Chapter 82
More fire smudges across my abdomen—an incinerating trail that seeps through my flesh, muscle, and bone, filling my lungs with the acrid smell of burning meat.
I jolt against the cold stone bench, muscles spasming.
Shackles biting.
Another scream threatens to burst past my gritted teeth, but I refuse to release it, shaking my head again and again while he paints … paints … paints me in bubbled, blistering welts.
“I know it hurts …” The orange flame tethered to the tip of the Scavenger King’s finger glints off his sooty eyes. “But pain hardens you, Fire Lark. It makes you so exhilarating to watch in the pits, and my coffers love it.” He moves about me in a flutter of frayed fabric, the outline of his bony crown jutting from his head like mangled fingers. “Just remember—you wouldn’t be so marvelous without this. Without me.”
I’ve heard the same words more times than I know the numbers to count. But what makes him so special that he gets to make me hurt, but I don’t get to do the same to him?
Fallon’s been teaching me many things—big words and big world things that are hard to grapple—and the more I learn, the less this makes sense. The more I want to get my hands around his neck and make it crack .
I think I’d like that. Then Fallon and I could escape. She could finally show me the moons—the real ones. Not the ones we draw on our ceiling.
She could also show me the colorful clouds she’s always talking about.
The Scavenger King whispers his flame into a ball he spreads down my leg, searing me all the way to the tips of my toes. My muscles spasm as I chew on a scream, gaze speared through the cleft in the ceiling to where his beast peers down from the shadows—always watching.
Always rumbling.
I picture my pain pouring into that same cleft, disappearing. Draining away before it gets a chance to take root as I hum a tune in my head. A slow, peaceful song that’s been with me since the start.
“Sometime soon, I’ll wear my bronze crown and you won’t ever have to hurt again. I’ll be on my rightful throne, and you’ll be by my side, enjoying the spoils of your battles.”
More fire is smeared down my shin, and I become deadly certain of one thing:
I don’t want to sit by his side. Not now.
Not ever.
“Look at me,” he growls, gripping my jaw and turning my head.
I stare into ebony eyes, the scorch of pain making it hard to focus, my gaze sharpening.
Smudging.
Sharpening again.
He’ll have to stop soon. I’m about to pass out.
His brows bunch together while he studies me, his hand smelling like smoke and burnt skin. “Why don’t you ever speak? I know that little bitch I shoved in your cell is teaching you. Perhaps I should burn her, too? Give you something to scream about?”
“Touch her and I’ll tear you down the middle, then flip you inside out,” I rasp, my words cold and stony.
Raw.
His eyes widen before a low chuckle rattles his chest, growing in strength until his head tips back.
Deep, roaring laughter echoes off the walls.
“There she is,” he says, snapping his stare to me as I realize my mistake, my heart stilling when I catch the cruel glint in his eye.
He summons another ball of flame he spreads down my thigh. A slow, sizzling smear that burns through layers of muscle the Fleshthread will struggle to heal before I’m due back in the pit.
But that’s not the reason another scream threatens to bludgeon up my throat—not even close.
“My Fire Lark does have a voice,” he purrs, summoning another flame into his hand. Another promise of pain that pales in comparison to the fear now flaying me. “I just needed the right motivation.”
R a e v e . . .
R a e v e . . .
R a e v e . . .
“RAEVE.”
My eyes pop open, my chest packed full of a scream I refuse to release.
I hiss air through bared teeth, filling my lungs with breaths that do nothing to unstick me from the scalding slumber-terror still slicked across my skin, the smell of smoke and fried flesh thick in the back of my throat.
My vision sharpens on a pair of hard cinder eyes shadowed by thick black lashes, a dent of concern etched between Kaan’s brows that jolts something inside me.
Makes me want to squirm.
I shove at his naked chest, trying to get him to unstraddle me. When he doesn’t so much as budge, I shove again—this time releasing all my pent-up energy into one volcanic word. “Move!”
Finally easing sideways, he gives me room to roll off the pallet and stand, face tipped to the skyhole, fingers threading through my sweat-slicked hair and shoving it off my face.
Just a dream …
It was just a dream.
“What’s a Fire Lark, Raeve?”
Fuck.
I charge for the doorway, halfway down the stairs when his thickly accented voice attacks me from behind.
“What’s a fucking Fire Lark ?”
“None of your damn business,” I snip, powering toward the exit, needing to submerse myself and scrub this feeling from my skin.
