Page 6 of Beast of Blood and Ash
The "please" broke me. A plea. From her, to me. As if I deserved it.
I stepped back again. "I’m sorry."
For everything.
She clutched her satchel. The crowd’s attention thickened. Some human women gathered, wary, watchful. Ready to protect her—from me.
You are the monster in her story.
I retreated another step, face blank, wings tight. Still, she watched as if I might lunge.
If I could have torn the scales from my body, stripped away the parts of me that sent terror skittering over her skin, I would have. Right there.
My nostrils flared, dragging in her scent one last time. The cursed bond hissed, hungry, insistent. It didn't care about her fear. Demanded claiming, completion.
But that was the real obscenity. That I was drawn to her at all. That fate or biology had tied her to me, a weapon, a killer.
Don't force. Don't break her.
I bowed deeply and stepped aside, clearing her path. "Forgive me," I said.
She darted past, giving me a wide berth, not looking back. I tracked her until she disappeared, her scent a ghost in my lungs. I stood rooted, emptied, pierced by shame.
The market resumed its bustle. Water lapped at the river’s edge. A child laughed, the sound bouncing like a thrown stone. The crowd dispersed, spectacle ended.
I was peripheral. A shadow. A curiosity, a weapon, maybe a spy. No one met my gaze.
If the mate-bond was a gift, as legends claimed, then I was a curse. My existence an assault on her peace. An ugly intruder, huge, scarred, desperate.
She won't look at you. She never will.
I didn't care. I wasn't there to be looked at. Reika owed me nothing. I'd torn myself free of Ignarath for one reason—to be certain she stayed safe.
I would stay in Scalvaris, despite their hatred, the weight of being reviled. Endure insults, whispers, suspicion. Fight their battles if needed, spill blood for a city that would never claim me.
Because staying meant I could protect her. Ensure nothing from my world touched her again.
Not even me.
3
REIKA
Terra had said "just show up"at least a dozen times since I'd arrived in Scalvaris. As if my mere presence in the training ring was worthy of applause. As if dragging my broken body from one place to another was some grand achievement to be celebrated.
Today, I showed up.
The training cavern opened up before me, an echoing chamber of grunts and impacts. Dark stone stretched in every direction, swallowing light from the heat crystals overhead. I stood at the entrance, fingers tight around my makeshift staff, watching my people, the humans who were making a life for themselves there, move through defensive drills on our designated half of the space.
"Keep moving!" Terra called, her copper hair gleaming as she circled the group. Her voice snapped with authority, her posture perfectly straight despite the years of fighting, crashing, surviving in that hellscape.
I inhaled, tasting the cavern's thick air. My hand flexed around the wooden staff, rough beneath my palm. The weight of eyes on me pricked my spine.
Don't flinch. Don't freeze. Just move.
The memory of yesterday's market burned fresh. His voice, Omvar, rough and strange, saying my name. His massive frame, red scales catching the light. The way he'd reached for me, and that wild, stupid fear that locked my joints, stealing my voice.
I shook the image away. I was there to train, to reclaim strength in the body that had betrayed me again and again. Not to dwell on terrifying encounters with seven-foot Drakarn warriors from Ignarath.
