"Kale," Lazek said, his voice trembling with a dark and disturbing delight. "We are going to do great things with this monster of yours. Great, terrible things."
He reached for his tea again, his hand still shaking slightly, but his eyes never left Neo.
Neo didn't flinch. The hydra sat on the tabletop, giving a wet huff from its central nose. Its six golden eyes tracked the man without blinking, cold and unimpressed. To the creature, Lazek wasn't an intimidating authority figure; he was just an annoyance intruding on its space.
Lazek's hand hovered in the air, dark energy coating his fingers. He reached forward, curious to touch the hydra's scales and feel its four distinct hearts beat against his palm. He needed to understand how a Feral-rank creature could produce an aura dense enough to make his own carefully bred chimaeras look like cheap clay models.
Before his fingertips could touch the scales, a shadow cut across the table.
