Page 4 of Beast of Blood and Ash
They had enough. More than enough.
Traitor. The whisper was a serpent’s hiss.Ignarath dog. Tainted blood.Always just loud enough to hear, to flay another strip out of my scales.
A hatchling darted past, eyes wide with fear, scrambling up a stone face to avoid the mere brush of my leg. The crowd parted before me, a reluctant, instinctive yielding to my sheer size, buttheir retreat was barbed with malice. I kept my gaze level, jaw locked tight.
Show nothing.
This path wasn’t random. I’d spent days mapping her routines, etching them into my mind. Learning where she went, when she left the dubious safety of the humans' quarters. Always with others, a small, wary pack. Never alone. Until today. Her faint and tantalizing scent pulled me forward, a hook sunk deep in my gut, dragging me toward the herb seller's stall just beyond the river's sluggish edge.
I’d told myself I wouldn’t seek her out. That I would grant her the small mercy of peace.
Another lie. My chest burned with the need to pull her close. My mouth ached, fangs oversensitive with the need to mark. The mate-bond was a molten chain that wouldn’t let me keep that silent promise.
It burned.
I rounded the corner where the market path narrowed, the air thickening, and there she was. Small. Tense. Her hands, those fragile human hands, worked with careful, almost painful precision over a display of brittle plants. Her back was to me, but I would know her in any hell. The precise set of her shoulders. The hair cut close, dark against her skull. The way her fingers moved—quick, efficient, delicate. She wore layers, even in this suffocating heat. Protection. Always, always protecting herself.
My bones ached with profound cellular recognition. My mouth watered.
Disgust followed, swift and brutal. Not at her. At myself. At the hunger, this raw, undeniable gnawing. At what I’d done, and what I'd failed to do.
I shouldn’t be there.
My very presence was a violation. I shouldn’t watch her. But she was etched into me, a pattern I couldn’t claw free, no matter how I tried.
Not that I was trying very hard.
I stilled, melting against a pillar of cold, dark stone, trying to become shadow. Other Drakarn surged past, some clutching purchases, others dragging heavy carts of metal or freshly butchered meat toward the deeper, darker tunnels. A human female sat cross-legged on a nearby ledge, weaving something from pale fiber, her movements small, contained. She glanced up, registered my presence, and instantly hunched deeper over her task, a small creature making itself smaller.
And there was Reika. Less than twenty paces. The herb seller, a Drakarn female, scales gone soft and gray with age, spoke to her in that slow, exaggerated drawl some used with humans, as if they were stupid, not just foreign. Reika only nodded, her focus absolute on the bundled herbs in her hand. Even from there, I could see the restless dart of her gaze, always checking her surroundings, alert to every shift, every shadow.
She never relaxed. Never let down that razor guard. Her vigilance was a cold twist in my gut.
I should leave. Turn now. Vanish. Stop torturing us both.
Instead, I stepped forward.
My plan, if the chaotic surge of desperation roiling within me could be called a plan, was to walk past. Just past. Let her see me, perhaps offer a single, quiet word. Show I meant no harm. Show I could be near without breaking her. Begin, somehow, to undo the damage my kind had inflicted.
The damage I had done with my silence, my watching from the shadows when I should have acted.
I circled in a slow arc to approach from the front. Better to be seen coming.
She was inspecting a clump of crimson leaves, rubbing them between her fingers. The motion released a scent like bitter smoke. The old Drakarn female gestured impatiently. "Twelve talins," she said coolly.
"It was ten yesterday," Reika said. Her voice, low, steady, careful. Nothing at all like the screams I remembered.
I moved closer, weaving between bodies, forcing my pace to slow. Her eyes flickered up once, caught on someone else, returned to her bargaining.
The herb seller growled. "Today’s price is today’s price. Make your choice."
One pace. Another. The crowd thickened. A cart rattled past, forcing me aside. When it passed, Reika had paid, tucking bundles into the satchel at her hip. She was turning away.
No. I still hadn't?—
I cut across the path, angling to intersect, feet carrying me too fast. I forced myself to slow. Soften my steps. Roll my shoulders down.
Don't frighten her. Don't be what she fears.
