Finaan
Chapter twelve
Ruxi
Don’t let them hurt my draikani!
Panta’s shrill demand erupts in my thoughts, echoing as it bounces around a mind still struggling to make sense of what’s happening.
Wregen is stuck midway through his shift, crawling on the ground with human arms and legs.
A serpent’s body, scales and all, runs between his limbs.
His head is shaped like an elf’s, but his snout is all dragon.
Including the flame flickering between his teeth right now.
Why are they attacking your draikani? I scream as I fall to my ass and shove myself backwards, not even bothering to stand. I need to get away from whatever the fuck’s about to happen.
They would reject the bond again, she bellows at me. You cannot let them. They must be bound or Hel will win.
My panicking brain slows down when I need it the most, Panta’s words opening a chasm inside me.
Of course that’s Wregen’s dragon. If I’m Wregen’s mate, and Panta and Ruxi also are bound, then Wregen should ride the purple beast he’s trying to kill.
The fates always pair mated dragons with riders who also are mated to each other.
They may be fucking with our lives in other ways—or maybe it’s the gods who always are messing with us—but in this, they tried to create harmony.
The fates established relationships that would be enhanced by the mating bonds.
It makes no sense that Wregen or Wrath would reject their decree.
Why do they want to reject the bond? I demand, still trying to catch up to whatever Panta’s telling me.
His serpent erupted when their paths first crossed, and he nearly killed Ruxi, Panta snaps. Now is not the time to talk. You must stop them!
Pushing myself to my feet, I watch as they tear at each other, feathers and scales ripping off to flutter or collapse to the ground beneath them.
Not much blood, though. Ruxi is fighting off the attack, but they’re not trying to kill the Wregen/Wrath monstrosity.
Wrath wants to destroy the dragon, but Wregen may not.
Some part of him must realize how horribly he’ll suffer if his dragon dies, even without the bond.
I need to stop Wrath. And he won’t hurt me. I don’t know much about Wregen’s beast, but I know that.
Before I can think about what I’m doing—and talk myself out of the stupidest thing I may ever attempt—I race toward them, shoving Wrath’s snout aside as I stare him down.
My heart pounds in my throat, my stomach battling for space there as it threatens to spew its contents onto the serpent I’m trying to calm.
Wrath howls at me, barely holding back the burst of flame that might have taken my life, and definitely would have hurt like Helheim’s pit. But he does hold it back.
“Ssssstep assssside, mate,” Wrath hisses at me. “This beassssst cannot live.”
“They belong to Panta … and to you. You can’t kill them.”
“They. Are. Oursssss. To. Kill.” This claim is full of fury, each word bit out as if it left a rancid taste in his mouth. Wrath shoves his snout into my side, pushing at me, but I wrap my arms around his enormous nose and hold on.
“They’re Panta’s,” I declare in the fiercest voice I can muster while I’m clinging to the most terrifying beast I’ve ever encountered. “I forbid it.”
“They are oursssss to kill if we choossssse,” Wrath roars, lifting his head from the ground as he starts to shake it.
He’s surprisingly gentle, even in his anger.
I keep holding on, something inside me certain that Wrath will never hurt me.
Finally, perhaps a minute or more after I clasped onto him, his snout drops.
Eyes closing, he whispers, “He isssss oursssss. They cannot have him.”
A wave of something that feels like empathy for this horrific pair of beings washes through me, dredging up a grief so deep and pervasive, I have no idea how I survived it.
As bad as Helheim was—as much as I suffered under Hel’s punitive grip, being tortured for every deviation from her strict rules—it paled in comparison to the loss of my dragon.
Those first years without Panta nearly killed me.
The bond we’d both embraced made it worse, but I know deep in my soul, where that bond lives, that I’d have been destroyed even if I never rode her.
Ruxi’s death would do that to Wregen and Wrath, but Wrath still demands it. Because he can’t bear the idea of sharing Wregen with anyone else.
“Why do you want to share Wregen with me,” I ask the beast, “but not with Ruxi?”
“You are oursssss to keep,” Wrath declares, as if that makes a bit of sense. He leans back, his expression softening for the first time since Ruxi appeared, wide eyes staring at me as if he’ll never look away. “And keep you, we will,” he adds. “You belong to usssss.”
And then he rises to a standing position, as much as he can in his current form, and starts to collapse in on himself.
His torso contracts, the scales bending inward and disappearing, as Wrath’s snout shrinks and softens, skin replacing the leathery hide.
