Chapter 1 #2
They had all been waiting for the match to end so that they could take their turns in the ring, but this current display captured their attention.
Everyone nodded in response to the question posed to Nayden.
Even Kerstin, still breathing heavily with exertion, now sitting up on the ground where I had kicked her down.
She patted her nose as though verifying that it was still there on her face, and then she sent me an audacious wink that seemed to say: You got me good.
Nayden glanced around wildly, his normally copper-hued skin burning bright red, almost the exact shade of his hair—a reddishgold not so very unlike my own hair.
Clearly the lack of support from the rest of the pride embarrassed him.
“It is not fair,” he cried, sounding very much like a lad of fifteen then.
Perhaps he was even younger. I was not certain.
There were twenty-nine members of the pride, but I had not committed their full biographies to memory.
“Why can we not use our talents? Should we not use everything available to us? All our abilities in a fight?”
“You should understand this by now.” Vetr’s frosty gaze took in the assembled group. “All of us should understand. We must know how to fight in our human form. We cannot always reveal our dragon.”
Vetr straightened. His big body, naked from the waist up due to his earlier sparring in the ring, rotated in a small circle so that he could meet everyone’s eyes.
He was an imposing figure. Like Fell, he was well over six feet with broad shoulders and a thickly muscled body.
A warrior’s body, I would have thought before.
I had thought before—of Fell, the first time I saw him.
Now I realized my mistake. Fell’s body—Vetr’s body—was a dragon’s body, camouflaged in the skin of a human.
We spent most of our days walking about as humans. That was our natural baseline, our starting point, the way we were born, but the dragon was always there, even when not visible. Swimming beneath the surface, a viper beneath the water, ready to emerge when summoned.
Everyone nodded and murmured their understanding of Vetr’s words … of his authority. Except for Nayden.
“Why are you not angry at her? She can’t even control her blood yet.
Is that not equally important? Doesn’t remaining in our human form also mean never revealing our dragon blood?
Isn’t that what you taught us?” Nayden pointed to the damning evidence of the purple blood I’d spit out in the arena.
I knew I’d be scolded for that mistake, but I had not imagined it would be by this brat.
I swallowed miserably. As much as I wanted to punch Nayden in the throat for flinging my weakness, my failure, in my face—in Vetr’s face—he was not wrong.
No matter how hard I tried, the art of bytte, controlling one’s blood and keeping it red when in human form, was a struggle for me.
Everyone else had mastered it because they had complete control over themselves, over their dragon.
I’d come far, but this I still struggled to learn. As with many things.
“Until she can learn to do that, she’s useless!” Nayden got to his feet, his fiery eyes flashing in defiance. He crossed over to me and spat at my feet, narrowly missing the toe of my boot.
It was the wrong thing to do.
With a snarl, Vetr seized him by the neck and flung him through the air to the far edge of the ring. Nayden cried out as he landed and rolled directly into the border of rocks.
“Come now, Nay,” Kerstin called out in a chiding voice. “You’re just sore because you couldn’t best her without resorting to fire.” She shrugged. “Lucky for you, she didn’t do the same and use her fire on you.”
“I’m not scared of her!” Nayden’s eyes sparked with such hatred as he looked at me. He clambered to his feet and took a step, a wince crossing his face. Clearly Vetr’s treatment had not left him unscathed.
Vetr took a menacing step toward Nayden. “No? How about me? Are you scared of me, pup?”
Nayden flinched and shrank back, and that was answer enough. He was no match for Vetr and he knew it. We all knew it. His defiance only went so far. He would not take on the alpha.
“She’s not like the rest of us,” Nayden complained, his voice smaller now.
Clearly he thought he might yet sway Vetr.
“She grew up with them.” He tossed a wild hand in the direction of the large opening that led from the training arena, indicating that other world, the world beyond, outside the pride, outside the Crags …
the world of humans to the south. My former home. Penterra.
Again, he wasn’t wrong. I did grow up there. In my memories, it was still home. A place that once felt so right and natural, with family and friends … with Stig. I pushed the memory of him away, shoved it down deep. He was another thing lost to me that I would not dwell upon anymore.
“She is one of us now.” Tension feathered Vetr’s cheek.
I started at that. She is one of us now.
Could he mean that? I’d been working toward that goal since I’d found myself here, desperately attempting to carve out a place for myself among them.
“Heed me,” Vetr continued, and then sent everyone a threatening look.
“She needs us as much as we need her. We all need each other. I’ll not stand for division among us.
We already have enough opposition out there, those that would seek our downfall.
” He gestured with a wave, indicating the world outside their cave.
She needs us as much as we need her.
Not since my arrival had I heard anyone here say I was needed. Everyone generally treated me with a cool reserve (at best) or with narrow-eyed contempt (more often).
