Page 55 of Beast of Blood and Ash
The wind screamed, cutting through pain and panic. Blood dripped down my side, hot, sticky, burning where it tracked through the torn flesh beneath my scales. I could taste it, my own blood in my mouth, an iron sting that threatened to drown my senses. The shame was hot and choking. I’d come to save her, and instead I was broken, spent, prey on my knees just like in the old days, just like the monster I swore never to be.
But then there was a flicker of movement from behind him. Reika. She was on her feet, her face a mask of terror andreckless courage. She snatched a jagged piece of obsidian from the ground.
“Hey, asshole!” she screamed.
Draskeer turned, distracted for a fraction of a second.
It was all I needed.
Rage surged through my bones. The beast inside me tore at its leash, demanding blood. For her. For every moment of fear, every wound, every chain. I let the fury burn away the pain. Muscles bunched, legs trembling. I forced myself upright in a single, violent motion.
I didn’t think. Didn’t aim for a clean kill. I aimed to maim, to break, to make him suffer for every second of fear he put in her eyes.
My claws slashed out, catching his arm at the elbow, bone crunching, scales splitting, flesh tearing under the force of my blow. Draskeer screamed, the sound sharp and desperate. I followed, relentless, my tail whipping low and hard, connecting with the joint of his leg, shattering it with a sickening crack. His body collapsed, writhing, pain blooming across every inch of his monstrous face.
He lashed out blindly, claws raking my chest, his fangs snapping for my throat. I grabbed his head, slamming it into the rock.
I wanted him to beg.
I wanted him to bleed the way Reika had bled on Ignarath’s stones.
The world was a blur of red and heat and violence.
He was on the ground, whimpering, the bravado gone, replaced by the animal fear of the dying. I stood over him, my chest heaving, blood dripping from a dozen wounds. The beast in me wanted to tear his throat out with my teeth.
But Reika was watching.
I forced the animal in me back, forced the urge down until I was trembling with the effort. My claws hovered over his throat, the promise of annihilation, but I didn’t strike. Not yet. I looked up and saw her standing, hair wild, obsidian shard still clutched in her hand, terror and defiance shining in her eyes.
She was alive. And she was my judge.
I delivered the final, clean blow, ending it. The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the wind whistling over the rocks and our own ragged breathing.
For a heartbeat, the world hung still. The bond roared in my blood, demanding assurance, demanding proof that she was untouched, unbroken.
Then the adrenaline crashed, and the pain hit me all at once. My legs trembled. I swayed, the world going gray at the edges. The agony in my side flared, a molten spear of suffering. The wounds along my shoulder and chest throbbed, blood trickling over my scales in rivulets, the smell of it sharp as rust. Breathing was an effort.
I turned to Reika. She was staring at me, her eyes wide, her body shaking. She took a step toward me, and her legs gave out.
I caught her before she hit the ground, my arms closing around her small, trembling body. She collapsed against me.
Her heart hammered against my chest, wild and frantic. Her skin felt clammy, her breath shaky with the aftermath of terror and relief. I bent my head, pressing my jaw against her hair, grounding myself in the reality of her, alive and safe in my arms.
We clung to each other, battered, bloodied, unsteady. I could taste the salt of her sweat, the tang of my own blood on the wind. I forced my wings to wrap us both, shielding her from the furnace wind that scoured the plain, from the hostile emptiness that threatened to swallow us whole. She buried her face in my chest, fingers clinging to the ragged edge of my torn scales.
Above the rush of blood in my own ears, I heard the beat of wings, low, steady, a promise in the air. I lifted my head and saw Khorlar and other Scalvaris warriors descending, their forms carving shadows against the red sky.
Safety. Closure. The world would keep turning, for now.
But for that one endless moment, the only thing that mattered was the fact that my mate was alive, clinging to me, not flinching from my touch but pressing close, her strength, her courage, her wild, unbroken spirit all woven together with my own battered hope.
My mate was safe. That was all that mattered.
24
REIKA
The world swamback into focus through a haze of pain and the cloying, metallic scent of healing herbs. I was lying on a stone slab, but it was warm, radiating a deep, steady heat that seeped into my bones. The air was thick with steam and the low murmur of voices.
