Chapter 1 – Finley
I slid off the demon king’s shoulder and crashed down into the soggy mud and weeds. My left hip struck a rock, and pain exploded through me, adding to the aches and bruises I’d accumulated on our three-day journey to this accursed place, the demons’ kingdom. My sword was still sheathed at my side. The demon king, Dolion, had allowed me to bring it, knowing I didn’t know how to use it. It was his little joke.
“Yeah, sure, just put me anywhere,” I mumbled, wincing as I pushed away from the rock.
The large, magically powered boat that had borne us to this dark and rain-streaked island bobbed in the murky sea behind us, anchored. Rowboats floated from it, washing onto the sandy shore and unloading the demons and various cargo.
Boots squelched in the mud next to me before Jedrek, my dipshit betrothed, crashed down beside me, crying out.
“Quiet,” I told him in a low voice.
Too late.
His previous transportation, a hard-faced demon with plenty of strength hidden within his wiry frame, swung a foot into Jedrek’s middle. Jedrek cried out again, rolling through the mud and weeds to get away.
“It’s fine. He’s just getting used to this.” I put out my hand and leaned toward Jedrek, doing very little to shield him with my body. I’d learned by now that if they really wanted to lay into him—or me—they were going to do it. Still, I couldn’t help trying to intervene. The only reason Dolion had lifted his magical suppression spell from our people was because I’d agreed to marry Jedrek. Which meant he needed to stay alive for the time being.
“Welcome to my castle, princess.” Dolion looked down at me with a smirk on his blue face. Rain slid down the dark horns curling from his head. “Your new home.”
Sorrow rose and squeezed my heart. The hollow pang of loss threatened to bring tears to my eyes as I remembered the way Nyfain looked at me before I was taken away. His utter despair. His desperation to keep me with him, in his kingdom and in his life.
In the end, he’d let me go. I knew he believed it would be forever. He thought I would break free from the demons, something he was confident I could do, and live my life elsewhere. My happiness mattered to him, and he didn’t think he had anything to offer. Idiot. I would absolutely go back to him. The only reason I’d agreed to this farce was to get the suppression spell lifted. I would suffer anything to free my kingdom and my mate. With that spell gone, Nyfain could use his alpha magic to pull out everyone’s animals. He could give our people a fighting chance… Because I would escape—straight back to Nyfain—and we would break the curse together. Then it would be time to fight.
I held on to my resolve with everything I had and looked up through the driving rain, determined that Dolion would never see my pain. He would never know what all of this was costing me…or Nyfain.
“Quite the welcome mat you’ve rolled out,” I said, lifting my hands and turning my palms up to look at the mud now caking my skin. “Did you do the landscaping yourself?”
He scowled at me, his gaze roaming my face. Darkness cascaded around his narrow shoulders like a cloak. “So strong. So stupid.” He stepped forward and kicked, his heavy boot landing on my upper thigh. Pain vibrated through me. “Look at it!”
I tsked, but did as he said to stave off another kick. He’d done a good job at acting suave and balanced within Nyfain’s castle—except when Nyfain was thwarting his commands—but he had a volatile temper. Not just directed at Jedrek and me, either. He doled out harsh punishments to his own people if they didn’t follow his commands quickly enough. Do something wrong, even by accident? The punishment was worse still. He used his power and position to bully others. He led through fear.
I knew from history books that those types of leaders often had precarious perches on their thrones. I wondered how easy it would be to topple him.
“It’s nothing like that dragon hovel you’re so fond of,” he said, and I could hear the smug pride in his voice.
He’s got that right, my dragon murmured.
A formidable castle sat on top of a hill. Pale moonlight peeked through a break in the heavy clouds, washing across thin spires, bulky towers, and the castle’s sprawling, disjointed architecture. Arrow slits punched through the first two levels, giving way to more modern rectangular windows for the next two. The fifth level looked like a sort of fortress, with sleek stone walls and a fresh feel that suggested it had been built sometime in the last hundred years.
The overall effect was grotesque. The designers had clearly been drunk.
The murky sea wrapped around the island fortress, the sandy shore we’d landed on turning rocky and then jagged as the land rose. At the other side of the castle would be cliffs, something I remembered from the maps I’d studied and descriptions I’d read. The only way in or out would be this heavily guarded shore. That or flying.
“It’s enormous,” I said in a level tone.
He puffed up a bit, his smirk turning to a grin.
I finished my thought: “It looks like you’re compensating for something…”
His grin dripped off his face and his eyes sparkled with menace. “Welcome to your nightmare, highness.”
