Chapter 7
Seven
Morgan
I’m coming apart at the seams. My skin is too tight and threatening to split with the pressure building inside of me.
The tall, dark, dragon riding gilded parasite with the pretty eyes smirks at the tall, golden, dragon riding gilded parasite with the cold dead eyes.
It’s clear they’re related because the size of their egos match.
Or maybe the golden one is a little bit larger of a gilded parasite because he’s the one who tried to gut me like a fish.
My neck twinges and if I focus on the pain for too long, it grows, and so does my panic.
There is no way out of this. If I make a break for the mouth of the cave, they’ll finish the job. They are both tall and imposing. Their long legs will carry them much faster than me. And if those two weren’t enough, their guards are another wall to surmount.
I’m not strong enough to do it.
One of the children hiccups over a sob and I tear in two as seamlessly as my letter from DragonSpear. It was stupid to keep it with me and give them fodder to use against me.
Another mistake.
Besides, running means abandoning my people, the same people my mother used her dying wish to urge me to protect.
“Cousin, see reason,” the dark one says. “I’m serious.”
He pins me in place, subduing me with minimal effort while I’m panting like a wild boar chased through the underbrush by hunters.
I got in one hit, one bloody hit where I heard his teeth click together and he reared back, but I got grated palms and humiliation for my efforts when he pulled me to him on my belly.
He’s strong.
If his performance earlier hadn’t given away his skills, the way he handled me today did. There’s no mistaking the challenge in his jutted chin. Or the expertise backing him up.
“What reason?” The blond one laughs and shrugs his massive shoulders up to his ears. “You’re trying to save her because you want to bed her. It’s as clear as day. You’ve never taken a war prize before. It makes sense you’d want one who challenges you.”
The dark one bristles. “As delightful a picture as you paint, I have a different scene in mind.”
“One where she no doubt ends up on her knees.”
The dark one’s fingers tighten around me, and I clamp down to stop from crying out. I’ll not go anywhere willingly.
His attention is fractured. He’s staring down his cousin with his features carefully wiped clean of any depth, then glancing at me, taking my measure. Figuring me out. I glare at him and slick my tongue against my lips. An experiment. A stupid one.
He tracks the movement and then looks away, a mottled flush creeping to the top of his collar.
“You’ll have to forgive my cousin, darling,” the blond man drawls. “It’s been so long since he’s felt a woman, he doesn’t know what to do anymore. If you want someone with true skill, then you’ll have better luck with me.”
“If by luck you mean I’ll have a chance to rip your intestines out through your navel, then yes. Please,” I say sweetly.
One of the children sobs, the sound muffled, no doubt by a well-meaning elder. The last thing we need is another eruption from the soldiers. They’re practically itching for a reason to hurt us.
The blond’s jaw twitches, hiding his sneer.
“I’d give you the opportunity to try.” He flashes me a lecherous smile I feel in my bones.
The invisible noose around my neck tightens.
“It’s a miracle you’ve managed to do so well in your career, with your attention fixed on women.” The dark-haired man’s voice is even.
He vibrates, though, restraining himself, forcing his body into stillness.
“Is there anything better?”
The blond leers at me, and I clamp down on the cold feeling in my chest. I need to hold on a little bit longer.
For another moment, no one speaks. The sunlight casts long shadows across the cave floor and the walls echo with the sounds of crying. Soldiers freeze in their lines, their weapons leveled at my ragtag group of survivors. They wait for the single word to crank their keys and spur them into action.
The dark-haired man hums low in his body, and I turn at the noise. He’s staring at his cousin with an expression cold enough to freeze a bonfire.
He’s a mess of dichotomies, warring emotions and expression. At turns he’s unfeeling and stern. He’s the black cloud of destruction scalding a path across a killing field.
Then there are times where he looks at me and a bit of the mask slips. The glimpse of the man beyond it intrigues me in ways he shouldn’t, because there is tenderness in his attention.
I’m imagining things.
I’m wound tight enough to break like a mandolin string.
“You’re wasting time, Tristan. This one needs to pay for her insolence. Doesn’t she? DragonSpear will be the perfect place for her to meet punishment and free us up to do our duties to General Ryson.”
The name strikes something inside of me and catches.
The one on the dragon… the pale thing, with its glinting golden rider.
That’s the man they speak about, the one they serve, the one who killed my mother and sister.
