Chapter 28 #2
With a furious glint in his eyes, he lunges forward and rips the shirts from my arms and tosses them aside.
I gulp back a sob and try to slip past him, but he catches me around the waist and yanks me against him.
I struggle with my back against his chest. He holds me so tightly that my feet don’t touch the ground.
“Stop struggling,” he seethes into my ear.
I thrash from side to side and try to elbow him in the stomach.
“I said stop.” His growling, snarling voice fills my head. His Alpha’s roar, with its power not only to make me do what he says, but it makes me want to do what he says.
I go completely limp. His roar vibrates through my chest to the tips of my toes and fingers and gathers in my core. There’s a surge of wetness between my thighs. That’s been happening more and more lately. I didn’t know I could be this traumatized and this turned on at the same time.
He presses his brow to the side of my face, and I listen to him breathing. He makes no move to put me down. His hands hold me possessively.
“Why are you here?” he asks me. A delicious, musky aroma fills my nose and makes my heart pound. He’s close to a rut. So close that if it were the old days, he would have left for the ruthouse by now, but there are no longer any ruthouses in Maledin. He has nowhere to go.
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
“Why are you here?”
Gods, that growl of his. My head falls back against his shoulder with a moan of pleasure, and I have to take several breaths before I can speak again. “It doesn’t matter because I don’t matter to you. Just give me a shirt or a blanket to borrow for a few nights and leave me in peace.”
He snarls in frustration, and I can feel rather than see that his teeth are a fraction of an inch from my flesh.
Bite me. Bite me. But he does nothing because Stesha never does.
I reach up behind his head, seize a handful of his white hair at the nape of his neck, and tug sharply.
He snarls even louder and douses me in his rutting scent, making my head swim.
He turns toward the window while holding me securely with one arm and rips the hanging tapestry aside.
I’m assaulted by blinding sunlight. I cry out, raising a hand before my face. The light hurts.
Stesha covers my eyes with a large hand.
He holds me tight and rocks me as he whispers a prayer to the gods in a harsh whisper.
His panting breath is hot in my ear. His arms are a beautiful cage, and his scent and touch are overwhelming, but I’m angry, so angry with him and everyone else, and I’m confused as well.
I just want to be alone so I can sob into his dirty shirt and feel sorry for myself.
“Let me go.” I elbow him in the stomach. I sink my teeth into the side of his hand, but I might as well be fighting a mountain for all I seem to hurt him.
Stesha yanks off his cloak, swathes my head and body in it so I can’t see, and carries me out of the room.
I feel him striding down a corridor, and a moment later, I tumble onto a bed.
The cloak is still on top of me, and so is Stesha, squashing me against the mattress so that I can’t move an inch.
His body is heavy on mine, and I writhe in pleasure.
I need him to trap me. Crush me. Bruise me.
Bite me. I hear his panting breaths above me, and I wait for him to rip the cloak off so he can get his teeth into me.
But he gets up off the bed. I hear a door slam, and silence reigns. I sit up and see that I’m in my room, and I’m all alone.
Stesha left me with his cloak and doused me in his powerful, rutting scent.
I bundle his cloak up in my arm, press my face into it, and lie down, fuming angrily.
Stesha was giving thanks to the gods. For what?
All our misery? I want to punch his lip bloody and then slam my mouth over his.
He’s dumped me back in my room, and he won’t even give me the pleasure of fighting him, gods take the man.
Worse, by giving me his rut-scented cloak, he’s all but told me he doesn’t care if I get lavish sickness again. Tears stream down my face.
I should just die, and then he’d be happy.
Weeping, I gather up his cloak and some of my blankets and crawl under my bed, and sob in the dusty darkness. How can he be so cruel?
Sometime later, still sniffling, I open my eyes. There’s a dark line under my door, as if someone is sitting there with his back against the wood.
A few days later, it’s the final event of the Dragon Games. Stesha is in equal first with Zabriel, something that the dragonmaster must find absolutely infuriating.
Isavelle has tied her hair ribbons around the king’s arm for good luck, and many of the other riders are now sporting ribbons as well, though it is a human tradition rather than a Maledinni one.
Stesha’s bicep is bare. It’s the final event, and for some reason I’m overcome by affection and hope.
