Chapter Fifteen #2
“Rumors?” An Eljaffna man stepped into my line of sight. “What rumors?”
“Oh, you thought your secret was safe?” I chuckled.
“As I rose to power in Kochan, I heard many whispers about the Eljaffna. One said that feeding an Eljaffna was akin to enslaving yourself.” I didn't look at Vas, but I saw him flinch.
He was listening, and that meant he was still in there, fighting Seina's hold on him.
“So, my mate fed you, and now, you think you own him.”
“Oh, I know I own him.” Seina narrowed her eyes at me. “I will feed from him again today and renew the bond. You can watch.” She tapped my nose.
Suddenly, Vas lurched forward, his lips pulling back in a snarl and his hands reaching for Seina.
Seina shrieked, but then shouted, “Stop, Vasren!”
Expression horrified, Vas stopped short—frozen like a statue.
“He shouldn't have been able to do that,” someone said.
“Go into that cell.” Seina pointed at the barred room.
Vasren walked into the cell, and an Eljaffna man shut the door behind him. The man locked it and slipped the key into his pocket. I noted the pocket.
Looking back at Seina, I said, “If you think iron bars will hold a mated Dragon, you're a greater fool than I thought.”
“Those are enchanted bars, human.” She grinned. “Nothing can get through them.”
“Uh-huh.” I let my expression go smug.
“Kat!” Vasren shouted.
I looked over at him. “Don't worry, Vas. It will be all right.”
Seina laughed again. “All right? Oh yes, we are going to make this all very right. You are going to pay for every murder you committed.”
“Execution.”
“What?”
“They were executions, not murders. Your brother was a murderer. I am not. I simply carried out justice that had been denied.”
She slapped me again.
A thunderous sound came from the cell.
All the Eljaffna turned to watch my mate slam himself against the bars. He was already half-shifted—claws tipping his fingers, bones sharpening his face, and teeth elongated. There wasn't enough room for him to shift fully, or that cage would have been nothing more than debris—enchanted or not.
“Stay away from him!” Vasren roared.
“How the fuck did he break your hold?” an Eljaffna woman asked Seina. “It's impossible.”
I didn't try to calm Vas this time. Frankly, I couldn't have planned a better distraction. While he went into a frenzy, I tuned everything out and focused on my bindings. There. I was free. I mean, really. Rope? It was insulting.
Now, to plot my path through the room. Yes, very good. So many ways to go. So many options. Truth be told, you couldn't plan every move in combat, but you could prepare several tactics and plot your best course around your battlefield. Just as in war.
With my tactics decided, I refocused on the conversation at hand.
“If you prove to be uncontrollable, Vasren, we shall have to kill you as well.” Seina made a moue of distaste. “Such a shame. I was looking forward to having a Dragon plaything. But I suppose you'll die anyway, after I kill your mate.”
Vasren's roar vibrated through the stone, and dust fell from the ceiling. The metal bars began to creak. Then bend.
The Eljaffna jumped back.
“Stop taunting him, Seina!” a man said. “He's not our target anyway. He's innocent.”
“No Dragon is innocent,” she snapped, but she also turned away from my lover.
Too late. Far too late to save herself.
By the time Seina faced me again, I had already killed two of her friends. I moved so quickly and so quietly that most of the Eljaffna. They just gaped at me as I tumbled and spun, a knife in one hand and a straight razor in the other.
Fools—the lot of them.
I may have been raised a farmer, but my home was in the countryside—in the heart of Rushao where our culture was kept alive.
Part of that culture was mu-tao, the ancient art of hand-to-hand combat.
I didn't even need weapons. I could have killed all of them with my bare hands. But blades sped up the process.
My body arched and dipped through maneuvers that were rooted deep in the mind of my muscles.
Flowing like water. Spinning like the wind.
Bending like a willow tree. The humans of Rushao had learned early that they were the weakest of the races, but they didn't accept that.
Instead, they watched. They learned. Nature itself taught them, whispering the techniques of true strength.
It doesn't matter what size you are. Anyone can become a warrior if they learn how to use their body to its greatest advantage.
If you don't have bulk, then you must resort to speed and flexibility.
An agile man can do things a large man cannot.
I started young, as all human Rushaoians do in the countryside.
But country parents are smart. They make training seem like chores or even play.
Tossing a ball with my father improved my coordination, carrying buckets of water for my mother taught me focus, and even harvesting vegetables increased my flexibility.
Every act was precise. I learned without knowing what I learned.
Until the day when I was old enough to understand.
By then, the movements had become second-nature.
I only had to implement them in new ways.
By the time I was an adult, I knew every mu-tao technique and could flow through them with barely a thought, leaving my mind free to focus on the fight.
As always, my body flowed through the movements I had chosen, but my mind was free to alter my path or technique as necessary.
No alterations were needed with the Eljaffna.
I took the course I had chosen, spinning from one target to the next so that by the time they started to react, I was already countering their blows.
