He didn’t wait for me to babble an answer but brought his hand up in tiny increments, his expression rapt as he circled the back of my neck. His warm palm connected with the clammy skin at the nape of my neck, and I shrieked. Fire licked where our skin touched, the warmth spreading from where his hand tangled in my hair, sending tendrils of pulsing energy all over until I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. I screamed again, but this time the sound was muffled against his shoulder. I’d fallen, or he’d pulled me.
He ripped his hand away and stared at it with what looked like betrayal as I fell to my knees.
He swore long and hard again in the language I didn’t know. Some of the same surprise I felt was echoed within the guttural sounds he made. He sounded shocked.
“That wasn’t in the bedtime stories.” I squeezed my eyes closed to rid myself of black spots. What just happened?
“Where are you going right now?” he asked in a different tone. Gone was the disinterest. Something very different took its place in his expression. His gaze darted behind as he turned toward the fountain, scanning the dry space. “There are people coming.”
“Snake and Toady.” If my luck was continuing in the same stream.
“Who are Snake and Toady?” he asked in an urgent tone.
I batted his hands away. Why was my body drained of energy? The back of my neck was pulsing. I moaned, “My tails.”
What the hay did he moisturize his hands with? Or was this some other Drae power no one talked about?
His face froze. “Tails? Soldiers?”
I didn’t answer.
Anxiety crawled between us, originating from him. Was his magic finally working? There was no sense of compulsion, and I guess if I was able to contemplate lying, I had my answer.
“I was going home,” I slurred with fatigue. “Don’t kill my mum,” I said. “Please show her mercy. I’m just the soap queen. I don’t know anything important.”
He wasn’t listening. In the same way I didn’t pay attention to buzzing flies. The darkness reached for him as he grabbed my arm and yanked me toward the other end of the alleyway.
“Hey,” voices shouted behind us. “Halt!”
“Drak,” he swore in a hushed tone.
I stumbled to keep up with his long stride. He couldn’t walk me home; Mum was there. “If you’re going to kill me, could you please do it now?”
He didn’t answer.
I was terrified, tired, but I felt the first strains of anger begin to wriggle inside.
We ducked out of one alley and into another then crossed over into Harvest Zone Six and backtracked to a laneway near the square in Zone Seven before heading toward the Wheel where I lived.
“You need to get out of here.”
He spoke for the first time in several minutes.
What the hay was going on?
“Let go of me,” I demanded. I tried to pull away from his grip, but he held tight, his long fingers circling the entire width of my bicep with a strength that told me he could break my bone just from losing focus.
Irrik closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why are you even in this kingdom? Do you want to die? You need to be gone. Right now.”
The intensity of his words made my skin crawl, and the burn of his stare made me want to quiver at his feet like a mouse before a hawk. What he was saying didn’t add up. “What?”
“The soldiers saw us,” he said, his voice low. “I don’t know how you’re . . . alive. But you need to leave. I’m going to try to fix it, but I can’t risk . . .”
He made no sense, yet his warning seemed sincere. I stared into the stone-cold face of the king’s Drae and could have almost mistaken the wild look in his eyes for. . . fear.
“What is wrong with you?” The wriggling in my stomach swelled, and anger laced my voice. “I thought you were going to swallow me.”
His fear made me furious. What did a Drae have to fear? “Why are you so upset? Because—”
He grabbed my shoulders and said, “Listen, girl.” His grip tightened. “I’ll give you this warning once. When I let go, run. Run home. You and whoever you live with need to get out of here. Do you hear me? You must never come back.” He shoved his face to mine, eyes blazing. “I’ll kill you myself if I see you again.”
My brain rattled in my head as he shook me. The upheaval of his emotions was too much, and I wrenched myself from his grasp. “Stop. Please!”
He let go, but continued snarling words I couldn’t hear through the increasing buzz in my ears. He watched me, his eyes lit with an intensity I’d never seen before.
My nerves were frayed. My emotions were taxed past the point of being reasonable. Something inside me recoiled with a sharp snap. For the first time in my life, I raised my hand and slapped someone across the face.
We stood in the dark, empty alley, staring at each other as I lowered my hand.
My chest heaved with emotion, and he shuddered slightly as though about to explode. The outline of where my thumb and index finger had connected with his skin was visible in a pink welt. “I’m so sor—”
“Get out of here,” he gritted out, shoving me toward the next corner.
I took flight, sprinting through the streets as though the king himself was behind me, which in many ways he was.
Eventually, I calmed enough to recognize the outskirts of the Inbetween.
I adjusted my course, and as soon as I was in our housing section, I slowed. I was breathing way too loudly for creeping, so I put my hands on my knees, taking in deep gulps of air while I waited for my heart rate to settle.
The night was warm and dark; this normally brought me comfort. Instinctively, I looked to the sky, but instead of stars and the inky canvas I loved so much, I heard the beating of wings spread wide, far above my head. He was there, I knew, invisible against the sultry night. The beating sound moved in a circle overhead, and my skin prickled with the awareness of his attention as, I assumed, he waited for me to go inside.
The king’s Drae knew where I lived.
Comforting. That wouldn’t give me nightmares at all.
I gave myself a mental shake and rolled my shoulders back until I stood tall. Doing so was the last thing I wanted to do, but it made me feel better to appear dignified when I’d been obliterated with fear ten minutes ago.
Circling our home twice, and finding no signs of Snake and Toady, I cracked open our front door to slip inside and talk with Mum. I peered up at the night sky one last time, unable to resist, a bolt of fear splicing through me as a set of fiery reptilian eyes burned into mine from the darkness high above.
6
I lay wide-awake in bed, staring at the dark ceiling, blankets yanked to my chin. Four hours ago, my mother lost control. As I’d told her of my day, and I’d held nothing back, she became more and more panicked.
I was afraid. My mother was supposed to make the decisions; she was older and smarter and stronger. But tonight, Mum was just as scared as I was.
My bulging rucksack sat in a corner, ready for tomorrow’s journey, and Mum had told me to take whatever I didn’t want to be without. I knew what that meant.
I could still hear her downstairs, trying to be quiet as she made preparations, doing the exact opposite of what she’d told me to do. We couldn’t do anything out of the ordinary to attract attention before we left, which included smashing around to pack when we should be asleep.