Page 74 of The Breeding Cave
“Show yourself!” I scream at the top of my lungs.
The shadows of dragons drift overhead in the thick gray smoke. My eyes burn from the ash, yet I glare up at them anyway. If they want to kill me, they should do it already. They should kill me!
What is with all this torture? Why won’t they stop? I didn’t do anything to them.
Luciano, Brent, Molly, and everyone that I have come to know and love aren’t around. I can only imagine that they are dead already, that the Dragon Clan has obliterated them and forced me to watch.
At the far edge of the field, from what I can see at least, a giant comes into view. She looks similar to the monster I saw earlier at the cave with piercing eyes, but this is someone new.
She shifts into a human, standing a measly five feet tall, and walks through the field toward me, her hair blowing almost perfectly underneath the harsh and warm dragon breath from above, her body one that any man will die to have in his bed.
Is this her? Is this … Ruby?
While I am not sure of anything anymore, especially why I am tied up to the metal pole that burns my arms from the heat, I know one thing that is innately true. These giants aren’t good people.
No, they aren’t here to help me escape.
Neither of them killed me, but they have tortured me, one way or another.
But it seems like nobody wants me dead. Not the giants or the Dragon Clan. However, they do want me weak. They want me weak enough so that I can’t move. Weak enough so that I can’t think. Weak enough so that I can’t defeat them.
“You won’t get away with this,” I say through clenched teeth as she approaches.
The smoke clears up, and I notice Luciano behind her, his beast’s penetrating gaze fixed on me. Except this gaze isn’t the inviting one that I saw so many times, nor is it the possessive one.
He looks at me like he hates me.
Without saying a word, Ruby stops several feet away from me and turns toward Luciano. She places her hands on his face and pulls him into a kiss. Pain swells inside me as tears prick the corners of my eyes. I want to scream at her to stop, but when I open my mouth, nothing comes out.
I try escaping the bind that the Dragon Clan placed around me.
Useless.
What hurts the most isn’t that she kissed my mate, but Luciano has placed his hands on her waist and is now kissing her back, deepening it in front of me, staring at me as she leans into him, pressing her body against his, claiming him.
Of course, Ruby is so much prettier than me. She looks younger and fitter and stronger than I can ever be. Why wouldn’t he choose her? Luciano needs a strong woman who can carry his baby.
Not someone like me.
Not someone who burns in my sleep from my dreams. Not someone who attracts the psychos from the Dragon Clan. Not someone who Luciano has to protect from war and sacrifice himself.
“Stop it,” I cry.
She is getting inside my head. This isn’t real. It can’t be.
But when Luciano deepens the kiss with Ruby, my mark burns on my neck. Hotter than the fire the Dragon Clan has burned me with more than once now. Hotter than what I imagine hell feels like.
A shriek leaves my mouth this time, and my burns from previous nights reignite. I kick my legs and flail my arms around the binds in an attempt to escape, but instead of them loosening, the rope begins burning off from the heat my body is emanating.
I can’t handle this anymore. I need to escape.
Yet every time I take a breath, I inhale smoke and heat. Yet every time I try opening my eyes, they burn from the sight of Luciano with another woman, with my mate kissing someone else.
He is mine. He is supposed to be mine!
After licking Luciano’s kiss off her lips, Ruby saunters over to my blazing body. Her bones break, one after another after another as steam radiates from her body. She transforms into her Colossal beast and places a hand around my torso.
She lifts me into the air and tightens her hold around my stomach.