“Cheers!” I said with a smile, raising my hand. “Actually, I need a drink for that toast, I believe. Fancy getting me one? You’ve left my butler behind. Oh, and I’m not anyone’s highness. I’m a commoner. I thought someone would’ve told you…”
“You are the true mate to the dragon prince, or didn’t he mention it?”
Nyfain’s letter felt heavy in my back pocket. I didn’t comment. Dolion was a cunning bastard who would use my weaknesses against me. One of them being that I was a blunt bitch who sucked at keeping secrets. But I would keep quiet about the important things, like how much I knew regarding Nyfain, his kingdom, his people, and breaking the demons’ curse.
“But no, you’re right,” Dolion said. “You will never be royalty. You will die in my dungeon or at the hands of my court. Eventually, your dragon prince will also die. Your death will be his ruin.”
“He’s already ruined. We both are. But I admire your spunk.” I winked at him.
His eyes narrowed as he stared down at me. He wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. I supposed it wouldn’t make much sense to him. He hadn’t had everything stripped from him, like Nyfain had. He hadn’t spent sixteen years watching his beloved kingdom crumble around him. And he certainly hadn’t grown up poor and trapped like I had. Unable to reach the magic I was born with, fighting a curse that was slowly stealing the lives of those I loved.
No, he didn’t know what ruin looked like. And he didn’t know how to rise from the ashes. I’d make sure he never did.
Because I would be the bitch that burned down his whole world.
He pursed his lips and glanced at his minions behind him. “Take them to the dungeons. Around the side, mind. We’ll need to do something about the stench clinging to her before any of the court can see her.” He turned his attention back to me. “Clever of the dragon, to coat you in his scent. He is a conquered beast, but he still has his alpha legacy, it seems. But it won’t protect you for long.” Dolion studied me a moment. “Instruct the guards not to mar her face. I want my court to watch Beauty as she breaks.”
“What about her arms?” asked the demon looming over Jedrek. “What skin will be visible?”
“Yes, good point. Do not mar the arms, no. No neck, even though we will want to cover that ridiculous bite mark on her shoulder. Shifters,” he spat. “So barbaric, marking their mates. Disgusting.”
“And this?” The demon stepped forward again, kicking at Jedrek’s legs. Jedrek curled up a little tighter.
“That one is somewhat handsome for a shifter, no?” Dolion said, assessing Jedrek now. “I can think of a few ladies who might like him as a pet. Tell the guards to go easy on him if he cooperates.”
“But not the princess?”
Dolion sneered. “She won’t cooperate. Her dragon will forbid it.”
He’s not wrong, my dragon thought.
Dolion made a signal, and the demons around him moved forward. Two grabbed Jedrek and hauled him up, hustling him toward the castle. Two others grabbed my arms and yanked me to my feet, one tweaking my shoulder painfully.
Dolion’s gaze traveled my face, and he reached out. I struggled not to jerk my head away as he lightly fingered the hair draping my cheek and then ran his manicured nails along my jaw and down to my chin. He applied pressure to tilt my face up a bit.
“So pretty, even disheveled as you are. I wouldn’t mind using you as a pet myself. One mighty dragon on my leash, and his mate at my beck and call.” A ghost of a smile crossed his lips, and my dragon thrashed in my hold, wanting to break free and crush some bones. “As soon as we can get that stench off you, it will be so. I promise. You will beg for my cock. I’ll let your dragon prince watch as you do so…right before I kill you. It’ll finally break him. I know it will.”
“Hmm. What an offer,” I said, winking. “Very tempting. I’ll need to pass, though. I’m partial to dragon-sized cocks. I don’t beg for appetizers.”
He huffed out a laugh. “Even dragons break. In the end, you will be my little lamb, eager for affection. And my entire court will watch you fall.”
A chill arrested me, but I kept myself from squirming. “Promises, promises.”
“Time, your highness,” he said as his gaze roamed my body. “All one needs is time. Even the strongest beings will crack and crumble given enough time and pressure.” His eyes turned hungry. “And I have all the time in the world.”
His hand drifted lower, toward my breast. I braced myself for the touch, but his hand stopped right before touching down, a wrinkle worming between his eyebrows. His jaw set, and a glimmer of fear sparked in his blood-red eyes.
Touching my face was one thing—Dolion had a lot of power and could withstand Nyfain’s aromatic presence for such a benign gesture—but my breast was altogether different. Touching me there would be more intimate, erotic. And so he felt the full weight of the dragon’s protection. It didn’t matter that the golden prince wasn’t here in the flesh.
