Page 35 of Rook
It was clear who the leader was.
"Are you so desperate that you're teaming up with cattle?" the slaver asked, his tone mocking, superior. The fire in his hand pulsed brighter, casting dancing shadows across his scarred face. "If you were so eager for a win, I might have thrown a few of these useless idiots your way as a favor."
"Hey!" he heard one of the useless idiots shout from somewhere behind the slavers before someone shushed him.
Rook kept his expression neutral, even as rage built in his chest like molten lava. Cattle. As if Sasha were nothing more than livestock, something to be bought and sold and disposed of when no longer useful. The slaver had no idea what he was holding, no concept of the bond that tied her to Rook's very soul.
"It's over," Rook told him, putting as much authority into his voice as he could muster. As a dragon lord, it was a lot.
The command rang through the air like a bell, carrying years of breeding and training, the weight of royal blood and absolute power. He'd used that voice to quell riots, to cow enemy generals, to make lesser dragons prostrate themselves in submission. It was the voice of someone who expected to be obeyed without question.
He could sense a mood shift around him, a wavering in the slavers' confidence. They were criminals and outcasts, but they were still Vemion dragons. The instinctive response to authority was bred into their bones just as surely as their fire. Several of them shifted uncomfortably, their flames flickering lower.
It was clear the scarred slaver had the upper hand with his hostage, but Rook was very convincing. The other slavers began to glance between their leader and the dragon lord, uncertainty creeping into their postures.
The scarred slaver felt it too, that erosion of his control. His grip on Sasha tightened, and he moved his fire closer to her face. She tried to jerk her head back, but he had much too tight a hold on her. The flames reflected in her eyes, turning them molten gold.
The slaver threw his head back and laughed, the sound harsh and grating in the smoky air. "Oh, you think you still have power here? You think your bloodline means anything when I'm the one holding the cards?"
"If one of you is going to light me on fire, I'd rather him burn us both!" Sasha spat at the slaver, her voice rough but defiant.
His mate was a vicious thing.
His mate.
The word echoed in his mind with sudden, perfect clarity. She wasn't just some human he was trying to protect. She was his fated partner, the other half of his soul, the one person in all the universe who could touch his fire and remain unharmed.
Oh.
Understanding flooded through him like sunrise after the longest night.
Rook summoned his flame and blasted it straight at the slaver and Sasha.
The fire erupted from his hands in a river of molten heat that engulfed both figures. The scarred slaver's eyes went wide with shock, then pain, as the flames found every gap in his armor and poured through. His own fire sputtered and died as he lost concentration, his scream echoing across the camp.
But Sasha stood untouched in the heart of the inferno. The flames parted around her like water around a stone, caressing her skin without leaving so much as a mark. Her hair whipped in the supernatural wind of the fire, but she remained unharmed, protected by forces older than civilization.
The slaver's grip loosened as the flames consumed him, and Sasha pulled free, stumbling away from his collapsing form. He hit the ground hard, his body already beginning to crumble to ash.
Before the rest of the slavers could figure out what was going on, Rook turned on them and let his flame loose.
Confusion rippled through their ranks like a physical thing. They'd just seen their leader burn while his hostage walked away unscathed. It violated everything they thought they knew about fire, about dragons, about the natural order. Some of them took half-hearted steps backward, others raised their hands to summon their own flames, but none of them moved fast enough.
Rook's fire swept through them like a scythe through wheat. It was chaos for a moment, but only just. The gathered slavers weren't expecting the attack and didn't have time to defend against it. They'd been focused on their leader's confrontation, watching the drama unfold, when death came calling in a wave of superheated air.
One by one, they fell. Some tried to run, others attempted to fight back with desperate bursts of flame, but Rook's fire was too strong, too precise. He'd been trained by the best masters in the galaxy, had studied the art of combat since he could walk. These street thugs and pirates were no match for a dragon lord in full fury.
In just a minute or two, they were all dead.
The camp fell silent except for the crackle of dying flames and the distant hoot of an owl. Smoke drifted between the tents like fog, carrying the acrid smell of melted metal and worse things. Rook stood in the center of it all, his chest heaving, fire still dancing along his fingertips.
Rook turned his back on the slavers' ashes, but Sasha was gone.
Fear struck true for a moment, sharp and cold in his chest. Had he somehow burnt his mate after all? Had the scarred slaver gotten in one lucky shot before the end? The possibility made his blood turn to ice, his dragon roaring in anguish at the thought of losing her.
Then he heard shrill human voices coming from the edge of the camp and followed the sound to where Sasha was speaking with an older woman in the same patient, calming tone one would use with a panicked animal.
"He's a monster!" the older woman yelled, pointing a shaking finger in Rook's direction. "Did you see what he did? Fire! From his hands! That's not natural!"
