The blade shakes in my grip. My legs barely hold me. Three weeks of captivity have left me weak, malnourished, covered in wounds I can feel pulling with every breath.
None of that matters.
“Get back!” My voice comes out wrong. Shredded. Barely human. “I’ll kill you. I swear to God, I’ll?—”
The dragon raises his hands.
Out. Fingers spread. The universal gesture of surrender.
“All right.” He hasn’t moved from the bed. Stays exactly where he is, those burned forearms on full display. “All right. You’ve got the blade. I’m not going to take it from you.”
“Liar.” The word tastes bitter. “You’re all liars. Every bloody one of you?—”
“Probably true.” He shrugs. Actually shrugs. “Dragons aren’t exactly known for their honesty. But I’m not lying now. You want to hold the scalpel, hold the scalpel. Makes no difference to me.”
I press harder against the wall. The stone coldness seeps through the thin shift they’ve put me in—not my clothes, not anything I recognize. Someone undressed me while I was unconscious. Changed me. Touched me.
Going to be sick.
“Hey.” The dragon’s voice sharpens. “You’re going pale. When’s the last time you ate?”
“Stop.” I brandish the blade at him. My arm trembles. “Stop pretending you care. Pretending any of this is?—”
“Real?” He tilts his head. His expression changes—the cocky grin fading into something more somber. “I know. I know it doesn’t feel real. Three weeks in that hellhole, and now you wake up somewhere new with some loud idiot telling you everything’s fine.” He snorts. “I wouldn’t believe me either.”
The number lands like a punch. Twenty-one days of needles and chanting and that woman’s stare boring into mine. Twenty-one days of my blood flowing into channels carved by hands older than civilization.
I didn’t know how long. Had no way to track time in that underground chamber. Part of me thought it had been months. Years. Forever.
The dragon watches me process this. Stays silent. Still.
“My name’s Rurik.” He says it carefully. “You’re in the Brotherhood’s fortress. We got you out two nights ago?—”
“Brotherhood.” The word scrapes out of my throat. “More dragons.”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t try to soften it. “More dragons. Different dragons. The ones who took you were rogues. Working for someone bad. We’re—” He pauses, seems to reconsider. “We’re the other kind.”
“There is no other kind.”
A flicker crosses his face. Not anger. Sadness, maybe. “Fair enough. Can’t exactly argue with that logic given what you’ve been through.”
He moves then—slowly, telegraphing every action. His massive body folds in on itself as he lowers to the ground. Sits with his back against the opposite wall, legs stretched out beforehim. The position puts him well below me. Vulnerable, even if a creature that big can ever be called vulnerable.
“There.” He spreads his hands again. “Now I’m down here and you’re up there with the weapon. Better?”
It shouldn’t be better. Has to be a trap. Some game I don’t understand.
But my legs are ready to give out, and he’s down there on the floor, making himself small. Making himself less.
“You can stab me if it’ll make you feel better.” His grin returns, crooked and somehow disarming. “Just—do me a favor and avoid the face? I’ve got enough scars.”
A sound escapes me. Not quite a laugh. Closer to a sob. The scalpel wavers in my grip.
What’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with any of this?
The door swings open.
I spin toward it, blade raised, every nerve firing. A woman steps through—chestnut hair falling past her shoulders, gray gaze assessing me with unnerving calm. She’s carrying a tray. Steam rises from it, filling the air with the smell of bread and soup.
