Chapter 34
Ravi woke to the sounds of screaming. He was only partially grateful they weren’t his own screams. The sounds were sharp and shrill, wrung out from great pain. They seemed to echo and bounce off stone, coming from both men and women.
They didn’t sound familiar at all, which was a small consolation. His clanmates weren’t the ones screaming in pain and terror.
One person’s cries were cut off sharply, and a chill skittered down Ravi’s spine. He knew, without anyone needing to tell him, that the person had died. Another person who had been screaming let out a whimper and then fell silent, too.
Slowly, Ravi peeled open one eye and then shut it again as pain lanced through his brain. The room he was in was dark, but it didn’t stop the throbbing that was hammering against his skull.
What?
Where was he?
How?
Charles Bridge. Thomas Jaeggi. A trap.
Ravi’s eyes popped open as the memories poured into his brain like a raging river rushing through a narrow gulley. There was no escaping it. He and Sahan had followed Thomas Jaeggi to the Charles Bridge, where they’d walked straight into a trap.
Had Sahan escaped? Reached Burkhard Castle safely?
Ravi clenched his teeth against the rising feeling of panic. Sahan was incredibly fast. He’d escaped the Jaeggi and he was telling Ravi’s family what had happened. Alric knew.
Oh god. Sora knew.
His mate knew the Jaeggi had attacked him.
That was what had pulled him back toward consciousness. Not the screaming. He could feel his mate’s pain in his chest like a gaping wound. Sora was in pain and terrified that Ravi was dead.
Closing his eyes again, Ravi concentrated on the ball of angry emotion, trying so damn hard to follow it back to its source. He focused on his love for Sora, trying to send back feelings of reassurance and love. Trying like hell to tell Sora that he was alive, at least for now.
Some of the pain dissipated, and Ravi could breathe a little easier. He could only assume that Sora had felt him, knew he was still alive. Now they just had to figure out where the hell he was.
Ravi wasn’t about to wait around for others to find him. He needed to get to them. Ravi looked down to find he was completely naked in the small concrete room.
And, holy shit, he needed some fucking clothes!
Looking up, he discovered his wrists were bound in iron manacles chained to the ceiling.
The chain was just long enough that he could balance on the balls of feet, but he couldn’t stand flatfooted.
What the hell! He’d better not be in some creepy Jaeggi sex dungeon because he was not down for that kind of nonsense. He had a mate now, dammit!
Trying to move his aching head as little as possible, Ravi carefully spun in place to get a better view of his surroundings.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see.
Bare concrete walls painted white. The same white paint was on the floor, which slanted slightly to one side where there was a small drain in the corner.
Yes, that had to make it so much easier to wash blood off the walls and floor—it could all flow straight into the drain.
Dragging his gaze away from the ominous drain, he looked over at the large metal door, which had a small opening near the top. There wasn’t much to see through the opening except for more concrete walls. Those didn’t look painted, though.
His dragon stirred, but rather than expressing outrage and anger, it whined and sounded pained. Yes! He’d shift. Ravi called on his dragon, and it pushed once before both he and his dragon shouted in pain. It was like he’d jammed his big toe in an electrical socket.
No shifting. Shifting was bad, painful, evil. The damn Jaeggi must have placed some kind of spell on the manacles to keep him from shifting.
Ravi took a deep breath, intending to soothe the poor creature, when he realized that the air smelled stale. As if there was no airflow.
As if there was no wind. No breeze.
Because he was fucking underground.
Oh no. No. No. Nonononono.
A wind dragon couldn’t be stuck underground, away from the touch of the wind. It was the source of his strength and power. It was a part of his very essence.
Panic slammed into him hard, and he struggled to breathe. He needed to get out of here, now.
Here Ravi was, strung up like a pig for slaughter, his wrists in magical cuffs that bit into his skin, keeping his arms well above his head.
The cuffs were looped around a pole stretching the length of the room and kept him on his feet.
There was no room for his knees to bend without his shoulders taking the brunt of his weight, and not much room to maneuver.
He was in danger of losing circulation to his arms if this kept up much longer.
Ravi flexed every minute or so, sometimes lifting up with his arms, trying to keep them from falling asleep.
And, clearly, things were going to get much worse. Shuffling footsteps echoed down the concrete hall, and Thomas’s ugly mug appeared in the little window just before a metal key was jammed in the lock.
