Page 62 of A Velvet Kiss After Dark

"How do you suppose we'll get around the dragon?" she asked.

She thought again of their draining time, and how precious little was left until the portal home would close—and of her duty to find the relic and give it to…someone. She just didn't know who. But, she refrained from mentioning that part to Kánnérd as it seemed to make his eyes wild like he wanted to rope her up again.

After a minute in which Kánnérd refused to meet her eyes and busied himself at the desk, yanking open drawers and investigating, Tabitha eyed him shrewdly.

"Did you hear me?" she asked. "I said, how do you think we'll get around that angry dragon outside?"

He shrugged, but lobbed a keyring from a drawer and tossed it onto the desk where it the metal keys clanged together.

"I don't know," he said.

She bit her lip in response, and therefore, her tongue as well. Why was he being unusually dodgy?

"Perhaps if we find a rear door, we can make an escape that way, or we could lob a hank of meat—if we could find one—out a window and see if it'll take the bait, and then run away?" she offered casually.

Kánnérd harrumphed, and when he finished finding nothing else of interest in the desk, he exited the room, leaving her to quickly follow behind.

"I mean, it's worth considering. It's not a terrible idea," Tabitha said.

Suddenly, he halted his trajectory and she briefly piled against his back before putting more space in between them. "Oops," she said in way of apology. "Sorry."

Without a word he turned around and sent her a fearsome glare that froze every bone in her body in place. "Leave it alone, will you?"

Leave it alone? What kind of statement was that, she thought?

Surely, they needed to devise a plan to escape. Both his axes were outside in the front courtyard, along with the mutilated corpses of those fire demons, and the ruby-red dragon still lurked outside seeking them out for its next mealtime, and they had precious little time remaining before they had to beat feet back to the original portal territory to get back home.

"We have to find the relic of souls, and I know where it's at. If we can just distract the dragon long enough to get your axes again, maybe you could kill it?" she suggested blithely as she continued to follow him down a long dark narrow corridor.

They came upon an arched wooden door with a cutout was made and iron bars created a sort of window venue to see through. He peered inside, then wrangled the keys out and opened the door. Tabitha followed him down a spiraling narrow staircase that led into the underbelly of the building as he continued speaking.

"Sweetheart, I'm broken and sore in places a man shouldn't ever be. I don't have enough time to shift and wait around healing for days on end, and I have your precious behind to protect. I'm burnt and hurting, so the answer is no to your suggestion. Let's leave it at that."

Biting her lip to keep from retorting, Tabitha grabbed hold of the back of Kánnérd’s robe to keep close. The last thing she wanted to do was lose him now. Her skin was bunched and painful with red blisters too, and everything hurt including the act of walking.

Below the monastery was incredibly dimly lit. Only two candelabras brightened the monstrous underbelly with creepy tunnels leading off in each direction. As they passed by the rooms, squinting inside to see, Tabitha grew more afraid at just what this place exactly was. Bones of chained bodies were in some compartments with mildew-covered stray that looked like makeshift prison beds. Simply-made wooden cups were overturned on the floors, the walls growing with black mold and rustic smells like swampy sewage water. Not a single window was in sight, and as they searched deeper and deeper down the corridor her fear ratcheted up into trepidation. Something was not right here. Something otherworldly was going on.

"Kánnérd, I don't have a good feeling about this," Tabitha whispered to his back.

His only response was to grunt and continue to lead the way. "If anything happens, I want you to run upstairs and lock the dungeon door."

"Dungeon? You think this is a dungeon?" she all but yelped.

He signed in exasperation. "Yes, I've seen the inside of one before. They all look the same."

Tabitha supposed he was right. Now she was beginning to take notice of the shackles and chains adorning the center of some rooms, or attached to the walls in others. Whips and other tools of violence laid about, but all looked abandoned by her assessment. At least there was no one else down here, she thought.

Finally, they reached the end of the corridor only to come face to face with another door. This one had intrinsic magical elements inscribed upon it, like that of runes. The door was made of wood planks and a small cutout was available to allow them to peer through.

"What's inside?" she asked in a hushed tone.

Kánnérd peered inside. "Nothing worth seeing. Just some eggs."

Tabitha's eyebrows shot high at that. "Eggs? Like chicken eggs?"

Kánnérd exhaled a long, slow breath of air before saying, "Dragon eggs, Tabitha. Giant dragon eggs. Come on. Best not to disturb them."

He grabbed her by the hand and they made their way through the remaining rooms. They each grabbed anything of use as they went: a letter opener that served as a knife, a clean linen to use as a bandage, a pot of clean water, a metal helmet and sword that rested inside an armory, and even a spear which Tabitha gladly took. It looked as though it would serve useful if she needed to fight anymore dragons.

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