Chapter 4 #2
He walks slowly through the room, and I stay still in my hiding spot, my hands over my mouth, willing my heartrate to lower and hoping he can’t hear my insanely loud breathing.
Jesus, I sound like I went into the Barelands and got my lungs burned.
I peer out into the room carefully just in time to see Brax go through another door, and I let out a small sigh of relief.
I get to my feet and run back the way I came, down the stairs, almost slipping and falling to my death. But I get to the bottom and hold my breath, listening.
There’s nothing to indicate that either of them is close. I know it’s only a matter of time. They’re going to catch me and do…whatever they’re going to do.
But why should I make it easy for them? If I can escape this place, shouldn’t I? One last ditch effort not to become a dragon plaything?
I slink down the corridor slowly and spy a door I didn’t notice before. I open it quietly, cringing as the sound still echoes off the walls.
I slip through and find a huge box suspended with thick cable in the center of a huge hexagonal room. An elevator.
My eyes widen. I’ve only ever seen pictures.
There are stairs that follow the edge of the room, going downward and upward. I peer over the side of the railing. It goes down and down. Maybe to an exit.
I descend slowly, my fingers running along the metal banister, picking up speed as I realize they’re as well-maintained as everything else. Not a speck of rust on anything.
I don’t know how long it takes me to get to the bottom, but by the time I do, my legs feel like they’re going to give out at any moment. I give myself a second, listening for anything at all. I can hear the faint hum of the machines I found, but that’s all.
There’s a door. This one looks different than the others I’ve seen here. There’s not a handle, but a round, metal wheel.
I turn it and it spins easily until it stops. I push and the door moves a little but it’s really heavy. Putting my whole body into it, I grunt as it begins to move. My feet skid on the floor, but I get it open just enough to squeeze through. I lurch outside and I realize two things much too late.
One, it’s freezing cold and snowing heavily. Two, I’m not on the ground.
I gasp as I run into a railing that catches me at the waist. I’m on a tiny platform in the middle of a wall so high and wide that I can’t see the ends, my body teetering precariously as I stare down at a huge expanse of water at its base.
NoNoNoNoNo!
My center of gravity tips forward and I can’t do anything as my hands slip from the icy railings. I fall headfirst with a scream.
I’m going to die, I realize as the water rushes up to meet me.
I hear a whoosh above me and just before I hit the surface, my ankle is grabbed. My body jerks as it’s stopped in mid-air and I twist, my terrified eyes finding a massive dragon that isn’t Tor hovering above me, the force of his beating wings making troughs in the water.
And that’s when I see it. A dark shape and large eyes staring at me from beneath. It’s coming up fast from below.
I scream as the thing breaks the surface, its wide jaw full of jagged teeth snapping for me.
But we’re hovering just out of its reach.
It falls back into the water with a crash, drenching me in water so cold I can’t breathe.
The dragon holding me flaps his wings hard, and we rise higher and higher, and I see how massive the wall actually is. He takes us over the top to a round platform covered in snow.
The rest happens so quickly that I can’t take it in. One moment I’m hanging upside down, the next, my shivering body is enveloped in thick human arms and we’re back inside.
Brax carries me down into the depths of the building, his steps brisk. Angry.
He takes me to a room, and I belatedly realize there’s a large bed by one wall.
I don’t struggle, mostly because my body feels numb with cold. But he takes me into an adjacent bathroom and sets me down, keeping hold of me by my wet, half frozen hair.
‘What the hell were you thinking?’ he suddenly bursts out.
I can’t reply. My teeth are chattering hard and my body is wracked with shivers.
He curses under his breath and turns the shower on, feeling it with his hand until it gets to the temperature he wants it to be.
I’m thrust under the water, and I scream, trying to scramble out of it, but his grip is strong, and he doesn’t let me.
‘It burns!’
‘I know!’ he bellows then lets out a sigh. ‘But it’s only lukewarm, little rabbit. It isn’t hot enough to burn. It just feels that way. Give it a minute and you’ll see.’
His tone is gentler than I’ve heard it since I met him and I try to do as he says, whimpering as the water warms my fingers and toes quickly, making them hurt.
‘It’s too cold out there for humans,’ he murmurs. ‘Much too cold.’
I nod.
‘You aren’t allowed to kill yourself,’ he says almost too low for me to hear. ‘I won’t allow it. Neither will Tor.’
‘I w-wasn’t t-trying,’ I stutter through my shuddering jaw. ‘I d-didn’t know we w-were ssss-so high. W-what is th-this p-p-p-place?’