Kaan’s heavy steps chase me through the jungle as I stalk toward the Loff, wind whipping my hair into lashing tendrils of black. I explode free of the jungle and leap onto the shore, the sky blotted with dark clouds, thick blades of sun striking through.
In another few strides, I’m waist-deep in the water and kicking my feet out from under me, dropping below the surface. I scrub my face, my arms, my legs, and for the first time ever … I let loose the firestorm scream that chars a path up my throat in a spill of bubbles racing for the surface—
Firm hands grip my arms and lug me skyward.
I’m spun, jerked into Kaan’s roiling atmosphere, his face a sculpted clash of ruin and rage, mouth thin. Waves slosh against my back while he holds me captive. “Who were you talking to, Raeve?”
“We’re not having this conversation,” I grit out past the ribbons of sodden hair plastered to my face, trying to rip free of his firm grip.
He pulls me so close I can scarcely breathe without crushing my breasts against his firm, heaving chest as he looks down upon me, his molten stare burning into me. “You seem to be under the illusion that I’m going to drop every bone you accidentally toss my way simply because you command it, but that was before I watched your entire body knot like you were being fucking tortured in your dream,” he growls with enough fortitude to dissolve my next breath. “Now, my beautiful, spectacular, indignant Moonbeam, let’s try this again. Who. Were. You. Talking —”
A pained, ear-splitting screech rattles the atmosphere.
Both our heads whip to the south. Toward fluttered movement emerging from the belly of a low cloud clinging to the mountain’s rounded head.
Horns blow—ten short, sharp bursts that pinch the air.
I frown. “What’s that me—”
Two large vibrant Moltenmaws plunge through the cloud, both trailing white flags from the tips of their plumed tails, their riders donning silver armor to match their gray saddles.
My heart chills.
“Shade emissaries?”
Kaan remains still.
Silent.
Another chest-cracking scream cleaves the sky, followed by a deep honking sound that rattles me to the core.
A pearly Moonplume dives through the heavy tuft of cloud, the white flag tethered to its ankle fluttering in the wind—its shredded wings scrambling to catch air and keep the creature from wobbling around.
Volcanic rage boils my blood as the beast churns, its head whipping around. It cranks its maw wide and leaks another screeching whine.
My gaze homes in on its beautiful, lustrous flesh riddled with blistered welts—
Everything inside me goes eerily quiet, my lungs compacting, a wedge of hurt I didn’t realize was tucked in my chest splitting wider …
Wider.
The beast plummets toward the city hutch, and my stomach drops when I catch sight of the saddle bound around its hide. Of the blond rider pressed flat against the poor dragon’s back.
Rekk Zharos …
Kaan threads his hand behind my head and forces my face into his wet chest, breaking my view of the tortured Moonplume. Like he wants to protect me from the horrid sight. But it’s already branded in my brain like a blistered boil that’s bulging … bulging …
Destined to pop .
Another pained screech, and Kaan curses beneath his breath, every cell in my body now blitzed with a slicing rage. My vision tunnels, mind numbs, a vengeful serpent slithering through my chest, weaving around my ribs, charming my stony heart into a slow, steady beat.
The promise of revenge tickles the tips of my fingers …
I’m going to peel the skin from his body. Pierce his eyes. Rip out his teeth—one by one. Rip off his nails just as leisurely.
He’s.
Fucking.
Dead.
I shove away from Kaan and storm from the water, the world around me smudging into oblivion. I barely feel the underbrush crunching beneath my bare feet. Barely feel the cool stone steps as I charge toward our sleepsuite—the distant drone of something bellowing behind me barely banging against my conscience.
All that exists is my dense, pulsing lust for Rekk’s blood on my hands. All that matters is how, exactly, this is going to pan out. Like sitting down to a ten-course meal, each plate boasting multiple ingredients all beautifully presented.
I grab my sheer sun-protection robe, shoving my arms down the sleeves and threading the belt around my middle. Flipping the pallet, I reveal the cache of weapons I purchased from The Curly Quill. I saddle myself with the bandolier and both sheaths, snatching at the perfect line of blades I’d meticulously stashed—imagining the way each sharp tip is going to bite into Rekk’s flesh.
My hands are swift as a lightning strike as I pack my sheaths full, blade after blade, picturing them stabbing through Rekk’s jaw.
Into his ear.
Flaying him from chin to navel.
