He gasped in pain, instantly crumpling to his knees, his arms paralyzed at his sides. I dropped the golden bridle before him, the key clinking in the lock. His terrified gaze flicked from the bridle on the floor back up to me.
“If you kill me, Lela,” he hissed, “they’ll torture and execute you.”
“It would be worth it, but I’ll kill myself before it comes to that.”
“Don’t! I’ll be better to you.” There was a tremor in his voice that skated sweetly over my skin. I loved to hear his fear, to feel it trembling to my bones. A nectar I never thought to taste. “I’ve been better to you than to any of my slaves. I’ll make you a true wife if you stop this now and let me go.”
I stared at this foul creature who had given me almost too much pain to bear. But like the naiad, I endured it all. And I would be free—either in this life or in the netherworld.
“She was right,” I muttered to myself. “Freedom is true happiness. No matter the cost.”
“What?” His expression twisted with confusion, his canines still sharp.
The air was laced with feminine magic,mymagic, and it was sublime, intoxicating.
“Keep your lies inside your belly, Valerius,” I commanded.
He’d opened his mouth to say something else, but he couldn’t, the lies sticking in his throat.
“You are no longer my master,” I whispered. “I was never yours anyway.” I stepped closer, the tip of my blade at the tender notch at the base of his throat. “You have taken my body. Now I’m going to take yours.”
“No, Lela. Listen—”
Sffft.
I silenced him with a deep slash all the way across his throat. I’d had lots of practice in making cuts. I’d sharpened this blade daily, knowing exactly how hard to press for a precise incision upon my skin. I knew the light pressure needed for a surface cut. So I knew exactly how hard to press to go deep.
I’d used all of my strength to slice so very deep. When he fell over, blood spurting, eyes wide in terror, I leaned over and embedded the blade where his black heart should be.
My magic filled the room, singing through my own blood. A catharsis of using my magic to kill my jailor, my rapist, my demon filled me up with vengeful pleasure. I was free. I smiled, then I sang the final verse of “The Mother Song” aloud, finally gaining my voice back after all this time. I watched his blood spread in a wide pool at my bare feet and sang.
“Let the daughter walk home, through the woods all alone.” His eyes glazed over with emptiness, with death. “Let her go to her mother, and the warmth of the hearthstone.”
A solidthunkdrew my attention to the terrace. My pulse tripped faster. A sapphire-scaled dragon in half-skin had just landed—thick horns curling back, tail swishing, wings spread wide, ice-blue eyesblazing wildly. His fiery gaze moved from me down to the murdered corpse of my master at my feet.
I was caught and would die for my crime. But no remorse entered my heart. It was pride that guided me to turn and face my death with my head held high.
VIITRAJAN
By Jupiter, she was radiant. Magnificent. Standing over Valerius’s body, blood spattering her pale face and white gown, Lela glowed with gratification like an avenging goddess. She faced a beast twice her size in height, quadruple her size in weight and muscle, and she didn’t even flinch as I bent my head and tucked my wings through the archway.
“The goddess Nemesis couldn’t look more magnificent than you do right now, Lela.”
Her brow pursed, her heart pumping faster, exciting my dragon. But I kept him locked in half-skin. He wanted to meet her face-to-face, but that would have to wait.
She didn’t recognize my voice since it rumbled much deeper in this form. Yet my words were clear enough.
“Who are you?” she asked, voice steady but her brow pinched in confusion. “How do you know me?”
I recognized the presence of magic wafting in the room. I snuffed the air, grunting at the electrifying sensation skimming over my scales.
“It is Trajan,” I told her, noting the barely perceptible softening of her features.
“What are you doing here?”
I pointed toward the stone floor where blood spread wider as we spoke, now encircling one of her bare feet. “I came for him. But it seems you have beaten me to it.”
She frowned again. “You came to kill the consul?”
