The Darkness
The human host was weak and malleable. Easily manipulated.
All of the humans I’d encountered were utterly pathetic.
Once the exiled ones had given me this one’s name and a little history, it had been easy enough to infiltrate his mind. To convince him that his father would betray him. Easy to convince him to find the old spells and open a door large enough for me to escape through.
Easy to convince him to chain his brother up, rather than kill him.
Fury rose in me, an unfamiliar emotion. We could not kill him yet.
The host’s boots clicked against the floor of the icy fortress, the wind chilling his overheated skin. The transition had been excruciating, this weak human body languishing for days in illness and fever.
But I had been prepared for it.
Why aren’t we killing him, again?
I hid my contempt behind the walls I had begun erecting in the host’s mind. Slowly, I would take over, infecting every part of him until only I remained. But if I moved too quickly, he might panic. Might try to destroy us.
I could not let that happen.
PATIENCE. HIS MATE HAS SOMETHING I NEED.
The host scoffed, his mind so easy to read. He had won. Would take over the world. Nothing could stop him now, especially not his brother’s whore. His mate is shattered at the bottom of the Rift.
She was not. There was no bottom. No ending.
Only beginnings.
The host’s puny mind was too human to understand.
PATIENCE, I repeated.
Chains rattled, and the host stopped before a dark stone cell.
A man was chained to the wall, his body bare but for the burns and gashes, still oozing blood, that covered his back and arms. I’d half expected him to die and ruin all of my plans.
But again, I was prepared for that.
“You should drink,” the host said, nudging the tray of food and water through the bars with the toe of his boot. “Can’t have my big brother dying, now, can we? My dragon still needs you.”
My dragon. I chafed at the words. I was no mere dragon, and belonged to no one. Soon enough, I would do away with everything that made this host think otherwise.
But I hid the thought, letting the host control our face and body.
For now.
The man looked up, his eyes slitted to silver flames.
“Where. Is. My. Wife?”