My emotions are all over the place lately.
I take the ribbons out of my hair, meaning to offer them to him.
As I watch him prepare with Nilak, I lose my nerve. He won’t want my hair ribbons. He doesn’t want anything from me, and he couldn’t give a damn about human traditions. I let the ribbons fall from my fingers and flutter away.
The final event is in two parts, the first involving all the dragons and riders who wish to compete. Stesha is not the kind of man to let Zabriel win just because he’s king. If Zabriel wants to best him, Stesha’s going to make him work for it.
And he does, though Kane is the surprising winner of the first part.
Kane chooses Stesha for the one-versus-one fight that will decide the games.
If Stesha beats Kane, then his accumulated points will mean that Stesha will be crowned the winner of the games.
No, when Stesha beats Kane. There’s no doubt in my mind who the better fighter is.
Unlike Zabriel, Stesha will guess that Kane will fight dirty and try to cheat, so he will be on his guard.
I pray that Stesha will be on his guard.
He and Kane will fight to first blood, but first blood can also mean life’s blood when your opponent is as vicious as Kane.
Only Kane vows to fight to the death, and Stesha accepts.
I cover my eyes and moan in horror. If Stesha loses…
But I don’t want to contemplate what will happen if Stesha loses.
And if he wins, Kane will be dead, and his mate will be Stesha’s to claim.
I open my eyes and hunt the crowd for Ravenna, wondering if she’s delighted by this news.
I spot her not far away clenching Stesha and Nilak’s colors in her anxious, no doubt hopeful, grip, and I feel sick.
Queen Isavelle somehow has my hair ribbons, and as Stesha kneels before her to pledge loyalty to the crown before the final fight, she ties them around his upper arm.
I watch, holding my breath, as he glares at the fluttering ribbons, wondering if he’s about to tear them away because they are a silly human custom, or because they are from me.
He gets to his feet, neither touching the ribbons nor seeking me in the crowd.
My heart is in my mouth as he and Kane take to the skies, both proud of the dragonmaster and afraid at the same time.
Everyone is cheering for the dragonmaster.
Nilak and Auryn are magnificent and terrible in the skies, all snarling mouths and glinting talons.
I didn’t think to worry about Nilak, for she has always seemed immortal to me, but it seems for a terrible moment that Auryn is about to rip Nilak open with his talons from breastbone to tail.
But Auryn changes his mind, or perhaps he misjudges the attack.
Either way, Nilak suddenly veers away with Auryn in pursuit. The dragons disappear from view.
There’s a rumble of consternation in the crowd, and the noise grows louder the longer that Stesha and Kane don’t return.
I wipe my sweaty brow with the back of my hand.
I can see Zabriel pacing back and forth, and he is angry and concerned for the dragonmaster.
I want to run to him and beg him to send riders after them.
People are penning me in on all sides, and just when I think I’m about to burst or faint or scream, someone calls out that they can see a dragon in the sky.
I shade my eyes with my hand and squint into the painfully bright sunlight. Everything is blurry and my head throbs. Before I can tell whether it’s Nilak, someone calls out that it’s Auryn.
Kane has emerged from the fight to the death, but Stesha has not.
My stomach rolls with nausea as I watch Kane dismount his dragon and approach the king. When I see that he’s covered in blood, my knees nearly give out. There’s no way that Kane bested Stesha in a fair fight. A scream is clawing at my throat.
He can’t be dead. He can’t be.
Just when I think I’ll go mad, there’s another shout.
Nilak is returning. I look up with a gasp and can just make out the white dragon in the skies, gleaming as bright as the sun and nearly as impossible to look at.
My eyes are streaming from the glare, but I can see Stesha dismount when she lands, and he’s carrying two swords. His own and Kane’s.
Kane didn’t win the fight. Stesha did. I gulp in relief and pride for the dragonmaster.
Ravenna is watching the two Alphas with Stesha’s colors clenched tightly in her hands.
She’s wanted nothing but Stesha to win and best her Alpha.
He’s won the games for Ravenna. She’ll run into his arms, and Stesha will kiss her with passion.
Everyone will cheer for them. Everyone wants the beloved dragonmaster and the redheaded Omega to mate.
For what other reason could Stesha have fought so hard?