Within seconds, Wregen stands before me, the stunning, hateful, infuriating bastard.
Before I can stop them, my eyes trail down his hard chest to stare at the enormous erection he’s wielding.
“What is it with you and sex?” I demand, ripping my gaze away, and glaring at him. “Sex and pain. That seems to be all you ever want or care about.”
“Do you know how many centuries I spent with Hel?” he asks, his head cocking to the side.
I shrug, unsure what this has to do with his twin obsessions. “Three centuries, like me,” I remind him.
“Three centuries,” he agrees in a flat voice, not a hint of emotion seeping into his words.
“And in all that time, Hel controlled every part of my existence. She allowed me two forms of escape. Sex and pain.” Something dark and broken fills his eyes, triggering a tenderness in me I don’t want to feel for this cruel male.
One of his legs starts to bounce—a tic I suspect he doesn’t even notice most of the time.
“I could give or receive either, as I chose,” he continues.
“I ate no food there. She permitted me no companions. I was … I always will be … her toy, to be used for her entertainment. And ooh, did she devise creative punishments when I sought pleasure in anything else.” My gaze flicks to his trembling thigh and he closes his eyes, inhaling quickly as one hand rests there, stilling it.
“If I didn’t offer her someone else’s sex or pain to quench her thirst,” he adds, drawing my attention back up to his shadowed expression, “she took mine. I’ve serviced her in every way imaginable, usually focused only on her decrepit side, as she demanded.
I lost limbs, fingers, toes, all of my organs, more times than I can count.
She’d keep me alive and awake as she slowly grew them back, agony filling me during every second of her retribution.
My tongue has been inside her as my cock slowly regenerated, occasionally being sliced away by one of her peons, bit by agonizing bit, because I didn’t satisfy her as quickly and thoroughly as she demanded. ”
He pauses, eyes dark as that bitch’s soul. “I played no games,” he says as he stares at me, “unless they revolved around sex or pain. Those alone gave me some reprieve from the existence I chose when I swore my fealty to her. Now, they’re my only source of relief.”
He squeezes his cock, hard, a pensive smile emerging as he exhales slowly and shakes his head. “My need to experience both with you grows by the hour,” he adds after a moment. “I won’t wait much longer. I can be patient, but you’re testing my limits.”
“So you’ve said,” I respond with a sigh. The pity that filled me when Wrath claimed Wregen for himself bubbles up again, but I squash it. I can’t let myself sympathize with this male who’s so thoroughly fucked up my life. “Why did you try to kill Ruxi?”
“That wasn’t me,” Wregen responds as he spins to glare at the purple beast. “Though I don’t care whether it lives or dies.” His voice lowers, growing gravelly, as he adds, “You don’t belong here. I’ll never ride you. Go back to your draikana.”
“I’ll go with you,” I suggest with a bright smile, reaching out to Panta as the solution bubbles up inside me. Can I come back to you with Ruxi? We’ll find a way to free you, together.
Panta purrs, her joy at the thought rippling through our bond. But then I feel her restraint settle in. My draikani and your mate will bond, she tells me in a voice that trembles. It won’t be easy, but it must happen.
Why? He doesn’t want it and he’s a miserable prick. I glare at said prick, who smirks in response. Ruxi can’t want him anyway.
I don’t know why, but he is the key to our future.
“You’ll go nowhere,” Wregen interjects, lifting his thumb to pull at my bottom lip and drag my attention to him.
Smacking his hand away, I step back, but I’m too close to the wall to go far. “Don’t touch me,” I snarl, turning toward Ruxi to put space between the asshole and me.
But he’s not done yet. He blocks my path, his chest nearly brushing against mine. “Have you not heard a single thing I said? You are mine. Not your dragon’s. Not Svend’s. Mine. You will never be free of me.”
“Have you heard nothing I said?” I growl, poking one finger into his chest. “I will never be yours. And I’m done talking about this.
” Looking at the purple dragon, I repeat my suggestion, images of my beautiful silver dragon erupting in my thoughts.
“We should go together. Please,” I add in a whisper.
“I need Panta, more than I need air to breathe. Take me to her.”
Ruxi watches me for long seconds, grey eyes full of compassion. They give one slow shake of their head, and turn eyes that suddenly are flinty and cold to Wregen.
You must bring him with you, Panta tells me. My draikani can’t free me. He holds the key. He must be with us if we are to ever fly in the sun again.
Then you’re fucked, I tell her, because he’ll never give you that.
Still, we must try.