He’s afraid of me.
I think.
“Cersia,” he whispers calmly.
But the rational side of my brain is a frenzy of fury. I won’t be distracted.
A soft touch skims along my cheek, and my fist flies out with tearing talons to bat away the threat. He’s a threat to me.
To my beast.
And that beast rears up atop of Zilo, and a roar, fiery and hot, sears up my throat. It burns over my lips, and every single part of me is on fire! Smoke wafts off of my flesh, and that flesh burns from bones as scales white as crystals sear over me. My body aches and breaks and twists into something I don’t understand.
But one thing is very, very clear: I didn’t take after my mother. My beast is not a wolf of any kind…So what was my father? And what enormous beast did he pass down for me to inherit and hide?
My height towers up, up, up. My sight slits into thin slivers of images so that I can see far, far further than the castle gates that I now stand monstrously over. My spine feels like it rips into two solid pieces. I can’t explain the way my bones mend themselves, but beautiful, enormous, fiery wings spread wide behind me.
Everything I see and feel is a hazy blur I can’t focus on as my heartbeat speeds so fast I can’t even breathe. I feel trapped in this cage of a monster. Nothing makes sense.What am I?
Screams and smoke coil together, and when I peer down, the crowd of tiny people are sparking magic that beams up in flying colors of red and white and black. Creatures shift to their true form. Wolves and hellhounds snap at my scaly legs. Magic hits me at all angles with hot embers that sink into my back like hot pokers of pain. Fae fly high around my head, their horns bucking into me with sharp points that don’t pierce but irritate my flesh and aggression even more.
One single fly-like woman swoops up until her little black eyes meet mine. Her slender body is tiny and frail before me. Her features are too small to make out, but her words are loud and clear.
“Your kind isn’t welcome here. It hasn’t been for centuries. And I’ll kill you myself before I ever let any harm come to our people!” Her long fingers lift, and black magic soars out in a cloud that smothers my sight and smell and leaves me breathless as it sinks deep into the side of my head.
The sheer power of it alone throbs through my skull. A roar of fear and pain rips from my throat. My claws lash out at her, but she’s too fast. Her wings beat too hard. Her little hands liftonce more, and she’s ready to assault me. She’s ready to harm me. She’s ready to kill me.
The snap of my jaws is a vicious weapon that lashes out before my eyes can even find the little buzzing fae fucker. Her magic slashes out at me. It hits my tongue.
But then so does she.
Her hellish magic burns all down my throat as I swallow hard.
It hurts from the inside out.
Every single part of me is afire.
Her words circle my mind as my eyes close, and my body slams to the ground, and it becomes all too clear.
Your kind isn’t welcome here. It hasn’t been for centuries.
Ancient fire and scales are all I’m made of.
I’m a dragon.
TWENTY-SIX
PRISON LIFE
Darkness sinkspainfully into my skull when my lashes finally open. The meager act of looking around hurts. My throat feels like I’ve swallowed glass. There’s a pain in my back that doesn’t ease up, no matter how I try to lie on the cold hard ground...
Where am I?
“You awake, beautiful?” Roman’s voice echoes around the shadows, but the warmth of his hand pushes gently over my hair.
“Where are we?” I ask, but my voice comes out shredded and harsh, barely a rasping whisper along my lips.
“Shhh. Don’t speak. Just rest.” The comforting way he touches me, the sweetness in his voice, it’s alarming.
