“Go flagellate your flaccid dick,” Milly snarled, her eloquence surprising us all.
It was a mistake. The hunter, angered by her attitude, came closer to the cage to try to discipline her. As he did, Milly backed away from the bars. The hunter sneered with laughter and slapped his palm against the bar to emphasize his point.
He unfortunately happened to choose the exact bar we’d been cutting the supports away from. Instead of just rebounding under his hand, it wobbled. Not much but enough.
The brellwood was stronger than steel and far more flexible under normal circumstances. Hunter cages were further reinforced by faerie magic to contain shifters and other strong beings. They did not “wobble.” Not unless the bonds holding the bars together, also made out of wound strips of brellwood, had been slowly sawed apart by dragon nails.
The slaver’s eyes widened, and he grabbed the bar to stop it wobbling, his eyes lowering to the floor, where he saw the frayed and partially split ropes.
“Fucking clippys!” he snapped, turning to bark orders.
Other hunters closed around the cage. The door was opened. Milly flew forward, putting herself between us and the leather-garbed slavers. Arms wide, teeth bared, she hissed at them threateningly until two of them came in at once. The much stronger true dragons easily overpowered her, pinning her to the far wall. Other slavers grabbed Ella and me, hauling us from the cage.
I struggled and fought, twisting free of one of the hunters holding my arm for just a second. An elbow to my gut folded me over, providing a physical pain to go with the emptiness in my soul. My dragon howled at the reminder of our loneliness as we were dragged away and split up.
I didn’t see where Ella or Milly were taken,and my dragon didn’t care. It threw my head back, and I shrieked my loneliness out into the air. Maybe it would be enough. Maybe my mate would hear, recognize his mistake, and come charging back.
Maybe he would rescue us all.
It was a fool’s hope, of course. Nobody would come back for a clippy like me.
“Try to escape again, and I’ll cut off your fingers,” the hunter said as I was tossed casually into another cage, the slavers not being overly gentle.
I hit the far side of the cage and fell heavily onto my back. I lay there, watching the plain rock of the ceiling sway back and forth until the cage slowly came to a stop.
I sighed and closed my eyes.
The only thing I could see were two emeralds. Watching me.
Watching and judging me as not worthy.
Five
Casimir
“Nooo!”
The punching bag went flying across the room, spilling its innards courtesy of the slash marks down its side. My outstretched arm hovered, lingering from the punch like the shout of my anger echoing around the room. Panting hard from the exertion, I applied a strong effort of will to rein my dragon in, transforming the end of my arm back into fingers instead of claws. Scales disappeared beneath the skin as I started to calm.
“Those things aren’t cheap. If you need to destroy something, we could go down to the Desolate Quarter. Take out a few buildings, accelerate the renovation project you ordered?”
I glared at the speaker as he stepped fully into the room. He knew the last thing I wanted was to go through the slums.
Florian was warlord of the Ice Kingdom. Head of my enforcers, and my number two, he was also my best friend, which sometimes meant he was my biggest critic and judge. Usually when I desired it least. Like now.
“Hey, I didn’t do shit,” he grunted, taking note of my stare and my heaving chest. “It’s your money, but the next trader ship from the surface won’t be due for a week. So if you destroy them all in this fit of rage, I’ll only have my personal stash left, and that’s not good enough.”
“You don’t have a personal stash,” I pointed out.
Florian stared at me slowly. “At the rate you go through them, I have to.”
I growled and turned away.
“Was the market that big a failure?”
“No,” I grunted, trying to drop it.
“So you tracked them, and we have the proof we need to toss them in the dungeons?” Florian cackled gleefully, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of doing said tossing into dungeons.
