Page 6 of Burned Alive to Be His
My mind begins to fray. I see ghosts in the waves, the faces of the slaves I knew in Vhoig, their eyes accusing. I see the sneering face of Lord Tarsus, his new whip in hand. I drift in and out of consciousness, my grip on the wreckage weakening.
I am dying. The thought is not frightening. It is a simple, quiet fact. I have escaped one hell only to find another. I close my eyes, ready for the end. Ready for the cold embrace of the sea.
And then I smell it.
Not salt. Not rot. Something else. Sharp and acrid, like a forge, with an undercurrent of something burning. Sulfur.
My eyes flutter open. Through the haze of my delirium, I see it. A dark, jagged line on the horizon. A smudge of black against the grey sky.
Land.
The sight is a jolt to my dying heart. A spark of that defiant rage I felt in the cellar ignites once more.I will not die.
I don’t know how I do it. I kick my legs, my movements feeble, paddling with my raw hands. The current, as if sensing my desperation, seems to pull me toward it. The dark line grows, resolving itself into a mountain. A single, massive peak that smokes lazily into the sky, its slopes a stark, forbidding black.
Hours later, the waves finally cast me onto the shore. I collapse onto sand that is not sand, but fine, black grit that is hot to the touch, even through my wet, tattered tunic. I crawl away from the water’s edge on my hands and knees, my body shaking with a profound, bone-deep exhaustion.
I have survived.
I lie there for a long time, the hot black sand warming my chilled body, the sound of the waves a gentle hiss behind me. The air is ripe with the scent of sulfur and ash. I push myself into a sitting position and take in my surroundings.
This is no paradise. The beach is a stretch of black grit and jagged, volcanic rock. There is no green, no sign of life. The mountain looms over me, a terrifying, monolithic presence, a plume of dark smoke drifting from its peak. It feels like the edge of the world. A place the gods forgot to finish.
But I am alive. And I am free.
I am so lost in the overwhelming relief of it that I do not hear him approach. One moment, I am alone. The next, a shadow falls over me.
I look up, and my blood turns to ice.
He is a dark elf, but unlike any I have ever seen. He is taller, broader, his body a terrifying landscape of corded muscle. His skin is the color of storm clouds, but it is not smooth. It is covered in a fine, shimmering layer of what looks like obsidian scales, thickest on his powerful forearms and shoulders. Two imposing black horns, wickedly sharp, curl back from his temples, and his ears are longer, more pointed, than those of the nobles in Vhoig. His face is a sculpture of brutal perfection—a sharp jaw, high cheekbones, and a mouth set in a cruel, arrogant line. His eyes, the color of amethysts, are fixed on me with a cold, predatory intensity.
He is magnificent. He is terrifying. He is the most dangerous thing I have ever seen.
All the survival instincts honed over a lifetime of servitude scream at me.Small. Invisible. No threat.But I am done being small. I am done being invisible. I have fought the sea and the sun and the darkness, and I have won.
I scramble back, my hand closing around the hilt of my blade, still tucked in my tunic. My fingers are stiff and clumsy, but I manage to draw it. The shard of metal is a pathetic joke against a being of his power, but it is mine.
He watches the movement, a flicker of something—amusement? intrigue?—in his violet eyes. He takes a step closer. The heat radiating from him is almost as intense as the sand.
“Stay back,” I rasp, my voice a broken thing.
A low sound rumbles in his chest. It is not a laugh. It is a growl, a primal, possessive sound that vibrates through the airand settles deep in my bones. It’s the sound of a predator that has found something unexpected in its territory.
He does not stop. He continues to advance, his movements fluid and utterly confident. He is the master of this desolate, fiery land, and I am an intruder. A piece of flotsam.
I hold my ground, my arm shaking as I keep the blade pointed at him. My heart is a wild drum against my ribs, but my eyes are locked on his. I will not cower. Not again.
When he is just feet away, he stops. His gaze drops from my eyes to the small blade in my hand, then back to my face. The corner of his mouth quirks in a semblance of a smile, but there is no warmth in it. Only a chilling arrogance.
“Treasure,” he says, his voice a deep baritone that seems to come from the very core of the mountain.
Then he moves, faster than I could have believed possible. One moment he is there, the next his hand is clamped around my wrist. His grip is like stone. The scales on his skin are smooth and cool against my sun-burnt flesh. With a casual twist, he disarms me. My blade falls to the black sand, lost.
His other hand fists in the front of my tunic, and he hauls me to my feet as if I weigh nothing. I stumble against him, my head spinning from weakness and terror. He is a wall of heat and muscle, smelling of sulfur, hot stone, and something else, something wild and ancient.
I am his.
He begins to walk, dragging me behind him, away from the sea and toward the smoking peak. Toward the heart of the fire.