Dolion pulled his hand away and turned. A burst of movement and he was walking toward the castle, a group of his strongest minions, similar in color to him, following at his heels.
“Let’s go.” A black-scaled demon gave me a shove.
As we crested the rise, the wind slammed into us, knocking me sideways into Jedrek. He huddled down into his sopping clothes, glancing beyond me. I followed his gaze, taking in the stark vegetation atop the hill—nothing but a few bare trees permanently bowed by the roaring wind, sickly bushes, and weeds. Beyond, the sea stretched out into the darkness. My dragon’s power meant I could see in the dark with a black, white, and yellow color spectrum, but not at great distances like that. In the day, it would probably look like that part of the sea carried on into eternity.
Dolion’s crew continued forward toward the grand front entrance of the castle, with a large gate arching over what had to be the door. It was too far away for me to see much detail. Of course, we weren’t headed for the front entrance, and after we reached the windswept hilltop, our captors veered us right. We plodded along the side of the structure, likely aiming for a fast track to the dungeon.
As we neared the castle, I looked up at the monstrous thing, reaching far into the rain-soaked sky with multiple towers practically piercing the thick, sodden clouds. Or so it seemed from the ground.
My legs ached by the time we reached a little berm at the base of the wall. The metal door nestled within it clearly led down into the bowels of the castle. The hinges squealed as one of the demons bent and pulled it open, no key needed. He looked down into the dark depths, the blackness giving nothing away.
“Did his majesty say anything about the magical lock?” He hesitated a moment before asking in a louder voice, “Does anyone know if they stripped the obice covering this entrance?” He looked at the demon holding Jedrek, his flat face lined with wariness. “Did anyone ask?”
Obice. Ah. No key needed because the lock was magical in nature. Shit. In all the reading I’d done about the demons and their castle, trying to prepare myself for this moment, I didn’t recall anything regarding this type of demon magic.
“Govam can release the obice,” someone said. “He has the magic to do it.”
The crowd shifted around, looking for whoever that was.
“Not at present,” a deep, somewhat bored-sounding voice said from somewhere behind me. “I had that ability and others, but they were suppressed as punishment while I’m on this detail.”
A few grumbled at that, turning back to the demon standing near the gaping blackness.
“Test it out,” someone called from the back. “Walk down a bit.”
“What, and lose my foot? Fuck off.” The demon at the door looked through the crowd that had gathered around us. “Sonassa, try it.”
A female laugh sounded behind me. “I don’t want to lose my foot any more than you do, Ressfu, and it won’t be me his majesty punishes for dereliction of duty.”
The demon by the door, Ressfu, licked his pale yellow lips, the color a little lighter than the rest of his face. Like all demons, he was capable of using a human form, but he clearly couldn’t be bothered. Then again, why would he? He was among his kind, the rest of them in their natural forms as well, ranging from nearly human looking to leather or scaled or even feathered.
“Zurgid, run around and find out whether the defenses are turned off,” Ressfu said.
I heard shuffling in the back. “That would take forever. You know what it’s like in the dungeons. His highness doesn’t enforce any sort of regulations down there. He lets the officers run wild as long as they make his creatures.”
The demon by the door looked down into the hole’s depths, clearly debating. He lifted his gaze again, zipping over Jedrek and then landing on me. My stomach flipped at his sudden look of decisiveness.
“You, shifter woman, come here.” He gestured me forward. Tingles of warning spread across my skin.
Well, shit.
Chapter 2 – Finley
“Not her, idiot,” a familiar voice said from behind. Sonassa. “She’s the dragon prince’s mate. The king has plans for her. Besides, didn’t you hear? He’ll want her as a pet eventually.”
“His highness just said not to mar her face or arms,” Ressfu said. “He said nothing about her legs.”
“He’ll want both of them to be there,” Sonassa replied.
Ressfu looked beyond me, probably at Sonassa, clearly thinking it over. Anticipation rolled in my gut, and I got to work planning what I would do if they called on me to be the fall guy.
No problem, my dragon thought. Grab that fuckstain Ressfu and toss him down the hole. See if he dies. They might beat the shit out of us, but that’s better than losing a leg.
This was true.
“Fine,” Ressfu said before spitting to the side. “Luru, come here. You have the least seniority. Dip your tail in and see if the coast is clear.”
The demon beside me grunted as if he thought it a fine idea.
Luru, a leathery-skinned demon with a hunch, didn’t seem to agree. He slunk closer with a slack face, looking between Ressfu and the gaping door at his feet.
