Page 49 of Beast of Blood and Ash
My body recoiled. Every instinct I had screamed at me to run, to find a hole and burrow deep. The old Reika would have.
She would have frozen like a deer in a hunter’s sights.
But I wasn’t her anymore. Not completely.
Omvar’s training, the bruises still blooming on my skin, the phantom ache in my muscles, it all kicked in. There is no honor on the dirt of Ignarath. The words were a brand, cauterizing panic into action.
I didn’t run away.
I ran toward the sound with Vega right behind me.
Stone bit at my feet, the corridor’s shadows flickering under frantic, broken light. My heart hammered, a thunder that drowned out everything else. I could hear my own breath, ragged, desperate, mixing with the trouble ahead.
The corridor was chaos.
A table stood overturned, two of the smaller human women, Kinsley and Eden, crouched behind it. They hurled anything they could grab: battered bowls, cracked mugs, a length of pipe. Each missile sailed through the air, only to be batted away by the two Drakarn standing before them, brown-scaled, brutish, massive.
The Drakarn moved with a bored, almost casual violence, their arms sweeping the air, fangs bared in hungry grins. The table shuddered with every blow, stone splintering under the onslaught.
“Shit,” Vega hissed at my side. I caught the glint of her blade, her posture shifting to fight, but I grabbed her arm—it was a reflex, an order, a plea: don’t get killed, not today.
Then I saw him.
A third Drakarn stepped into the dim light, and my stomach dropped, bile surging up my throat. I stumbled, legs suddenly weak, a cold fire racing through me.
Draskeer.
His scales were the color of a fresh bruise, his face a mask of cruel, familiar arrogance. A guard from the Ignarath slave pens. A tormentor from my nightmares. The sight of him sent a spike of pure, cold terror through my heart.
I would never forget his laugh.
My breath caught. My limbs went numb. For one horrible, sinking moment, the world dissolved into the roar of the arena, the clang of chains.
No. Not again.
Omvar’s voice was a low growl in my memory. Stop thinking. End it before you bleed.
Draskeer’s eyes locked on mine, hungry and cunning, his smile a sharpened blade. “Little prey! I knew you couldn’t hide forever.”
I didn’t answer. I charged, grabbing a fallen training staff someone must have brought back from the training grounds.
My body moved before thought could root me to the spot. The staff was an extension of my hands, my rage, my old wounds.
I barreled forward, running into the fray, not with caution, but with everything I’d learned since the last time I was a victim. The air was thick with the reek of sweat, scorched dust, and the iron tang of my own fear.
The first Drakarn lunged for me, claws slicing through the air. I ducked, rolling beneath his outstretched arm. I swung the staff in a low arc. I remembered Omvar’s voice, the lesson was pain and precision, not honor.
I was not just defending; I was attacking. I aimed for joints, for knees, for anywhere flesh was vulnerable beneath those impossible scales. The staff found a target: a knee. The sound was a meaty, satisfying thunk, followed by a roar of pain and surprise as the Drakarn buckled, clutching his leg. It wasn’t akilling blow, but it was enough to prove that I was no longer the frozen prey he expected.
Vega was at my back, hurling a bowl straight into the eye of the second Drakarn, who staggered, then turned on her with a bellow. The table shielded Kinsley and Eden for another heartbeat, but it wouldn’t last.
Draskeer prowled forward, his focus locked on me. “You’re not hiding well enough this time, little prey,” he crooned, his voice digging under my skin. “You belong on your knees.”
My mind flickered, the memory of chains and sharp, metallic laughter trying to drag me down. But I wouldn’t let it. Not now. Not for him.
Every muscle screamed as I lashed out again, the staff cracking against Draskeer’s forearm, scraping scales until they bled.
He barely flinched. He grinned, the smile a promise and a threat.
