Page 23 of Burned Alive to Be His
With a roar of pure, agonized frustration that seems to be torn from the very depths of his soul, he yanks me back from the edge. He shoves me to the ground, and I fall in a heap on the hard, windswept rock.
He stands over me, his chest heaving, his body trembling with a rage that has no outlet.
“You are still useful to me!” he bellows, his voice raw. “The trials are not complete! That is the only reason you still draw breath! Do not mistake my pragmatism for mercy! Do not ever think you know me!”
He turns and storms away, his powerful form a silhouette of rage against the dying sun. He does not look back.
I lie there on the cold stone, the wind drying the tears on my cheeks, and I watch him go. He is a monster. He is a killer. He is my captor.
But he refuses to let me die.
And in this brutal, fiery, hellish world, that is the closest thing to hope I have ever known. A small, dangerous, and utterly thrilling confidence begins to bloom in my chest. The game has changed again. And I am no longer just a pawn.
12
XVITAR
The hunt is a necessary purge. The confrontation with the human at the cliff’s edge has left a foul, restless poison in my blood. Her impossible certainty, her refusal to break even when faced with her own death, has shaken something deep within me. It is a feeling I do not like. It is a feeling of being known, of being seen in a way that leaves me exposed.
So I hunt.
I leave the settlement at dawn, seeking the jagged, treacherous ravines on the island’s northern face. This is not a hunt for sustenance for the clan. This is a hunt for blood. For the clarifying, focusing fire of violence. My chosen prey is a dripir, a blind, tusked monstrosity the size of a boulder that burrows in the volcanic scree. They are notoriously difficult to kill, their thick hides capable of turning a blade, their vicious, curled tusks able to gut a dragon with a single, upward thrust. It is the perfect challenge.
I find its trail easily, the scent of its foul musk thick in the hot air. I track it for hours, a silent predator, my body moving with an innate grace over the treacherous terrain. The hunt strips away the complexities of the past few days, the confusingthoughts of the human, the political games of Vorlag and Grakar. Out here, there is only the hunter and the hunted. The strong and the weak. An order I understand.
I corner the beast in a narrow, dead-end canyon. It knows it is trapped. It turns, its blind, milky eyes facing me, its massive, warthog-like head low to the ground. It lets out a deafening squeal of rage and charges, the ground trembling under its weight.
I do not meet it head-on. I am a dragon, not a brainless Gilak demon. I use the canyon walls, leaping up, my claws finding purchase in the volcanic rock. I let it charge past me, its tusks gouging deep furrows in the stone where I stood a moment before. As it passes beneath me, I drop, landing on its broad, bristled back.
It shrieks, a sound of pain and fury, and begins to thrash, trying to throw me. I hold on, my legs clamped tight around its massive girth, and I draw my blade. I drive the thick, obsidian knife down, again and again, into the thick muscle and hide at the base of its skull. It is like trying to stab a mountain.
The beast throws itself against the canyon wall, trying to crush me. Pain explodes in my side as I am slammed against the rock, the impact jarring my teeth. I grunt, tasting my own blood, but I do not release my grip. I roar, the sound of pure, primal fury, and put all my strength, all my rage, all my frustration into one final, devastating thrust.
The blade sinks to the hilt. The beast shudders, a great, convulsive tremor, and collapses, its lifeblood pouring onto the black grit in a thick, steaming torrent.
I stand over my kill, my chest heaving, my body bruised and aching, but my mind… my mind is clear. The smoke has been purged. I am Xvitar. I am a predator. I am strength.
I butcher a hindquarter from the carcass, the meat a heavy, satisfying weight on my shoulder, and begin the long walk back to the settlement. I am in control again.
The feeling lasts until I reach the settlement’s edge.
The air is wrong. The usual sounds of the clan—the clang of steel from the training circle, the murmur of conversation—are absent. There is a tense, watchful silence. And her scent… her unique, earthy scent that has become a constant presence at the edge of my senses… is gone.
A cold, sharp dread, utterly foreign and unwelcome, pierces the calm I had just reclaimed. I drop the dripir haunch, the heavy meat landing with a thud in the dirt. My head snaps up, my nostrils flaring, tasting the air.
I smell her fear, a faint, lingering trace. And beneath it, stronger, fresher, is the scent of Grakar’s sweat and smug satisfaction.
He took her.
The thought isn’t really a thought. It is a detonation. A white-hot, blinding rage erupts in my mind, a fury so absolute it eclipses everything else. The hunt, the kill, the politics of the clan—all of it turns to ash in the face of this one, singular violation.
He. Took. What. Is. Mine.
A roar tears from my throat, a sound that is not dark elf, but pure, unadulterated dragon. It is a sound of territorial rage, of a promise of death. The clan members who had been watching from their caverns shrink back, their eyes wide with fear. They have seen my temper. They have never seen this.
I don’t need to think. My body is already moving, my predator’s instincts taking over completely. I find their trail instantly, a clear, brutal path leading away from the settlement, toward the treacherous, crumbling sea cliffs to the west. He is not being subtle. He wants me to follow. He is laying a trap.
I do not care. I would walk into the heart of the sun to rip him apart.