He’s a filthy shit stain on this world, and I will exterminate him. Slowly.
Painfully.
I stuff my feet into my boots, lace them tight, tucking blades down the sides before I spin, making for the door. The ground shakes, the only warning I get before a chunk of stone falls before the exit, stalling my escape, the room filling with a blow of wind tunneling in from outside.
Frowning, my gaze climbs skyward, to where a jagged hole in the ceiling spills a thick shaft of sunlight all over my recently refurbished, upturned pallet. Again, I look at the chunk of fallen stone, the beautiful, elaborate images carved into it now cracked through, smaller bits of it scattered across the ground.
My attention stabs to where Kaan is standing by the end of the pallet, arms crossed as he watches me through shadowed eyes.
“You broke my wall.”
“ Our wall,” he grinds out. “And I had to get your attention somehow.” His gaze drops down to my chest and thighs, up again. “What are you doing?”
I look down at myself, appearing almost feathered with the amount of blades I’ve packed upon my body. Most of which I barely remember wielding. “Hunting,” I say, lifting my eyes, meeting his sooty stare. “Anybody who treats an animal that way deserves to be flayed. Without remorse. Now, move the stone.” There’s a brief pause before I remember my manners. “ Please .”
I could try to move it myself, but chances are I’ll just create more of a mess. I have no interest in making a fool of myself before the Burn King who can famously build or crush cities with a few well-crafted words.
No thank you.
Too much finger-itching silence slips by before Kaan says, “He’s toting a white flag, Moonbeam.”
“I can fix that.” I whip a blade from my bandolier, flicking it between my fingers. “I’ll use it to mop up his blood when I’m done. It’ll be red by the time I’m through.”
Red like Essi’s hair.
Red like the color of his beast’s fleshy welts.
Red like the blood he lashed from my body.
Kaan watches me with feline precision, like he’s assessing a battlefield, trying to work out the best angle of attack. “There will be war with whomever his patron is if that rider ends up dead on my doorstep.”
My heart rallies into a wild, rib-crunching churn, my upper lip peeling back from my canines. “Anyone who hires that monster deserves to die, too.”
Just as slowly.
Just as painfully.
“I agree. But this is not the dae for it. He’s traveling with two Shade emissaries who’ve not shown the same cruelty toward their Moltenmaws. Are you going to kill them too?” he asks, tipping his head to the side. “Because if you don’t, word will get back that an emissary was killed on Burn soil—a perfect excuse for my brothers to shred across the Boltanic Plains and batter me with a war they’ve been so looking forward to since I murdered our pah.”
I open my mouth, close it, then crunch my hands into fists so tight the hilt of my iron dagger bites into my palm. “So what do you want me to do?”
His eyes soften the slightest amount while I imagine mine do the opposite. “Much as I loathe to say this,” he rumbles, too slow, too assuaging, “I need you to put your blades down. I will leave now and speak with the riders. Find out what they want.”
I grind my back molars, tasting blood, the ravenous energy churning beneath my skin threatening to split me at the seams. “You’re not going to kill him?”
If he takes this kill from me, I will be so intolerable he’ll have to cut me from this world.
“No,” he says, his voice remorseful. “I’m sor—”
“Promise you won’t?”
The faintest line forms between his brows. “I … promise I will not kill the male. You have my word.”
Good.
Nodding, I stuff my dagger back into my sheath, the boiling bloodlust strumming through my veins dropping to a low simmer.
I know where he is.
I can hunt him the moment he leaves.
The soothing knowledge eases the itch at the tips of my fingers, if only a little.
Spinning, I begin unsheathing my daggers, lining them up on the pallet’s stone base again. I slip my arms free of my bandolier, then unbuckle my sheaths.
“Can I trust you to stay here, Raeve?”
I look over my shoulder at Kaan—still standing in the same place. Still watching me with cutthroat precision.
“I’m not going to slay him on your soil, Kaan. Now that I understand, I will not put your folk in danger. I promise.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
It doesn’t.
I turn, arms crossed as we lock eyes—stances matching—a thrum of tension pounding between us that’s almost palpable enough to shake the ground.
Twice he opens his mouth to speak, then snaps his teeth shut. Finally, he clicks his tongue, snatches his Great Flurrt tunic off the ground, grabs his crown, and releases a dense command that shifts the beautiful, broken piece of stone to the side.
Without another word or glance in my direction, he leaves.