“I think it’s probably fine,” Luru said in a weak voice, stalling at the edge of the door. “The officers may not be regulated, but they are always punctual. They’re always eager for fresh prisoners, especially dragons. They’ll know the king was planning on bringing prisoners in at about this time.”
“How would they know that?” Ressfu said. “These shifters weren’t planned for.”
“Not these shifters, no, but his highness almost always brings back some shifters from that kingdom, doesn’t he? And he always sends them around this way to get cleaned up. Right?”
It didn’t sound like he was entirely sure of what he was saying. Still, the words pinged around inside my head. Were some of the people from my kingdom—maybe even my village!—down in that dungeon?
Heart pounding, I waited as Luru argued for a moment longer before two demons stepped out of the crowd and roughly grabbed him.
“I’ll go around!” Luru hollered as they marshaled him down a step, into the doorway. “I’m fast! I run fast! The officers like me. I’ll just go— No!”
They lowered him. He pulled up his thin tail and bent his legs, suspended above the blackness.
“No. Please,” Luru pleaded.
“Drop him,” Ressfu said.
Luru started screaming and writhing as his captors released him over what was surely a staircase. He dropped down squirming, hit at an awkward angle, and screams turned into painful grunts and then screams again as he rolled down the stairs.
“Coward,” someone spat.
Sonassa laughed. “You think you would’ve approached the situation with more decorum, do you? I didn’t see you volunteering.”
A few others snickered.
“We’re good,” Ressfu said, motioning everyone on.
The two demons already at the opening descended the stairs one at a time, darkness swallowing them as they went.
The demons holding me started forward, jostling me to keep up even though I wasn’t resisting. They got to the mouth of the doorway.
“Wait,” Ressfu said, eyeing my face. His mouth curled into a sinister grin. “You got lucky, dragon. You must know it. What will make you squeal, eh? I like to watch your kind quiver.”
The two beside me chuckled darkly.
Ressfu reached for me, taking my arm in a clawed grip and jerking me toward the mouth of the stairs. Darkness covered what lay beneath—the kind of thick, impenetrable darkness that suggested magic was at work.
The demon’s breath smelled like dead things. “Are your kind bred to feel no fear? Let’s see.”
He shoved me out over the lip of the doorway and into nothingness. Gravity snagged at me immediately, yanking me down.
Protect your head, my dragon thought-hollered, blasting me with power. The sweet fire filled me up and rushed through my blood. My senses heightened and my thought process sped up as blackness washed over me, cutting out my sight. It was clearly magically induced.
I closed my eyes so it wouldn’t distract me, focusing instead on my other senses and the need to survive. Pungent aromas assaulted me, vomit and piss and decay wrapped in a musty scent like mold. I twisted and bent, making sure my first point of contact would be my side. A moment later, my hip hit a hard corner, half on and half off my sword scabbard. My upper body slammed down on stone steps.
I grunted and tucked, wrapping my hands around my head, forming a shape as close to a ball as I could manage.
Hang on, folks, we’re about to do a little acrobatics, I thought desperately, speaking to my imaginary audience the way I always did under dire circumstances. My dragon must have felt the pressure, because she didn’t call me an idiot.
I slid a little before the momentum lifted my feet and threatened to send me the rest of the way down on my head. My dragon continued to beat power into me, pulling it from Nyfain’s dragon. Even all this distance away, we could still feel each other through the bond. It would play hell on Nyfain’s nerves, knowing I was in trouble and he couldn’t come to my aid, but for now I’d take what I could get.
The added power dulled the ache of the first landing, lessening the feel of stone scraping off skin. I tucked in harder, angling, and my bottom half flipped over the top. My ankle struck a step, and agony shot up my leg as my other foot caught. It was now my upper body’s turn to fly over the lower. I was out of control. Careening.
Metal tinkled beside me and then below. My sword had somehow gotten loose and was now racing me to the bottom. Fantastic. As if I needed one more thing to worry about.
My other ankle smashed into a step. Crack. Incredible pain filled my world, forcing out a cry. Broken ankle, probably. Fractured, at least.
The fall seemed to go on forever, the pain threatening to overwhelm me with each agonizing bounce, each jostling of my newly busted ankle.
A breathless few moments later, my upper body crashed onto something somewhat soft. My legs didn’t fare so well, though, smashing into the stone landing with enough force to send hot sparks of pure anguish racing up my body.
