As promised, here is a small taste of Chapter One.  Be advised that I will probably change a lot of even this tiny part here, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless.  Post your comments below!

‘Minkhoy ran her finger over the browned map, tracing the distance between Chemyss and Port Kho-Ju’ctar. “Roughly fifty miles,” she muttered to herself, tapping her pencil on her chin. “Let’s see, that would get us there about…oh, an hour before sunset.” She scribbled that onto the pad of paper beside her. “And that would complete our third day of travel. What do you think, Red?”

She looked over at the viper leopard stretched out in a ray of the afternoon sunlight streaming from the window onto the dusty floor of the depot. She and Red were hanging out on the floor in the corner behind the counter. Minkhoy had her back to a mound of paperwork, as if ignoring it meant it wasn’t really there. The ceiling fan above them hummed lazily, the only noise in the empty depot except Red’s muffled purring.

“I said, what do you think, Red?” Minkhoy repeated.

Red squeezed open her deep red eyes and flicked her tail once.

“Why do I get the feeling you don’t really care?”

Red yawned, showing off her long, barbed fangs, and rolled over onto her back, exposing her soft underbelly. Minkhoy smirked and ran her hand through the thick tabby fur a few times.

“You know what I think? I think you don’t care where you are so long as you have a puddle of sunlight to sleep in. Maybe when I finally break out of this place I’ll just leave you behind.” She scratched between the small horns on the top of Red’s head absentmindedly. She frowned as her parents’ words echoed in her head.

‘Around here you’re safe, no one notices you, everyone understands. But out there, you wouldn’t last five minutes.’

‘They would see your scar immediately. And the minute they find out you don’t have parole papers, it’ll really get dangerous.’

‘Do you think they would believe you? They wouldn’t even listen; they would just lock you up forever, at best, and we would probably never see you again.’

‘Like it or not, you have to stay here.’‘