I tapped the dragonflame at my center, and it responded with a dull flicker. Not much, but it would do. I waited for the change to wash over me.
Nothing.
Again, I called on my magic.
Nothing.
I couldn’t transform. What madness was this?
Flark. The arrows. They must have been enchanted as well as poisoned. Lucky me.
Men circled, swords glinting. “Big one, isn’t he?”
“Just like that fellow said he would be.”
“Right on schedule, too.”
What was this? The pounding in my skull clouded my thoughts. They knew I was coming. But how? Who? The only person who was aware of my mission was…
No, it couldn’t be.
Ice razored my insides.
Alaric.
My own flesh and blood had set me up. He’d sent me on a fool’s errand. Insisted I go in my dragon form. Told the hunters exactly where to find me. But why?
Serafina.
My vision bled red with fury. Over my dead body would he lay a single hand on her.
Alaric must have found out about us. Now that he was a man again, he wanted me out of his way. To pursue her for himself.
One of the men drew closer to my head, and I snapped my teeth.
“Whoa ho,” he chortled. “Still got a bit of fight in him.” Over his shoulders, he wore a tunic made of dragon scales, a dagger-like tooth around his neck. He gestured to the other men. “Stake him down nice and tight, boys. The butcher arrives tomorrow to carve him up.”
He slipped the blade he’d unsheathed beneath a scale on my shoulder. I growled my discomfort, writhing against the rope as he ripped it from my flesh.
Prize in hand, he raised it to the light. “Good quality. He’ll bring a hefty price.”
He peered into my one eyeball, and for a moment, I feared he planned to pluck it from the socket. Instead, he jeered, “If youbehave yourself, maybe we’ll kill you before they carve the meat from your bones.”
I snarled in response.
The fall of a heavy hammer pummeled my skull. My last thought wasn’t of pain.
It was of her.
Serafina.
And then—blackness.
SERAFINA
“Damn you, Alaric.” I paced the length of Speck’s prison. I’d given up shouting at the bastard king when it only served to agitate the ghoul. The trogg had tossed me in with my friend since it was the only cell sturdy enough to hold a prisoner.
I pressed my palm against my burning chest. Thorne’s flame throbbed like a toothache. The thought of him in pain made me want to pull my hair and scream like a madwoman. Alaric had cut a deal and betrayed both me and his brother. In the present as well as the past.