With my eyes still squinted shut, I sucked in a shuddering breath. I allowed one small tear to track across my pounding cheek. At least it didn’t feel like anything was sticking into me. I must’ve missed the sword.
The world stopped spinning, and wet warmth seeped into my hair. I blinked my eyes open, afraid to move lest I jar my ankle, and looked at rough-hewn walls around me, not illuminated but not magically coated in darkness. My dragon’s ability to see in the dark was strong enough for me to make out my miserable surroundings.
“What the fuck was he thinking?” I recognized that deep voice from above. Govam, they’d called him.
He grabbed my arms, unceremoniously hoisting me up. My foot caught on something and dragged over it, my busted ankle screaming at me. My sides ached, my back pounded, and my body was covered in stings from where I’d scraped stone. But I was alive. I’d made it down. “He was worried about her losing a leg, but then he threw her down the fucking steps? He could’ve killed her.”
A tug on my hip registered before I heard the slide of my sword against the scabbard. Govam pushed it down to make sure it was secure. He must’ve grabbed it when it landed, possibly saving me from impalement.
“Not our problem.”
A strong smell drifted from Govam. He had a decent amount of power. More than the other.
I grunted as I spied what I’d landed on. Luru, who hadn’t fared as well as I had. He lay with a cracked skull and a chest glistening with blood. Something must’ve broken internally and punctured his skin.
Govam pulled me back to the wall at the other side of the landing, forcing me to step on my injured leg and nearly dragging a strangled cry from my throat.
“There, see?” Govam said as the second demon, a broad-faced creature with a wide nose, stepped in front of me and looked me over.
Broad Face zeroed in on my ankle, held off the ground and throbbing. “She’s fucked up,” he confirmed.
“Ah, well. She’ll heal. When their magic isn’t suppressed, dragons heal quick.”
“What’s to stop her from shifting? I never had the guts to ask the higher-ups on the way here. Seems stupid to let a dragon shift. They’re enormous and mean.”
“This particular one hasn’t ever shifted before, I guess. She’ll need to be guided through it or she could die, from what I understand.”
“What about the dragons in the dungeon? How are we going to stop them now that the magic has been released?”
Govam, more human looking than the other but with slightly gray skin, scratched his chin. “Only some of them are from her kingdom. From what I’ve gathered, the suppression magic is gone, but they still need their alpha to draw out their animals. They won’t get any shifter benefits until that happens. She may smell like the alpha, but she’s not him. And even if she could free their dragons, they’d still be trapped in the dungeon, and we’d have them killed before they made it far. They aren’t indestructible.”
I stayed very still and ensured I had an entirely blank face. They’d just confirmed there were dragons in the dungeon. The ones from our kingdom must have been taken without Nyfain’s knowledge. That or he hadn’t been able to tell me because of the magical gag woven into the curse. Regardless, this meant I had help. It meant I’d have allies.
Broad Face shook his head, eyeing my body and then my face. “It’s going to take an awful lot to clean this thing up. She’s a mess.”
“Not our problem, like you said.”
Legs appeared in the blackness crowding the stairwell, the magic hovering like a blanket. Jedrek came into view with a fresh welt on his cheek. He’d probably tried to resist, and they’d slapped him around. The magic above must’ve deadened sound, though, because we hadn’t heard any of it.
The leader, Ressfu, emerged on the stairs, his hand on Jedrek’s shoulder. His gaze darted around the landing, pausing on Luru’s broken body. Panic crept into his expression before easing into plain anxiety. He must’ve realized who it was. The next moment, his gaze hit me and a look of relief followed. He’d clearly regretted giving in to his stupid impulse. That was good. I hoped a lot of them gave in to moments of stupidity. Dumb creatures, even if they only acted foolish sometimes, were easier to fool.
The rest of the demons followed Ressfu, a good few of them looking me over for damage as they descended. When Ressfu reached the bottom, he reached for me.
“Her ankle is messed up,” Govam said, still holding me up. “Like her face and a handful of other issues from her fall.”
His voice didn’t hold accusation, but Ressfu bristled all the same.
“She’ll heal,” Ressfu said, grabbing me and jerking me toward the tunnel. I tried to step-hop, but to keep from falling, I had to put weight on the bad ankle. Agony blasted through me, and I couldn’t stifle a cry as I hopped on the other foot, trying to keep from going down. But I could already tell it was too late.
As I pitched forward, I threw out my hands to catch myself—just as a strong arm wrapped around my middle and pulled me up and against a chest.
“Fucking idiot,” Govam mumbled softly, holding me so I could put my good foot on the ground. “Denski, get her other side. Let’s get this done. I’m sick of this journey.”
