“Let me go!” he whines… trying unsuccessfully to twist out of my grip. He’s got one hand free, but he makes no move to throw a punch—he’s just trying to flee like the coward he is.
I look at Irena.
“Are you all right, sweetheart?
“He…he was going to stab me.” Her eyes are wide as though she can’t believe her own brother would hurt her.
Then again—why would she be surprised? I’m sure he’s the one who had her chained down here in the dungeon—just as she was in my vision.
My eyes flick over her body, searching for damage, and I see the red lines of crimson streaking down her forearms, where the manacles have bitten into her wrists. Anger begins to rise in me—no, not just anger—rage. I feel it boiling in my blood and my Drake’s rage answers it and adds to it. I feel my throat growing hot with his fire.
Our mate! I hear him growling. He harmed our mate! HE MADE HER BLEED!
“He’s never going to hurt you again,” we say together, to Irena.
Then I open my mouth and breathe out a gust of flame.
80
IRENA
Flame envelopes Kellis’s head, catching his hair on fire like a torch.
He screeches—a sound even higher pitched than the shrill squeals and whining cries of the Head Healer, who is still feeling his new body and crying in disbelief.
Valen lets him go and Kellis beats at his head but the fire spreads. It travels down his body like a live thing—a snake intent on swallowing him whole. He runs around the dungeon in panic, shrieking and beating at himself. He even lays down and rolls on the filthy flagstone floor, but the dragon fire sticks like glue. It spreads and spreads and spreads as he shrieks and screams for someone to “put me out! Put me out!”
I can’t stop staring at him until Valen puts himself deliberately between me and the awful sight.
“Come on, Princess,” he says to me. “Let’s get you out of here before his squawking brings the guards.”
“You…you came for me,” I say as he examines the chains.
“Of course I fucking did,” he says grimly.
He’s in the process of breaking the right manacle off my wrist with pure brute strength and I know I ought to be grateful. I ought to be horrified, too, at the way Kellis is shrieking and dying—being burned alive before my eyes. The sight is awful and the smell—that of roasted pork—is nauseating.
But a heavy numbness has come over my mind…it’s like all my feelings have been wrapped in cotton which muffles them…dims them, somehow.
As the second manacle breaks in his powerful hands, I feel myself sagging—it’s like my legs won’t hold me up anymore.
“Whoa, sweetheart!” Valen catches me and lifts me into his arms. “Be careful!” he exclaims and frowns as he looks into my face. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I try to say. But it comes out as, “I’mmmm finnnne.” I frown. Why are my words slurring like this? Why does my tongue feel like lead in my mouth.
“Irena? Princess?” His deep voice sounds panicked, and his eyes are worried, but it barely registers in my tired mind. I feel so sleepy all of a sudden…I just want to sleep.
“Soooo…tiiiired,” I sigh, my eyelids fluttering closed.
“No—stay awake! Irena, stay with me!” he exclaims. He shakes me—trying to wake me up—but somehow I just can’t stay awake. It feels like someone had tied lead weights to my eyelids and is dragging them down.
“Sooo…sleepy,” I whisper.
“No, you can’t—” Valen begins.
But I don’t hear what I can’t do because at that moment darkness eats the world and I know no more.
81
