Page 134 of Devour
I blink and look down into the drakai pit. I swallow. “What did just happen?”
He takes in a long breath, and the sound of stomping boots begins before he answers. So much stomping. A horde of warriors, it must be.
“She claimed you,” my Dread tells me with wide eyes before the others surround us. He seems to want to say more, but there are a dozen warriors in a circle around us.
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Lina
“Amora,” he says matter-of-factly, eyes still pinned to me, “is the oldest matron drakai in the clan.”
I try to work through exactly what any of this could mean, but then I’m grabbed. The mob of masked men are around us, and I am trapped in one of their arms. This time, I resist screaming as I’m bound and gagged. I can’t see what happens to Haze. I am lost in a sea of masks and rough hands.
Was he part of this? Was he playing a role until he could ensure I was recaptured? Is there a reason he wants me alive but not free?
Discard him when it is fitting, she had told me. Is that what he will do to me?
I don’t know. Should I follow his instruction to keep what happened with Amora secret?
I am dragged through tunnel after tunnel. The men holding me don’t speak, not to each other and not to me. Finally, they drop me carelessly onto my butt. I hastily brush my hair from my eyes to see where I’ve been brought. I expect fangs or fire or jeering men.
Instead, I find a massive domed ceiling in an otherwise empty, shadowed room. My breath comes out in a puffy cloud, and I shiver from more than just the cold.
A large form looms over me. I look up to a masked warrior. For a moment, I think it’s Haze, but then I notice his thick stature.
I find the bleeding wound on his stomach and swallow.
“You’re a fucking bitch,” he tells me through gritted teeth. “You’re going to regret what you did.”
My nostrils flare. I don’t bother to tell him it was worth it.
I take in three long breaths and pool what little strength I have left. It’s a cruel game I’ve played with death all these years. Will it end tonight after all?
Several women in tunics rush around the room with tiny sticks of fire, lighting one torch at a time. One by one, the room brightens, until I realize we are in the sanctum.
It looks so different without the hundreds of torches. Will they light all of them for this impromptu trial in the middle of the night?
Minutes pass, and I don’t dare try to rise from my place crumbled at Ivar’s feet. He doesn’t touch me or goad me, and that’s blessing enough for now.
I brave a quick glance up at the man who should have been my captor, my Drak. I try to imagine what my short time here would have been like if he had been my guardian. I shiver at the thought.
I thought very little of my Dread when he first claimed me, but Haze never truly lived up to the name. Not to me.
He was something else entirely. He was a dagger in the dark. A snake hiding in tall grass. He let me feel safe enough to let my guard down before I uncovered who he really was.
Ivar’s form is thicker, each muscle more defined. His eyes reveal a darkness deeper than I’m capable of facing. There is no question of who and what he is.
I would never be at risk of caring for this man. It will forever be easy to hate him.
I allow the hate to fill up my whole body.
That will be the feeling that I leave this world clinging to. The wall that will protect my soft soul from more pain.
“Ivar,” a smooth, feminine voice barks.
I look up to the platform now covered in torchlight to find a woman with long red hair and a golden silk dress. Her face, though, is notably absent of the paint that previously made her striking. Her skin is pale and sallow. Her lips a dull pink. Her eyes shrewd but unremarkable.
“I take it you’ve come with proof of your accusations?”