A thin demon emerged from the gathering, his smell suggesting his power was about the same as Govam’s, which was higher than that of Broad Face and probably Ressfu, though it was hard to tell with so many of them gathered around.
They each took hold of one of my arms, and I hop/hobbled with them down the corridor, the sound of shuffling feet behind me indicating the others were coming along.
We followed the curve of the hallway, everyone obviously able to see in the darkness except for Jedrek, who stumbled within his captors’ hold. The curse’s suppression had been lifted from him, just like the rest of us from Wyvern, but I hadn’t used my power to help yank his animal out of the darkness. I was worried he’d freak out and try to shift.
Up ahead, the low-hanging domed ceiling had an opening at the top that let in a slice of dusty, crimson-tinged white light. I looked up as we passed, but couldn’t see anything through the hole. Onward we walked, darkness crowding in once again.
A bit farther in, the tunnel narrowed slightly, seemingly ending at a set of bars, the gaps between them slightly illuminated in that same reddish light. Through them were more rough-hewn walls, no difference from the hallway we’d walked down.
Govam stopped before it, saying nothing. In a moment, Ressfu walked around us, a key in hand. He glanced down at my feet before unlocking the door. He gave Govam a hard look, then headed through the opening and turned right.
Govam and Denski started forward in unison without so much as glancing at each other. I hobbled between them, my ankle pounding and sweat coating my skin despite the chill.
Torches lined these walls, few and far between, but they cast enough light for me to see without my dragon’s intervention. I had no idea why torches had taken the place of the electrical or magical light in the previous area. At a crossroads we turned right, only to reach another one, where we turned left. I noticed subtle variations in the walls that would help me find my way back, and my dragon cataloged the various smells. After one more turn, the hall ended at a giant skull, the top of its head dusting the ceiling and its chin resting on the ground. Its cheekbones spanned the width of the hallway, and its eyes glowed a sparkling red. Each tooth was pointed in its slightly ajar mouth, giving it a more sinister look and feel.
Ressfu walked right toward it. Once there, he reached to the side and opened it like a door. I belatedly realized it was flat, only giving the illusion of protruding into the hallway.
“Cool,” I said softly as we passed through.
The demons beside me acted like they hadn’t heard.
On the other side, the smell intensified until it felt like I was swimming through it. The pungent aroma was equal parts musty and acidic, perfumed with sweat and death and decay. Its thickness coated my tongue and made my eyes water. My dragon recoiled within me, our senses blasted.
An orange glow filled the hall up ahead before it opened up into a large room. A suspension bridge spanned a chasm full of what looked like molten lava, glowing oranges and yellows and reds oozing and shifting. No heat rose, but the air shimmered with it.
“She’ll need to be carried,” Denski said as we stopped before the bridge.
Ressfu continued across, holding the chains on either side and making the bridge swing slightly with his movements. His clothing rippled with the air currents.
“I’ll do it,” Govam said. When Denski stepped away, Govam addressed me in a low voice. “Now, dragon, I know that you are hurting, but you have been on your best behavior. Now is not the time to act up. There is nowhere you can go. If you try, you won’t get far. Killing us both on that bridge will serve no purpose. You’d best stick with good behavior. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
What does he think we’re going to do, pitch us both into the demon lava, or whatever that stuff is? my dragon asked.
Seems like it. Are the other dragons here so desperate that they try to end their suffering in any way possible?
The thought filled me with sadness, but I pushed the emotion away. If they were desperate, I’d use that to help get us all out of here.
I nodded at Govam, then waited as he studied me for a moment. When he was apparently satisfied I was telling the truth, he matched my nod.
“How would you like to be carried?” he asked me.
I quirked an eyebrow. “Comfortably?”
His brow furrowed.
“Govam, what is the hold-up?” a female demon said at his back.
Ressfu stepped off the bridge on the other side of the chasm and looked back.
Still Govam waited, looking at me.
“Piggyback, then,” I said.
Without a word, he turned and bent, flaring his arms behind him so that I could climb on. Denski stepped up to help me, and Govam curled his arms around my knees and straightened.
“I’m right behind you,” Denski said, and I felt his hands grip my shirt at the center of my back.
“How many people have tried to pitch over the edge to their death—”
I barely finished getting those words out before a wave of vicious anxiety swept over me. Raw terror gripped my heart as he stepped out onto the bridge. A cold sweat ran over me, and suddenly I was desperate to escape. To run. To fling myself off the bridge and end it all.
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