Page 65 of Claimed by the Savage Dragons
‘South. You?’
‘Here. Or at least not too far away. There’s a human trading post.’
I nod. ‘You were taken?’
She snorts. ‘Volunteered.’
I stop what I’m doing and look at her like she’s batshit crazy because why would a human come here of their own free will?
She just shrugs. ‘Get food here and a place to sleep.’
I turn away, wondering what kind of a shithole the human trading post is if shewantedto come to Assault & Abuse Central.
‘Did all the humans choose this?’ I ask.
‘Nope. Only a couple. A few others are third or fourth generation. Their parents and grandparents served here. And the rest got brought in or were traded for.’
‘No other Tributes?’ I ask, just in case the dragons were lying before.
But she shakes her head. ‘Nope. It’s like once every two decades or something like that and the last one died a few years after she got here from some sickness, I heard. They wait for Tributes for years and possessing one is some kind of honor. That’s why it’s such a big deal that you’re not being given to Aziel.’
‘What does Aziel look like?’ I question.
I should probably know so I can stay out of that guy’s way.
But I guess she doesn’t hear because she leads me down one of the corridors and to one of the rooms without answering me. She opens it warily and raises a brow when she sees me clocking her movements.
‘Some of them get pretty pissed if you bother them at the wrong time. Like to take it out on your hide sometimes.’
When she’s sure there’s no one in the room, she leads me into the largest bedroom I’ve ever seen. There are no windows, but there are old oil paintings and pre-Fall furniture including a glass desk with a computer monitor on it and a bunch of gadgets that I’ve never seen before and would have no idea what they do.
‘You clean the bathroom, newbie. I got the dusting.’
I nod and go into the equally opulent marble bathroom and get to work. Luckily, besides the shit stains in the bowl and the questionable tissues in the trash, it’s not too bad and it doesn’t take me long to finish. When I come out though, Jesse is nowhere to be found.
I frown and gather my basket closer, getting a weird feeling as I look around the room. I feel for Brax, an annoying habit I’ve developed over the past few days without realizing it, but he’s gone. The space he occupied inside me, strangely hollow. He’s too far away, I guess.
I try the door, and my heart skips a beat when I can’t open it. I can’t see a lock, but it won’t budge and there’s a weird littleblack slot that looks like something thin needs to go in it by the side. There’s a red light on it.
She locked me in here. Why?
Brax and Tor’s words to me only this morning come back to mind about not trusting the other humans and I’m a little annoyed that they were right, though more upset with myself that I thought I might know my own kind better than them.
I pace the room, feeling like a mouse in a cage, my eyes darting around to try to think of something. I look for air ducts just in case, but when I find them, they’re much too small for me to climb through.
I’m in there for thirty minutes. I know because I watch the glowing digital clock slowly counting the time. The door suddenly clicks, and I jump up from where I’m perched on the edge of the bed. The door opens and I tense.
‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ a terse whisper flies at me from the door.
It’s the overseer from the kitchen. The older man.
‘I got locked in,’ I say.
He snorts but then looks at me more closely. ‘You were with Jesse.’
I nod.
He mutters something, shaking his head. ‘You’re new so I’ll tell you this one time and one time only. Some of the humans are loyal to another dragon here. You don’t turn your back on any of ’em, girly.’
