Not this time.
I seize both of their wrists, gripping and squeezing until their bones snap beneath my hands. They both cry out and lose their grips on me.
I flip onto my hands and knees. Meeting the old woman’s gaze from across the room, her eyes round in fear.
The one who’s been drugging me.
Trappingme.
Thinking she can control me.
A weight falls onto my back, forcing me to the floor. A shout in my ear, “Cyrus, the only one who can stop him is you!”
“Cyrus isn’t here anymore,” I laugh, twisting and swatting Devin off me like a fly.
His body slams into the wall, collapsing limply.
Cyrus’ pained roar rises from the depths, but I snuff it out. I lunge at the closest guard, seizing his throat in my jaws and ripping him to the ground in a shower of blood. The second guard I slay as easily, slamming his bloody body into the wall.
Lady Bethany edges her way across the room. Away from the manacles she knows are too late to use. Toward the balcony for an escape.
I stalk forward on my hands and knees, my body contorting. Scales bloom across my skin. Horns burst from my skull with a painful pressure, and my black claws slip down into the grout until I curl them and crack the tile. My spine stretches out into a tail, and I whip it back and forth. Gone are Cyrus’ clothes. Gone are his teeth and tongue and mouth. Elongating into something far more useful, more deadly.
Ahh. For once, I feel at home. Free from the cage Cyrus had me imprisoned in. I’ll make him regret having kept me there for so long.
I step through blood. Unfazed as it wets my taloned hands and feet.
Every step toward the old woman sways my massive shoulders. I back her up against the wall where she cowers, so close to the balcony doors. Inhaling deeply, I hook onto her scent. Drool drips from my mouth, hungry to pierce the flesh in front of me.
“Please…” she whimpers, not wanting to look me in the eye. Her hands held up, as if they’ll be enough to stop me. “I’m only here to help you.”
I growl, licking my sharpened teeth like I can savor her fear. “You act as if I didn’t know it was you suppressing me. Keeping Cyrus from his true potential.” I creep closer to her until my maw is a few inches from her face. “Where is the blue-gowned girl?”
She looks up slowly, but no farther than my throat. “P-please don’t do this.”
“Do not make me ask again, mortal,” I growl deeper, snapping my jaws.
She flinches. Panting, her lips part, but nothing comes out. Then she shuts her mouth, finally looking up at me.
I snap forward, snatching her throat in my jaws. Not hard enough to end her, but enough to hurt her. She flails, pathetically trying to get me to release her.
“You’ll show me, then,” I rumble around her throat. I release her and retreat, blood steadily streaming from the bite marks I’ve left.
She tries to apply pressure to the wounds, and yelps when I bite her foot. Her blood taints my tongue, and I drag her out of the bedroom down the stairs.
“Come to me, and I won’t hurt the others.”I pulse down that thread of magic tying me to her. The one that Lady Bethany is responsible for creating when she fed Cyrus her blood after wiping their memories.
She hasn’t responded. At least, not yet. Anticipation quivers within me at finding her.
Lady Bethany, to her honor, keeps quiet as I drag her, her blood gushing out of her ankle and pooling in my mouth with each stair we descend, bumping my teeth deeper into her. Every now and again she groans.
Once we enter the throne room, guards flock to us. I let her go long enough to slaughter them, thenturn back for her.
She’s gone.
A growl thunders in my chest. I prowl out into the hall, using my magic to snuff out the sconces within my view. When my second eyelid slides horizontally over my eyes, then back, the darkness is no obstacle for me. Lowering my maw to the floor, I pull in a few sniffs. Then turn right down the hall. Creeping slowly, quietly. Melding into the shadows as I was born to.
As I turn the corner, I find blood smeared down the hall runner. Flicking my tongue out into it, I smile with a growl. One by one, I use my magic to blow out the sconces down the hallway. Then rise on my hind legs to stretch higher for a better look. Waiting still for her to move.
