“It means that you made the right choice,” Ilna says to Lenka, her voice suddenly gentle. “You mustn’t falter now, no matter what it costs you.”
Lenka looks at me, dolefulness in her eyes. I’ve never seen her sad, and I don’t understand why she is now. “What’s happening?” I back away a step. “Wh-what is it?” Foreboding takes hold in my gut. Something is wrong. Very wrong. “What cost?”
A sudden knock at the door makes me jump. When I turn around, it bursts inward. I scream as a large woman walks in, her hair in silver war braids along her pale scalp. Deep orange eyes, bare biceps bigger than any mortal man’s, and a smirk on her peachy lips.
I back up a step, then another, the instinct to run buzzing like hornets beneath my skin.
“You said you wouldn’t harm her,” Ilna says.
“Why would I harm her?” The woman steps closer, and I notice the glint of scales along her collarbones. Pale green. A DragonKin. “She belongs to me now.”
“Lenka!” I yell as the woman grabs me by my upper arm.
“Smelly little thing, aren’t you?” The DragonKin drags me toward the door.
“Lenka!” I twist in the woman’s unforgiving grip. “Lenka, help me!” But Lenka doesn’t move. Ilna wraps her arm around Lenka’s shoulders as fiery tears roll down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Larellin. Please forgive me. Sela, don’t hurt her. Don’t?—”
“That’s Queen DaySilver to you, hag,” one of the male DragonKin hisses.
And then I’m yanked out into the street. Lenka is gone. Out here are two more DragonKin, both males. They eye me predatorially as the female drags me along the cobblestone road. No one is out here any longer, and all the windows are dark.
“Help!” I scream.
The female laughs. “Does that work in the mortal realm?”
“Who are you? Where are you taking me?” I struggle in vain, her grip like an iron band.
“I’m your new mate.” She grins. “You’re my Bargain.”
“Vander—”
“Is nothing to you.” She turns me toward her, her eyes boring into me. “He’s nothing and no one.” Her grip tightens painfully. “I’m the only thing keeping you alive right now, little one. Just me. Cling to me, and you might survive Oblivion for a few more days yet. Disobey me, and your death will be swift though not painless.”
“My queen, we should go. Our scouts have sighted a golden approaching Crone’s Crag. It won’t be long before he comes looking,” one of the males calls.
“To the aerie, then.” Sela lets me go, her eyes narrowing on me. “Run, mortal. Run for your life.”
I don’t hesitate. Turning, I take off. My limp slows me down, but I move as quickly as I can, hurtling down the cobbled road toward the woods. I’d prefer them to whoever this new DragonKin is, the cruel female with the burning orange eyes. My lungs are already aching by the time I dash past the red demon watchman. He gawks after me, but then I hear the sound of air whooshing past, the trees stirring in a sudden, violent breeze.
I scream when talons close around me, yanking me up as easily as a hawk snagging a fish from a stream. I’m caught, trapped as the cold wind weaves an icy spell and the DragonKin carries me higher and higher, bearing me away from my new home, from my traitorous friend, and from Vander.
Chapter
Eighteen
VANDER
The Usurper’s Aerie was quiet, no sign of Sela or her loyalists. They might have been hunkered down inside the watchtower or in the maze of structures hewn into the side of the ridge where the DaySilver clan now resides. A poor imitation of their aerie in the DragonLands, but nothing the DragonKin create has ever come close to the wonders inside their ancestral borders.
I swoop higher, cloaking myself in the clouds. My thoughts again stray to Larellin, to how she must be even now waiting for me in our bedchamber. I flap my wings harder, sending whorls through the billowing clouds. Claiming her will be a triumph all on its own, no matter if it breaks the curse. Her tender flesh was made for me. I fly faster, cutting through the sky like a blade. My heart pounds, my entire body tingling in anticipation.
A crystal shard glances off my scales, then a dozen more tickle along my side.
With a roar, I peel off to the right, sinking from the clouds and bursting into the gloomy day beneath. The razor tips of the easternmost mountains rise beneath me, their peaks shroudedin mist. Another burst of crystals rains down, more of them glancing off my scales and one piercing my wing.
Banking hard and diving, I turn quickly and let out a burst of golden flame, the clouds ahead of me steaming away as I catch a glimpse of silvery scales.
“Bastard.Shouldn’t you be patrolling the mortal realm border?” I shoot another burst of flame at Faraday, our mental link snapping into place. “I could roast you out of the sky.”
