Page 64 of Claimed by the Savage Dragons
She shows her teeth and I pretend I don’t notice, adopting an air of quiet boredom.
‘The Tribute was claimed by Tor and Brax.’ I put up a hand when she starts trying to argue and she quiets, her eyes blazing.
‘I will concede that they overstepped their authority. They acted outside the guidelines of their duties and have been punished accordingly.’
‘How?’ Raina spits.
I direct her with a steely gaze to remind her of who I am, at least for now, and I’m gratified when her eyes drop again.
‘They’ve both been sent to the Borderlands, which, as you know, is a mission no one was getting in line to volunteer for. It’s a long way and a long time to be cut off from the faction.’ I narrow my eyes at her. ‘In fact, Raina, if I were you, I’d be thanking me.’
‘Why’s that?’ she snarls before gritting her teeth and tacking on a reluctant ‘commander’ at the end.
‘Because I was going to send you,’ I tell her.
She says nothing, but a couple of the others snigger as she draws herself up with a regal sniff.
‘Thank you, Commander,’ she says before turning on her heel and marching from the hall.
I don’t watch her leave, and in fact, I ask if there are any other issues that need to be addressed so that everyone knows I’ve already forgotten her.
Thankfully, there’s nothing else for now so I return to my office to go through the correspondence that’s come in the past few hours. Dominick has put a veritable mountain on my desk since I was last in here and I sigh, knowing that I’ll be working long into the night on messages from the north about broken trade agreements–problems with the humans in the south again. The list is long and grows with every passing day. I note that the human is no longer in here, so my aide must have done what I asked. I check my phone, but there aren’t any messages from him, so I start making a dent in the work that needs to be done today, wondering how my predecessor did it because I feel exhausted all the time.
Chapter Seven
MARI
Another one of my fellow humans barrels into the side of me as they deposit another pile of plates into the sink, soaking me for the hundredth time and making me grunt in pain. I’ve tried to ignore them for the most part since I was brought into the kitchens by a thin dragon man who grunted that he was the Commander’s assistant, so I’d better do as he said. The severe, older human man who seems to be in charge, took one look at me and told me to start washing dishes. I’ve been standing at this large sink for hours and the dirty crockery seems never-ending. The others haven’t spoken to me, but when I notice the overseer leave a minute later from the corner of my eye, only a few seconds go by before one of the other girls approaches me.
‘So, you’re the Tribute.’
I nod once, not stopping what I’m doing.
‘Think you’re better than us since you’re mated to two of those monsters, whore?’
I turn to look at her, giving her the once over. She reminds me of the girls who made fun of me because of what my mom did with their dads back at home.
I know better than to give anyone, especially girls like this, any power over me at all.
‘You said it first,’ I mutter.
She splutters but can’t say anything else because the overseer comes back in. He looks suspiciously at us, but I ignore him, just washing dishes like he told me.
‘You. Tribute. What’s your real name.’
‘Mari,’ I answer.
‘You’re done on dishes. Go clean the rooms with Jesse there.’
The one who called me a whore. Great.
She rolls her eyes at me but beckons me to follow her as we leave the kitchen. She takes me to a closet with cleaning supplies.
‘Grab one of the baskets,’ she tells me. ‘I’m guessing you know how to clean.’
I nod.
‘Where you from?’ she asks, clearly curious in spite of herself
