Page 24 of Burned Alive to Be His
I run, my powerful legs eating up the ground, my body a blur of controlled violence. The world narrows to a single point: the trail. The scent of his arrogance and her terror. The fury in my blood is a living thing, a fire that demands to be fed. It screams for his blood, for his bones, for his screams.
But beneath the rage, a deeper, colder fear is a serpent coiling in my gut. Fear for her. For her safety. The thought of his hands on her, of his voice in her ear, of the terror he must be inflicting upon her… it is an agony. It is a weakness. And it fuels my rage to an even greater, more terrifying height.
I find them in a place known as the Bone Yard, a desolate stretch of coastline where the skeletons of ancient sea leviathans lie half-buried in the black sand, their massive, bleached ribs curving up toward the sky like the ruins of some long-dead god’s cathedral. It is a place of death, a fitting stage for what is to come.
Grakar stands in the shadow of a massive rib cage, his back to the sea. He has her. His thick arm is wrapped around her waist, her feet dangling inches from the ground. She is not fighting. She is utterly still, her face a pale, frozen mask of terror. But her eyes… her eyes are on me as I emerge from the rocks, and in their depths, I see not just fear, but a flicker of that impossible, infuriating defiance.
“I knew you would come,” Grakar says, his voice a triumphant sneer. He tightens his grip on her, and a small, pained gasp escapes her lips.
The sound is a whip crack against my soul.
“Let her go, Grakar,” I say in a low, deadly rumble. I advance slowly, my hands clenched into fists at my sides, my muscles coiled, ready to spring.
“Or what?” he taunts. “You will challenge me? You will fight me for this… this scrap of a thing?” He shakes her, her head lolling on her slender neck. “She is nothing, Xvitar. A human. A weakness. And she has made you weak.”
“Let. Her. Go,” I repeat, each word a stone.
“You care for it,” he says, a look of dawning, delighted realization on his brutish face. “By the Thirteen, you actuallycare. The great Xvitar, brought to his knees by a pale-skinned pet.” He laughs, a harsh, ugly sound that echoes off the ancient bones.
That is his final mistake.
I don’t remember deciding to attack. One moment I am there, the next I am a blur of motion, a projectile of pure rage. I close the distance between us in a heartbeat, my roar of fury a physical force.
He is expecting it. He shoves her aside, and she tumbles to the sand, out of the way. He meets my charge with one of his own, and we collide with the force of two battering rams. The impact is bone-jarring, a shockwave that shudders through my entire body.
There are no rules here. There is no honor. This is not a spar. This is a fight to the death.
I drive my fist into his face, the crunch of his nose breaking under my knuckles a deeply satisfying sound. He grunts, blood spraying from his nostrils, but he is a beast. He absorbs the blow and retaliates, his own massive fist catching me on the side of the head. The world explodes in a flash of white light, and I stagger back, my ears ringing.
He presses the advantage, his attacks a wild, furious storm of fists and feet. I give ground, parrying his blows, my scales deflecting the worst of them, but he is relentless. He is bigger, heavier, and his rage makes him a formidable opponent.
He catches me with a kick to the ribs that sends me stumbling. He follows with a punch that I block with my forearm, the sound of bone on bone a sickening crack. Pain, sharp and white-hot, lances up my arm. It is broken.
I grit my teeth against the agony, a savage snarl ripping from my throat. I let him come in close, let him think he has me, and then I move. I drop low, sweeping his legs out from under him. He goes down with a surprised roar, his massive body hitting the sand with a heavy thud.
I am on him in an instant, my knees pinning his shoulders, my one good hand raining down blows on his face. I punch, and punch, and punch, the world narrowing to the satisfying, wet crunch of my fist on his flesh and bone. Blood flies, spattering my face, my chest, the white bones of the leviathan around us.
He is a warrior. He does not give up. He gets a hand free and his claws, sharp as daggers, gouge deep furrows in my side. Pain rips through me, hot and blinding. I roar, a terrifying sound of pure agony and rage, and he uses my moment of distraction to throw me off.
We scramble to our feet, both of us bleeding, battered, our breath coming in harsh gasps. We circle each other like two wounded predators, the sand around us stained with our blood.
“She has made you slow,” he spits, blood and saliva dribbling from his ruined mouth.
He is right. My concern for her, the distraction of her presence, has cost me. But it has also given me something else. A focus. A purpose beyond my own pride.
He lunges again, but this time, he is not aiming for me. He feints to his left and then dives toward her, where she is huddled at the base of the rib cage.
“I will break your toy!” he roars.
And in that moment, something inside me snaps. The last vestige of the warrior, the last shred of the clan leader, isconsumed by the pure, absolute instinct of the male protecting what’s his.
A fire, hotter and more primal than any rage I have ever known, erupts in my soul. I do not just move. Ishift.
My body elongates, my bones cracking and reforming with an agonizing speed. Obsidian scales, hard as stone, erupt from my skin. My face pushes forward into a draconic snout, my teeth lengthening into fangs. Wings, vast and leathery, tear from my back. It is not a full transformation, but a partial, terrifying hybrid of elf and dragon, a form I have not taken since I was a youth. A form of pure, uncontrolled battle rage.
I am on him before he can even reach her. I catch him by the throat with my clawed hand, my talons digging deep into his flesh, and I lift him from the ground. He chokes, his eyes wide with shock and terror, his hands clawing uselessly at my arm.
I slam him into the massive, bone-white rib of the leviathan. The ancient bone shudders, and he screams, a high, thin sound of pure agony as his spine cracks. I slam him again. And again. The sound of his body hitting the bone is a wet, percussive beat of death.