My lips are chapped and peeled as I run my tongue along them again. Dirt cakes beneath my fingernails. Those things don’t matter if my body doesn’t belong to me. Neither does my future.
It’s being tossed like a ball between these two, one bright, one overcast, and I have no idea which one of them is the lesser of evils.
The dark one is unfeeling, and I absorb his tremble through the fingers wrapped around my upper arms.
His gaze is trapped on his cousin but the warning of danger lodges inside my chest. I cast a glance over his shoulder to the way the blond shifts from foot to foot, his shoulders still tense.
Something quiet and strained passes between them.
“Even you can’t find fault in my reasoning, Tristan.”
I hate the way the man speaks. I hate the way his skin smells up close, like blood and midnight and something spicy. I hate how my mind tries to put a name to the scent like I’m trying to figure him out rather than find a way to flee.
“I’m not sure what you’re exactly suggesting, Kieran, but I admit, I’m eager to hear it.” Blond splinter-wit cocks a hip and crumples one piece of my acceptance letter in his grimy paw. “You know I’m always open to new forms of punishment.”
Yeah, he looks the type.
He’s the sort of meathead, muscle-bound basilisk’s rear I’ve learned to steer clear of. There are a few of them in the village, the morons who walk around with a cocky swagger boasting about their prowess both on the field and off.
They tend to travel in packs, one of them standing out from the rest, and the others falling in line behind him.
This lecher has his chest on display, and I hate the little cape over his shoulders. He’d look even better strangled with it, or maybe even made to eat the material. He should choke.
I haven’t decided what kind of punishment I’d like the dark one to receive. It has to be worse than physical violence. He seems like the type to brace for it, absorb the impact, and smile when he asks for another hit.
Ether forbid I give him what he wants.
It will need to be something thoughtful, unexpected. Cutthroat.
“We send her to DragonSpear,” the dark one says, “but as a servant.”
Tristan catches his breath.
“That way, she can watch the life she gave up when she chose the wrong side.”
Kieran’s order clangs through me and I lose my sight. Black and white stars dance in front of my vision and for a moment, his face is clouded by the spots.
“You can’t!”
The wrong side? What is he talking—
“Your abuse tactics aren’t going to work.” I seethe, my body filled with emotion too sharp to pinpoint and too deep to shrug off. “You’re manipulative and abusive. I’m not going to DragonSpear. Not with you. Not with any of you.”
“Am I?”
He slides one hand down my arms and rests it at the base of my neck, squeezing my wrist tighter with the other. His entire body presses to mine, the pressure exacting but steady. He could strangle me or snap my neck with an angle change.
He wants me to know it.
“My cousin is right, you know. Pretty girls with too much fight do make the most interesting conquests. They break in such fascinating ways,” he says. “If you’d rather not go to DragonSpear, there’s always my offer of war prize.”
“You’ve already used that tactic on me.” I lean in closer.
He won’t do it.
“Let me assure you with certainty, if you try to force me, I will find a way to remove what makes you a man.”
I’ll do it with a smile on my face as well, to let him know I’m serious. Tears are there and pressing eagerly against the back of my eyes to escape. For some reason, there’s a block to it, which only makes the heavy throb in my skull worsen.
His eyes drop back to my lips, and the slight shattering of his cold features brands me.
I don’t belong to myself anymore. Not wholly.
The cave, which no more than thirty minutes earlier had been a sanctuary, is now a prison.
The children cry, hushed only by the frantic care of the farmers and elderly. I can’t look at them yet, unless I want attention in their direction. Everything I did, everything my mother died for, and we’re still here.
We’re still doomed.
Kieran smirks at me, which only angers me more. “I’d love to see you try. I never took you for the type who preferred an audience.”
“Do your worst,” I reply with an equally wide sneer. “Show me what kind of monster you really are.”
Not that I particularly want him to force himself on me. The thought clangs distantly through me without finding a place to land.
If the brunette and the blond changed positions, I know without a shadow of a doubt he’d do it. He’d take me in front of my people and his men and enjoy every moment of my humiliation.
But Kieran is different.
“I’m not the kind of man to prove his masculinity with toxic tactics,” he whispers.
“Coward. Horrible coward! You watched that dragon burn my people.”
“Yes, I did, and I’m about to watch the rest of them be shuttled off into slavery and you to DragonSpear. You’ll look great on the floor, scrubbing my toilet.”
“You’d love it, wouldn’t you?”
He shrugs. “I can’t say I’m averse, no.”