The door opened and Ravi was facing two buffoons with their lecherous smiles. While naked.
Like, really naked. Not even shoes.
And the cement floor was cold, dammit.
Ravi wasn’t normally body shy, but he’d prefer pants in this situation. Was it too much to ask for pants?
“He’s beautiful,” the unknown Jaeggi mage (henceforth known as Jerk Face) noted to Thomas. The leer on his face was particularly disgusting. Like he owned Ravi, somehow. “Why are the dragons always so beautiful?”
“It was part of our ancestors’ downfall, that beauty. But I don’t blame you for enjoying it. He’ll be yours, after all.” Thomas sneered at Ravi as if he were to be blamed for the war.
Ravi sneered back. “That was all you, man. All your family’s fault. If you can’t take no for an answer, that’s totally on your own heads.”
“Kaiser Jaeggi was seduced beyond reason,” Thomas snapped back, his face turning red with anger.
“Have you ever noticed how the abuser always points fingers at someone else? It’s never their fault.
They’re never the issue. They always blame someone else when they get out of control.
” Ravi glared back. Five hundred years might have made this old history, but the pain of the losses he’d suffered was still there.
It would always, at some level, be there.
And arguing with these idiots did no good, he knew that. But Ravi couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“And your ancestors’ way of dealing with heartbreak was to kill millions of innocent people, so excuse me if I’m not really interested in showing sympathy!”
Thomas looked ready to belt him in the mouth for that, but he restrained himself with obvious effort, his fists clenching at his sides. “Well. It’s all water under the bridge at this point, isn’t it? I do think it’s poetic justice, however.”
Ravi eyed the other mage suspiciously. Why did the man smell like that?
Jaeggi mages always smelled weird, their magic fractured.
But this man had the smell of good magic wrapped around him.
Well, good in the sense that it smelled like normal magic, but it had overtones of something malignant.
If that made sense. His dragon did not like the smell of it.
And Ravi didn’t like where this was going.
“I don’t know about poetic justice or whatever, but I have this burning question that really needs an answer. Why am I naked?”
Thomas ignored his perfectly valid question, going off on a maniacal sort of rant. “Poetic justice, dragon, because for once the tables will be turned. Instead of a dragon using mages, a mage will be able to use you.”
Now that, Ravi couldn’t let stand.
“Excuse you very much, dragons use mages? The hell! Do you know how precious our mages are to us? The amount of trouble and pain we’ll suffer to safeguard them?
You’re seriously unhinged if you think I’d ever use a mage for my own ends!
And what the hell do you mean, you’re going to use me?
I have no magic to give you, and I gotta tell you, hostages never pan out well. For any side.”
Jerk Face tsked at him. And, for some reason, started undoing his pants. “You do have magic, dragon. Of your own sort.”
“Uh, last I checked, I really did not. I mean, I can let people borrow dragon’s breath, that’s about it.
” Ravi eyed him warily as the man undid his zipper.
“Okay, I was going to let this slide. Because I know you Jaeggi are weird and don’t get out much, I figured maybe I would let this go.
But I find I really can’t. Why the hell are you pulling your dick out in the middle of a conversation? ”
Jerk Face kept his hand around his own dick and started stroking. “We told you, we will use you for our own ends.”
Ravi wasn’t the type to be slow on the uptake. Usually. But in this case, he was really hoping he was wrong.
“Use me as in rape me? Dude. Are you stupid? Like, literally, having sex with me will do absolutely nothing for your magic mojo. You understand that, right? Or has it been so long since you’ve been around dragons you’ve literally forgotten how this works?”
With a chiding tsk, Thomas corrected, “Not have sex with you. Well, that too. Which I’m sure Moritz will enjoy thoroughly.”
Moritz grinned lecherously. Considering he was well into his sixties, with a craggy face and a bulldog nose, the expression looked really creepy. And wrong on so many levels that it sent goose bumps racing up and down Ravi’s skin.
You know what? Ravi didn’t care that he’d learned the man’s name. He’d remain Jerk Face.
“He’ll bond with you,” Thomas continued calmly. Like they were discussing something banal—the weather, more news at five. Nothing interesting here, folks.
Ravi stared at them, eyes wide, a man waiting for the punchline to a very bad joke.
It didn’t come.
His mouth worked, and eventually he croaked out, “Excuse you?”
“He’ll bond with you,” Thomas repeated, amused at his reaction.