Chapter 47
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KATALENA
Sirrus was already gone and they were taking Zovai. “Stop.” I clawed at his hands, trying to pull him back, but I wasn’t strong enough.
Zovai squeezed my hand and turned his eyes to his beast, letting the gold shine through. I felt what he was telling me without words. He’d first laid eyes on me just like this, and he would never regret it.
I couldn’t let it happen. Arms circled me before I lunged for him. Endre. He turned me and looked at me, so different from the male who’d entered my cell that night. I’m sorry. Even the words in my mind were a whisper.
“I can’t.” My fingers dug into his shirt even as the soldiers tried to pull him away from me. I held on. I would keep hanging on until I couldn’t anymore. “I can’t let them take you.”
Endre’s mouth slammed down on mine. How he held the others back, I didn’t know. But I was in his arms, and this kiss could have set the world on fire. I would have done it had I known how.
You are mine, Lena. And we have always been yours.
“Please,” I begged. “What do I do?”
Stay alive. Then, softer. We do what we can.
They tore him out of my hands, the fabric of his shirt ripping. Pain cracked through my chest and I didn’t know if it was mine or theirs. It didn’t matter. Sirrus’s limp body was on the back of a drayg, and Zovai, too, was slung like cargo.
Endre didn’t look away from me. I couldn’t say the words. Didn’t want Andaros to hear them, so I pushed my love through our connection. This was not the end. It wouldn’t be the end. They’d been through too much, and we hadn’t had enough time.
I love you.
My sob burst through as they covered his face with that fucking cloth, and my mate went boneless, the connection between us fading to nothing but gray.
Andaros laughed. A full sound that echoed over the circlet. He strode toward me, smug hatred in his gaze. “When they told me you were alive, I had hoped to find you. Rescue you. Imagine my surprise. You wouldn’t take me to your bed even though we were to be wed, but you spread your legs for three beasts.”
I fought the hands that grabbed my arms, using every move I knew, but there were too many and I was too broken, my world awash with tears.
They had me on my knees.
Crouching in front of me, Andaros tilted my chin up. “You might be able to earn my forgiveness. We’ll see.”
I spat, enjoying the rush of rage when it hit his eye. Pain followed, the back of his hand striking my jaw. My bound hands couldn’t protect me. I fell the rest of the way to the ground, my head cracking on the stone. I could still feel Varí clinging to me.
Stay safe, I begged. Please.
He knelt and stared at me for a long moment. “Always full of surprises.”
The cloth covered my face, and the world turned to black.
The light hurt.
Everything hurt.
My head throbbed as I wrenched my eyes open and tried to get my bearings.
Dizziness flooded through me, and my vision wouldn’t seem to clear. This didn’t make sense. Water was all around me. Water flowing all toward?—
Oh.
“Good. I wanted you to be awake for this.” Andaros’s voice was the last one I wanted to hear.
I didn’t turn, still trying to get my bearings and make sure I didn’t get sick. My hands were bound in front of me now, and I was on a stone in the middle of what looked like a rushing river, but everywhere. Rocks climbed around us like hills to a dawning grey sky.
But it wasn’t a river. Because there was a gaping drop nearby, surrounded by water on every side.
This was Evrítha. The center of the world. Where every river met and dropped into infinity. Something was down there, but no one who’d gone looking had ever come back. The stories said one of the Fallen crashed here so hard and so deep it broke through the bottom of our world and plunged into the next one.
Now I knew better.
Slowly, I looked around.
Andaros crouched by a small fire, dousing it. No one else was in sight. “Where are they?”
“On their way back to Caelora. I’ll catch up with them after I’m finished here.”
Dry as my mouth was, I didn’t turn away from him again. “Why are we here?”
He stood once there was nothing but ash before him. “You know, I would have taken you back. No matter if you’d fucked them or not. I’m not the monster you think I am, Katalena. I would have been good to you. And I had every plan to bring you home and make you my queen.”
I shuddered. “What changed your mind?”
“Those marks. The Elder dragons told me what you’ve done. And I can’t have you so close to your… mates.” He made the word sound like it sickened him. “And do what needs to be done. But them broken because of you? That’s perfect.”
He grabbed me by my hands and pulled me into the water. It was only knee high, but it dragged on my skirt, pulling on me. Panic rose. Oh, stars. “I can disappear,” I told him. “You’ll never see me again. It will be like I never existed.”
Saying nothing, he pulled me all the way to the edge of the gaping maw, water rushing faster and pulling me toward the precipice. Nothing was visible but inky darkness, nothing to be heard but all the rivers in the world.
Finally, he smiled. Every bit of hope I had drained out of me. “Like I said, Katalena. It’s a little late for that. But since you were supposed to die on our wedding day anyway, according to the dragons, I suppose it’s fitting that I’m the one to kill you.”
Opening my mouth, I closed it again. I would not beg him for my life. He’d already made up his mind, and if this was to be my end, I wouldn’t allow him to torture my mates with what I said or the tears I shed.
Instead, I looked at him with every bit of strength I could and showed him that though he might be the one to kill me, he would never be the one to break me.
He saw.
His face contorted into rage.
“Goodbye, Lena.”
One movement of his arms dragged me to the edge. His boot against my back kicked me over, and I was once again in that glorious feeling of free fall.
This time, they couldn’t be my wings.
I managed to turn and look upward toward the fading light and see him standing at the edge, smiling in victory.
Fear overcame me, and I closed my eyes. I didn’t scream. I didn’t weep. I didn’t try to fight.
I thought about them and only them as I fell into the center of the world.
To be continued…
The next chapter in Dragons of Viria will be coming soon!