The stake jerks backward, lobbing the other direction and thumping down again so I’m lying on it and not the other way around—like a perfectly presented meal on a stick.
These hatchlings must be huge. And strong. And they must like playing with their food.
Lovely.
My stomach knots, and a retching spill of Sabersythe saliva gushes up my throat. I tip my head and cough, hack, heave, guts cramping as my body rejects … everything.
Between each burping, groaning retch, I pry my aching eyes open a little more, taking in the male standing over me with his arms crossed and a scowl on his beautifully tailored face. A male I’ve become painfully familiar with, now watching me vomit all over the minuscule grains of stone I garner must be sand.
I’ve heard about it. First impressions count, and unfortunately for this sand that’s now scratching my eyeballs and plastered all over my face and hair, we’re off to a bad start.
I am, however, alive and currently not burning to death or being gnawed on. A realization that turns my retching heaves into laughter that shakes my entire chest, sounding like one of Clode’s manic episodes.
“I’m so glad it’s you,” I dredge out between bouts of bellyaching chortles. “Now I finally get the pleasure of killing you.”
“I just saved your life,” the Incognito King drones, brows raised, black cloak billowing in the scorch of wind that throws more fucking sand in my eyes. “Perhaps a thank you is better fitting than a dagger dragged across my throat?”
“If you’d almost drowned in Sabersythe drool, you’d disagree,” I proclaim, squinting up at his broody face with the confidence of somebody not shackled in iron and tied to a stick. “How about we switch seats? See how you feel after you’ve been marinating in its mouth for a bit. I’m certain you’ll want to slit my throat, too.”
The King banks his head to the side, his voice a rumbled drawl as he says, “You’d rather I have broken you from your cell? Scurried you out of Gore and left an unsatisfied Guild of Nobles still frothing for the blood of your rebellious clan? Perhaps you hit your head in Rygun’s mouth, because any sense you harbor is being spat out like minced meat.”
Rygun …
Guess this is the Burn King—Kaan Vaegor. Fitting, and just my luck to be snatched by the feared, mysterious King and not the one who’s apparently still mourning his dead queen. Sounds like that one has a heart. From what I hear, all this one has is a very hungry dragon and an affinity with Bulder strong enough to crush a city with a single word.
Lovely. Think I’ll beg Rygun to pick me up again and cart me straight to Gondragh. Spit me out in a nest. I’d rather try my shitty luck with a bunch of famished hatchlings.
“I did hit my head, thank you very much. I also choked on your dragon’s saliva, was almost swallowed, and currently reek of dead things that’ll probably never wash off. Now, untie me so we can get this over with.”
“You’re not afraid of Rygun?”
I look past his hulking form to the beast at his back, perched on his haunches, inky eyes narrowed on me as he blows whiffs of steam from flared nostrils—ignoring the spike of fear that tries to nuzzle into my callus-encrusted heart.
I’ve often thought folk look like their pets. This is no exception.
Both beast and male are built from slabs of brawn, casting shadows across the rust-colored sand. Their ember eyes penetrate my soul with cutthroat stares that snatch something inside my chest and grip it tight, leaving me with the knowledge that wiggling will be to my detriment. That the grip will only tighten until my eyes pop from their sockets and blood bursts from my mouth.
They’re both frightening, basking in their prime. Both devastating to look at … in entirely different ways.
I clear my throat, tossing a slop of saliva-laden hair off my face with a flick of my head, eyes narrowing on the King looking down at me with an expression as dry as our parched surroundings. “No beast is tame enough to cradle a squirming meal in their maw if it’s not meant for their young, and your beast looks like he eats,” I say, nipping another glance at Rygun, wondering how many living things contributed to his hulking size. “He would’ve crunched on me if he didn’t like me a little bit. Ropes. Now.”
Kaan continues to watch me, unmoving, not breaking a sweat despite the fierce sunshine beating upon the side of his face, cutting across his strong, striking features that threaten to unpick me from my murderous thoughts.
Again.
“Quick, I’m getting burnt.”
“If you kill me, you’ll be stuck in the Boltanic Plains without a ride, without access to water, and with that skin, you’ll wither like a Moonplume caught in the sun and be dead before aurora rise,” he grinds out, stating the obvious. I can already feel my skin chapping. “And that’s if Rygun lets you live after he sees me bleeding out in the sand. He may like you now, but I can assure you, his loyalty lies with me.”
I scowl at the creature, who blows more puffs of smoke from his flared nostrils, a mighty rumble broiling in his chest that makes me picture being caught between his sabers and crunched into a mulch of bone shards and frothy blood.
“Plus, you have no weapons, a festering pin in your shoulder, and if I’m not mistaken, you haven’t eaten in almost two rises. How about we wave that white flag again and you suppress the urge to kill me until after you’ve feasted, bathed, and you’re no longer suffering from an infection that’s beginning to weave through your bloodstream, hmm?”
He’s so full of dragon shit.
“The only infection I’m suffering stems directly from your self-indignant presence.”
“Wrong.” His upper lip peels back from canines long and honed, making muscles tighten low in my belly.
Strangely.
He crouches, eclipsing the sun as he pulls the collar of my tunic with such force a button pops free.
“What are you—”
He stuffs his finger down the hole in my shoulder, the stab of pain like a fiery poker straight through muscle, sinew, bone—
I scream, a grated burst I immediately regret.
Nobody makes me scream. Certainly not him.
His finger retreats with a squelch, and I snarl through bared teeth, heaving short, sharp breaths that do nothing to satiate the rage swelling in my chest like a roil of dragonflame.
He sniffs his bloody finger, the next words powering out of him with such savagery they’re almost tangible against my pebbling skin. “I can smell it.”
Wet warmth bubbles from the freshly plundered wound while I study all the bits of him I’d like to slash and dash. “I … really want to … kill you.”
“Perfectly aware,” he mumbles, flicking my blood off his hand. “But now is not the time.”
I look at the beast at his back—extending his wings, basking in the sun—then cast my gaze farther abroad, our surroundings a stretch of rippled sand, bits of it being picked up and tossed around in copper eddies. The air above it ripples too, distorting the powder-blue horizon littered with dusky moons almost close enough to reach up and cradle in my palms. Silver ribbons of aurora tangle with the rotund tombstones, a pretty embellishment for the otherwise scorched terrain.
There are no hills. No trees. No stones or rocks or boulders.
No signs of life.
There’s certainly no water …
Just me, a king, and a dragon that’s half the size of a mountain.
Great.
“A white flag is a white flag,” he says, and I cut my gaze back to him as he rests his elbows on his bent knees and tilts his head to the side. “May I free you from your shackles and trust that you won’t disregard the rules of our … engagement?”
“Probably not.”
“At least you’re honest,” he mutters, heaving a low, resounding sigh.
He reaches down the side of his boot and retrieves a bronze blade that’s shaped like a petal.
Fuck.
Shoulda lied.
I jerk against my ropes, hissing through clenched teeth as he brings it to my breast, slips it beneath the cord, and …
Cuts.