Page 48 of Beast of Blood and Ash
Our quarters.
At first, I’d thought I’d misheard. Or maybe hallucinated. Maybe I was overtired or still riding the aftershocks of a nightmare. But that was definitely what Omvar had said.
Our quarters.
I sat there, the syllables clattering around. The possessiveness of it, the assumption, sent a prickle of alarm down my spine.
Was it logical after the whole mate declaration? Sure.
Did I give a damn?
Not even a little.
So I didn’t go back there, despite his instructions.
My pride was a knife I gripped in my fist, pressing the edge to my palm until sense bled away. I wasn’t property, certainly not his, not anyone’s. I was nobody’s “ours.” Not after everything I’d bled for to claw my way out of cages.
I needed to see my own people, to remember who I was when a seven-foot-tall, red-scaled warrior wasn’t taking up all the air in the room. The solid stone corridors held familiar, old shadows as I turned away from the path Omvar had expected—ordered—me to take. The farther I walked, the more my uncertainty melted into stubbornness, daring the city itself to disagree.
I wouldn’t be claimed. I wouldn’t be domesticated, no matter how soft the bedding or how steady his heat against my back.
Not that they had soft bedding in Scalvaris.
The human quarters smelled of stale sweat and scorched rock, a stew of bodies and humid air. My breathing eased as the shape of the tunnels changed, low ceilings crouching above the carved stone cells, footsteps echoing in the semi-dark. There, even sulfur was familiar, overpowering, yes, but it didn’t scare me the way new things did.
My old room greeted me without ceremony. It felt smaller than I remembered, the stone sleeping platform barely a suggestion of comfort. I sat, hugging my knees to my chest, letting the rough blanket dig into my shins, the surface unyielding beneath my weight. The room was mute, lifeless.
It felt very small and not at all like mine.
My heart did a slow, bitter circuit, bouncing off the memory of Omvar’s space, the low thrum of heat, the way his scent clung to every fabric until my skin prickled just walking through the threshold. Maybe Omvar’s quarters really had become home.
How strange.
I tried to shake off the thought. I couldn’t decide if it was more terrifying that I wanted that home, or that I’d started to believe I could belong there.
A sharp rap at the stone frame. “Reika? Omvar let you out of his sight?” Vega stuck her head in my doorway and offered me a lopsided grin.
Her hair was a wild, coppery halo, the only thing bright in the half-light. Her voice, low and teasing, should have stung, but it didn’t. I would have expected a bite with her question a few months ago. She’d been the one most suspicious, most defensive, of us all. But she’d found her own mate in Zarvash and now definitely understood the appeal of the Drakarn.
I shot her a half-hearted glare, the edge blunted by exhaustion and a flicker of relief. “He was called to the council. Any idea why?”
Vega rolled her eyes, stepping farther into the room and leaning against the wall. “Zarvash has been in the council chambers all day. More of this Ignarath bullshit.”
The room felt less empty. She picked at a loose thread on her sleeve, her sharp gaze flicking to me and holding for a moment, weighing my tension, maybe sensing that I was ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. I wanted to ask her about home, about safety, about what it meant to rest with a Drakarn’s arm flung over your waist in the dark and not want to run screaming. But that wasn’t a conversation for that moment.
We talked about nothing in particular, her words brusque but steady. She brought up council rumors, the scrape of politics inside the chambers, whispering about the creepy new priest and the tension between the temple zealots and the warriors.
She was keeping me company, making me feel safe. Included. Like this place really might be where I belonged.
My pulse slowed, the air tasting marginally less toxic. Whatever this was, it sounded routine, council squabbling, Drakarn pride, not an omen of doom. Maybe I could let myself breathe, imagine the city might hold a day without bloodshed.
Then a noise cleaved the air.
Not the low scrape of worry, not the ordinary rattle of pipes or the distant ring of forges, but something sharper.
A scream. Terrified.
Human.
