the legends of old to fill Alarin with fear. Could Maleus be a Rysykk, hiding in plain sight?
Even if he is, can Alarin turn his back on shelter and food and a life he'd never dreamed of, or will he stay, knowingly a Rysykk's private whore? |