I’d been surviving but not thriving. Try as I might, building a life here was not an easy thing. Most days, I felt like I was dying inside, a fish out of water, gasping, my body struggling and shuddering to live. Dying and no one cared. Because there was no one to care.
Nayden compressed his lips into a mutinous line, as though not trusting himself to speak further.
“Go,” Vetr said, sounding suddenly tired. He motioned in the direction of the tunnel leading out of the arena. “Wait for me in the command den. I will decide a suitable punishment for you.”
Nayden turned, but not before shooting a glare full of hot reproach at me. Great. I inhaled, the smell of fire still smoking on the air, filling my nostrils.
With a sigh, I regained my feet, dusting off my hands on my trousers. I swallowed, inhaled, exhaled, and swiped at the loose strands falling in my face that had escaped from my unraveling braid.
My fingers grazed my forehead. Sweat beaded there despite the frigid air of the cave.
I was still hot, burning up, overheated from the exertion and my brush with danger.
The fire simmered inside me. I’d followed instructions and held it at bay during the fight …
but it prowled under my skin, eager to blast free and escape.
Vetr glanced at me, and his expression changed then, darkening at whatever it was he saw in me.
He strode across the fighting ring, stopping before me.
He regarded me for a long moment, silvery eyes looking me up and down in assessment.
Yes, they were Fell’s eyes. And yet not.
Fell’s eyes had been warmer. Not this icy spider’s web.
“Are you injured?” he demanded.
“N-no.” Hating the tremulous sound of my voice, I tried again, and the word came out stronger. “No.”
I held his gaze, regarding him back. Never look away. Never flinch. Never show fear … as with any predator.
It was fine to feel fear, but never fine to reveal it. And they were all predators. Every one of them.
Including me.
Clearly dissatisfied, he reached for me, cool fingers landing on my chin, tilting my face up, and I fought to hold my ground, to be braver than I truly was. He made a low sound of disapproval as he examined me, but I maintained my composure.
That was what I did. Pretended to be brave so that I might gain acceptance. Fake it and not fall apart. Forced to live among strangers, relying on them for everything, I could do nothing else.
I never let on how much losing Fell broke me, because broken things were …
well, broken. Never appreciated. Never valued.
Never respected. Broken things were discarded, tossed out like scraps, and despite everything, I was determined to survive here.
Fell would have wanted that. He would not have risked so much for me if that weren’t true.
Vetr touched the flyaway strands of hair framing the right side of my face—or rather, where flyaway strands once fluttered around my cheek. Before Nayden incinerated them.
Now he just brushed the short tufts that remained. Frowning, I reached up, exploring for myself, narrowly avoiding bumping fingers with Vetr.
He rubbed those burnt remnants between his fingertips, the rough, scratching sound right beside my ear. Then his touch shifted, his thumb gliding down, stroking the side of my temple in a soft caress. I winced slightly, realizing the skin there was scorched raw. For no other reason did I react.
Vetr pulled back, revealing a smear of black ash on his thumb.
“He burned you.” Vetr shot a glare in the direction Nayden had fled, a growl rising up. His eyes shuddered for a split second, the pupils thinning to vertical slits. It was fortunate for Nayden that he’d already gone. I had no doubt that Vetr would have turned his wrath on him again in that moment.
The possible punishments Vetr could impose upon Nayden quickly escalated in my mind, which was not something I wanted.
It would not improve my relationship with the youth.
He was a fire-breather, too. The only other one in the pride.
We should get along. Inevitably, in times of conflict, we would have to work in concert.
I stepped back, removing myself from Vetr’s touch. “It’s not bad. I will heal. By tomorrow, I will be back to normal,” I hastily reminded him, not wanting to make any more out of this than necessary, specifically Nayden’s role in it.
I already stood out for all the obvious reasons. I did not need the alpha of the pride making a fuss over me—over what amounted to an insignificant injury—and burning a path of retribution on my behalf.
I held Vetr’s icy gaze, willing him to accept that I was fine.
At last, he relented with a single, hard nod. I exhaled, glad for him to let the matter go. It wasn’t as though I’d never been hurt before. Quite a bit of my blood had wet the dirt floor of this arena.
Everyone else appeared to relax as well.
“Enough for the day,” Vetr proclaimed. He swept another look around the arena before returning his frosty eyes to me. Following a long, unreadable look, he turned and strode away, presumably to deal with Nayden.
Alone with the others, I felt the full weight of their resentful gazes.
I inhaled and curled my fingers inward, stroking the inside of my hand, searching for the familiar comfort there, the sense that I was not alone, the sense that I was connected to someone, even if it wasn’t real.