Ducking, diverting, and diving. Not a single one of them touched me, not even Seina, whom I couldn't help but stop and taunt before I killed.
“You should have taken my offer.” I stabbed her eight times before she hit the ground.
When facing an immortal opponent, you need to be certain you inflict wounds they cannot heal. Or deliver a lot of them.
With Seina dead, I quickly counted the rest of the corpses, making sure that every Eljaffna who was in the basement with us was accounted for.
All of them were dead, lying in puddles of blood.
I didn't have to check. I knew my blows had been fatal, and the amount of blood on the floor confirmed it.
There was a type of justice in spilling so much Eljaffna blood.
Especially after I learned what they had done with my mate's blood.
“Kat?”
I spun toward the cell.
Vasren had shifted back to normal. No claws on his fingers and no fury in his eyes. Only fear. Fear and despair.
I froze, the weapons clenched in my hands.
He looked from the weapons to my face as his hands trembled. “Kat, let me out.”
I stared at him.
“Kat!”
“I am not Kat,” I said. “I'm the other side of Katai.” I bowed. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Hallaxgral.”
“You are neither Kat nor Hallaxgral. You're Katai. Now, let me out!”
I put the knife and razor back in their proper places on the table of torture implements and then went to the corpse of the man who held the key to Vasren's cell. I retrieved it from his pocket and then went to stand before the cell.
“What are you doing? Hurry up. We need to leave this place before the Talons arrive.”
“You will never accept all of me. You only love a little piece of me.”
“What?” he whispered.
“Look at you.” I shook my head. “I just saved our lives, but you aren't happy. You aren't even impressed. You're horrified. You're angry.”
“I'm neither of those things. I'm shocked, yes, but not angry. Katai, I'm glad you killed them. It was the only way to release me from her hold. Oh, fuck. Oh, great Gods! The King's mate is an Eljaffna. Do you know what this means?”
“For fuck's sake, Vas. Claw Shinkai is one of the most honorable men I've ever met, and yet you immediately count him as a traitor. This is why the Eljaffna have kept their talent a secret. Because the other races would kill them if they learned the truth. You cannot tell the King.”
“The fuck I can't! It's my duty to warn him. He could be under his mate's control even now.”
“You will start a war.”
“So be it. They're the ones who kept this from us.”
“With good reason. As I've just said.”
“How the fuck are you taking their side right now?”
“I'm not. I'm . . . nothing is simply right or wrong.
You've never been able to see that, have you?
That's why you need me to be Kat. Because you can't understand that I can be this and still be a good person.” I held out my arms. “If you had done what I just did, no one would think twice about it.
They certainly wouldn't look at you as you are looking at me.
They would nod and say, 'That's what happens when you threaten a Dragon and his mate.
' It would be just another cautionary tale about going against the greatest race on Serai,” I shoved sarcasm into the last few words, but Vas didn't seem to notice.
I made a huffing sound and said, “But because a human did this, it's terrifying.
I've just proven that we aren't as helpless as you all believe us to be.
How frightening! Especially for you. You can't stand the thought that your mate might be powerful in his own right.”
“Katai, you are stronger now because of me. It's my essence that gave you the strength to kill those people.”
I gaped at him. “Dear Gods, even now, you can't accept the fact that I'm a warrior, not your little plaything. Fuck!” I screamed. “I am so fucking tired of pretending to be weak for you! Why can't you appreciate my strength without it threatening yours?”
“I do appreciate it. I'm very impressed with what you did. It's amazing. That was mu-tao, wasn't it? I'm familiar with the fighting technique, Kat. I—”
“Katai!” I shouted. “My name is Katai, and I don't fucking need you to protect me!” I stormed toward the stairs.
“Katai! Where are you going? You can't leave me here like this!”
“I'll send someone back to release you.” I paused on the bottom step and looked at him over my shoulder. “But I can't let you out. You'll only follow me.”
His eyes went wide. “No! Katai, no! You'll kill me.”
“It's always about you,” I muttered. Louder, I said, “You and I both know that's just another of your lies, Vasren. You'll be just fine without me. You're so strong after all. And you never loved me anyway. You'll get over Kat.”
“No, I won't. Fuck! Love doesn't matter! The separation will kill me!”
“Love doesn't matter.” I hung my head as my hand clenched around the keys.
“Yes, you're right. Love doesn't matter.
Knowledge does, though. I may not know everything about Dragons and their mates, but I know that it's the death of a mate that kills a Dragon.
Not separation. I can walk away, and you'll be fine as long as I live.
You'll feel it inside you. You'll know I'm still alive.
You may be sad for a while, but you won't die.”
“Katai,” Vas whispered. “Please don't leave me. You promised you wouldn't.”
“I know. And I never break my word. But I'm going to make an exception this once. Because as much as I love you, it doesn't matter. You said so yourself, Vas. My love will never matter. It will never be enough for you. And so, you will never be enough for me. Goodbye, my soul's heart.”
I walked up the stairs to the sound of a Dragon roaring.