‘An old dam,’ he grates out. ‘It’s one of a few we keep functioning for power. Electric and otherwise.’
He turns the water temperature higher as I stop trembling, and I wince as my skin begins to burn a little again. But he seems to know what to do, and his changes are very gradual until the water is steaming, and my body feels warm again.
‘You’ve done this b-before?’ I ask.
He snorts. ‘You aren’t the first human who hasn’t understood how cold it can get up here. Feeling warmer?’
I nod. ‘Yes.’
He shuts off the water and I find myself wrapped in a fluffy towel.
He rubs me dry, even getting something out from under the sink that blows hot air.
He dries my hair with it while I watch him, and when he turns it off, I find I’m a little ashamed that I tried to leave the building when he warned me not to.
‘Thank you. For catching me.’ My eyes flick up to his and then down again. ‘I’m sorry I tried to leave.’
‘You aren’t yet, little rabbit, but you will be.’ He huffs out a breath. ‘But not right now.’
His eyes gleam dangerously, and he plucks the towel from my body.
‘To the winner go the spoils,’ he murmurs almost to himself.
And then he turns me, bending me over the sink, using the towel to wipe the mirror so that I can see myself and him behind me.
He takes me by my still damp hair, kicks my legs apart, and before I realize what he’s doing, he’s thrusting into me roughly.
I grasp at the counter with a squeal as he stretches me. It hurts, but there’s something else too, a satisfaction, a need. I’m ready for him and he knows it.
He grunts as he thrusts, pushing himself deeper and gripping my hip hard with his other hand.
‘So wet already,’ he growls, leaning forward and nipping where my shoulder meets my neck.
The pace he sets is punishing, slamming into me, relishing my cries.
The discomfort quickly turns to something else, a coiling low in my belly, a fire that he seems to stoke almost effortlessly.
He takes me so hard that only the tips of my toes are on the floor.
I’m gasping and mewling, making sounds I don’t even recognize.
He changes the angle of his thrusts, and I squeal suddenly and loudly as the feeling of him inside me intensifies, hitting a spot that makes my legs feel weak.
‘Please,’ I hear myself begging.
‘You want more, little rabbit?’
I nod, my eyes meeting his in the mirror and his satisfied smirk makes me spread myself wider for him, putting one knee up on the counter.
He snarls low, his hand leaving my hip to snake around to my mound. He plays with my clit, making me close my eyes on a moan as he pinches it. He’s not gentle, but I don’t want him to be.
My hips buck as he sends me over the edge, my hands curling into fists and my body locking up as pleasure overwhelms my senses.
I feel my body going limp with it, but he holds me up, giving a final thrust and throwing back his head with a roar as he comes inside me.
The aftermath is all floaty and weird. He holds me up, trapped between him and the sink, breathing hard. He kisses my shoulder and gives a gentle sigh that wafts against my skin before he frowns at himself and draws back, slipping out of me.
Without his strength, I sink to the floor, my legs unable to hold me, his seed leaking out of me.
On the floor of the bathroom, he stands over me, his fathomless eyes moving over me slowly as if he’s trying to work something out.
He leans down and gathers me up, taking me out of the steamy bathroom. Now, he lays me on the bed, and I realize belatedly that Tor is lounging on it.
‘Have fun?’ he asks, looking amused.
Brax merely grunts, and I close my eyes.
‘Sleep for a bit. We aren’t done, you know,’ Tor murmurs. ‘Nowhere near.’
I should be worried, but I’m too boneless, sated, exhausted.
Mari looks smaller on this massive bed, especially when she curls up, hugging herself in sleep.
‘Where did you find her?’ I ask Brax, noting the bruise on her ankle and frowning a little.
‘Platform 10-RPD,’ he replies as he sits in the nearby chair.
I cock a brow. ‘I thought the doors to the dam face would be too heavy for her to move.’
He lets out a derisive sound. ‘It was, but she managed to open it just enough to slip through. Silly girl had no idea she wasn’t on the ground. Went tearing out into the snow and fell over the railing. Lucky I caught her before she was dinner for one of those giant fish down there.’
I glance at him, not liking how close she’d been to killing herself. ‘She can’t swim either.’
‘Fuck’s sake,’ he snarls more vehemently than is warranted. ‘How do these dumb creatures even survive?’
But I see something else when he glances down at the sleeping girl. He likes her, I realize. He doesn’t want to, but he does. She’s getting under his skin like she got under mine.
It makes me feel a little better about this whole thing.