The man sobbed, clawing at the arm that held him up with dragon claws half-shifted.
Blood ran down Rowan’s arms and onto the floor, but he didn’t budge.
“Rowan, please!” he cried. “You’re from one of our most esteemed families in Blezen!”
“Esteemed enough to murder my parents,” he growled. “State your true purpose.”
“Thatismy purpose! We need you. With the power you’ve created at this academy, we could eradicate humans in half of the time!”
“I did not establish this academy for you. I won’t ever help your cult.”
“The humans are genetically modifying themselves,” he croaked, and Rowan eased up. “In order to take down supernaturals, they’ve started experimenting on themselves with and without supernatural aspects.”
Damien stepped out of the shadows next to the guy with a casual grin on his face. He winked at me before he addressed Rowan. “Let me torture him for a while. I’ll get you everything he knows.”
Rowan jerked his arm back, and the guy fell to the floor. He scrambled up and flattened his back against the wall. “I’m telling you everything I know!”
“I want information on the elder and how you knew so much about this academy and myself.”
The guy's shaky gaze slid from Rowan to me and back before his trembling ceased and a small smile appeared on his face. “You’ve mated. You know what that means, right? She’s the most likely to conceive a drake. You must bring her to Blezen—”
“No!” Rowan’s roar boomed through the room, and his scales flashed up and down his arms.
Damien’s shadows wrapped around him, keeping him tight against the wall. He flicked a finger out, and the man’s eyeball popped out, a pink stringy tendon connecting it to his skull as it bounced. “My little bird stays here.”
Magic combusted inside of me, and the room got bigger as I shrunk into my fox form. I poked my head out of my clothes, and Alister bent down to pick me up.
I snuggled closer to his chest, not looking back at the guy as he screamed in conjunction with Damien’s gleeful laugh.
“Kill him after we get everything you can from him. We’ll ship his body back to the cult.”
“No,” the guy whispered. “They’ll kill you for this.”
“I was dead by their standards the day I escaped that hell,” Rowan growled.
Alister started walking toward the back room, and once we were safely inside, the screams from the dragon were gone.
But my worry had only doubled.
Kalista help us.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Wren
Mybarefeetpaddedagainst the floor as I paced back and forth in Rowan’s room.
Alister laid on the bed with his arms propped behind his head as he watched me, and Thorn was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.
Rowan and Damien were still, in the words of Alister, ‘extracting information from the dragon cultist’.
My stomach churned. I hadn’t expected to see his eye just fall out like that. I’d have to remind Damien to warn me next time, because eyes have always made me squeamish. Even back in the village, if someone had an eye issue, Alice had to apply the medication.
Ding.
Thorn pulled out his tablet and tilted his head. “Kian and Lachlan are on their way over. Kian had another vision of something.”
I ran both hands through my hair and took a controlled breath. “Surely, it’s good news?”
