I take that as a no.
With a sigh, I made after him in a hobble, but my muscles seized, and I stopped to stretch my calves. Muttering to myself, I said, “I suddenly see how you find wiggle room around your oath to the king.”
He was on me with the same speed he’d displayed with throwing the pebble. The Drae snapped his shifted fangs in my face, hissing, “You think the guards are here to protect you? Would you like to wait and see next time? Don’t be naive, Phaetyn.” Lord Irrik pulled back, and his fangs disappeared. The scales receded, and he spun away, resuming his walk—if predatory stalk could be called that.
My feet remembered how to move before my body remembered how to breathe. I released a shaking exhale, knowing the Drae could hear my fear. He could probably hear my heartbeat anyway, thundering in my ears as it was.
20
I trudged after the Drae, muscles cramping, but as the sun set and dark descended, fatigue melted into a blissful lethargy that made me feel the closest thing to peace since Tyr left last night. The freedom of being outside at night pulled at me with a need just as strong. No, that wasn’t accurate. This need, it was stronger. Undeniable. The dark of the dungeon was no comparison to the tendrils of the twin moons reaching into my chest and soothing the cracks in my heart.
“Do we have to go back?” I asked. “Can . . . can we stay outside . . . Please?”
Lord Irrik stopped his stealthy glide and turned. “You can’t escape. Just because it’s dark, you won’t be able to sneak away.”
I rolled my eyes. Everyone knew the Drae was stronger in the dark. I’m sure there was a bit about being able to see super well at night in Mum’s story.
“I wasn’t thinking about it,” I told him, which was true. “I just like the night.”
His eyes blinked from human to Drae and back again. “If you make the potatoes grow,” he said in his guttural voice I now associated with his partial shifting, “the king will allow it.”
I bent over and pulled off my shoes, delaying the trip back as long as I could. Classic trick.
“I’m not falling for that. Put them back on.”
Muttering darkly, I dragged my grubby feet up the castle path toward the gate, hating the thought of going back inside and down to my cell of torture. I stared at the stars one last time. Our moons hung heavy and pregnant with their glorious silver light. I drank it in, breathing the night air like a starving woman. I closed my eyes and relished the moment—the warm air’s caress, the soil on my feet, and the peace in my heart—knowing it wouldn’t last.
Lord Irrik’s gloved hand circled my arm in the dreaded grip, and I instinctively flinched as the terror he exuded washed over me.
“If we’re not back before curfew, Irdelron will punish us both,” he said. “Don’t ruin your faux freedom on the first day.”
While I was certain he was only telling me to hurry because he wanted to avoid punishment, I recognized the comment was more kind than cruel. For once. Maybe Ty was right and there was more to this nightmare jerk than met the eye. With a sigh of resignation, I allowed the Drae to lead me back to the castle.
As we crossed the stone floor, Jotun stepped from the darkened stairwell that would lead to my dungeon cell, as if he’d been waiting for me. His eyes gleamed, and my fatigue became fear at what I knew was coming.
Irrik brushed by the mute torturer, but instead of taking me into the bowels of the castle, he angled us up.
The king had not lied about exalting me.
Irrik didn’t return me to my dungeon cell, bringing me instead to a tower room at the top of a thousand steps. Well, maybe fifty, but it felt like a thousand as we climbed higher and higher. My legs were like jelly after my field laps.
“You’re not serious,” Irrik growled as I stopped for a rest on step thirty. He muttered under his breath, and I caught the words “weak” and “Phaetyn.”
Exhausted and a smidgen ashamed of that fact, I stooped over, panting when we reached the top. Irrik shoved the door open and pushed my weakling butt through into a ginormous but sparsely furnished room.
The ceilings were thirty feet high and the room at least that wide. A large bed sat in the far left corner with a sitting area in the opposite far corner. The corner couch was a guesstimated one million times more comfortable than the lumpy mattress I’d slept on until now. There was a rectangular table in front of the velvety sofa, and the only other furniture was a solid dark-wood wardrobe and an empty bookcase tucked against a wall. The only wall without any furniture was one made of intricate, interlocking panels that looked like they could open. The rest of the room was large empty space. Because I clearly measured in dungeon cells now, I’d have to say there were at least six cells worth of free space. Double doors near the wardrobe probably concealed a washroom, and the glory of that privacy seemed like the greatest luxury here—but after sweating all my moisture away, I only had eyes for the bed.
Irrik pointed toward the washroom, and I shook my head.
“Bed,” I grunted, stepping toward the object of my infatuation.
“Bath first,” he responded, and he crowded me, forcing me to take a step closer to the washroom.
I growled at him and pushed him away. “I just want to sleep.”
“I didn’t bring you here to sleep. This is my room. Wash, and I’ll take you to yours.”
“Your room?” I said in horror, peering around with new eyes. “Why would you do that?”
Irrik’s eyes flashed black.
“Jotun was lurking outside your quarters.” Scales erupted down his forearms, and he thrust me back in one powerful movement. The air whooshed from my lungs as my bare feet slid over the smooth stone floor before I lost my balance and rolled the rest of the way, almost to the washroom doors.
I dragged myself into a crouch and looked back.
Irrik was gone.
I blinked, my mind trying to assemble what I was seeing in his place.
Lord Irrik had shifted.
His dragon head was at least four hands wide, his horned crest extending higher than I stood. His scaly hide was as dark as the sky on a moonless night, and he took up the majority of the huge room. He exhaled warm air through his nostrils, so hot it shimmered and steamed, billowing around me. His dark eyes were level with mine, and my heart pounded with acknowledgement they were Irrik’s eyes.
I should’ve been terrified, but the air, much like his persuasion-breath, only warmed me, making me relaxed and a little sleepy. He pushed me toward the doors with his snout, and I batted him with my open hand.
You need a bath, he spoke in my mind.