“What do you want?” I whispered.
He edged a little closer, smiling. “You don’t belong here, do you, little one? You came through the portal, and you’ve gone and gotten yourself lost. Why don’t I escort you home? This is a very dangerous forest, you know.”
Dammit. Him, too? I should have known. Just like Yuto, this guy was stuck here. And once again, he saw me as his ticket out. Sucking a steadying breath in through my nose, I sized him up. He had long slender fingers with crooked nails caked in dirt. The sleeves of his tunic barely hit the middle of his forearms, and his trousers were just as short. It almost looked as though he’d been stretched in every direction, his limbs gangly and at odds with the rest of his body.
Luckily, I knew a little bit more about this world than I had the last time a monstrous mythical creature had backed me into a corner. This guy wasn’t going to get the better of me. Not like Yuto had.
“I wish you were right. I’m on the hunt for a mortal myself,” I said, doing my best to sound appropriately cocky and dangerous. “I thought I smelled one running through here. If I can trap him, I can finally get off this island and back to my home. You know how many years I’ve been trapped here? Three hundred.”
The creature’s eyes glinted as he raked his gaze across me. “Interesting. I see what’s happened here now.Yutogot his hands on you, and somehow you’ve escaped from his murderous hands. Don’t worry. I won’t take you back to him.”
Murderous hands? What did that mean?
He reached out and snatched at my arm. I slammed my blade into his open palm and whirled on my feet, heart hammering against my ribcage. I rushed down the path, flying down the dirt as fast as my feet could manage. An animalistic growl followed after me. I didn’t know what this man was, but he wasn’t mortal, he wasn’t a dragonlord, and he wasdefinitelyone of the prisoners.
The forest parted before me, and I stumbled into a clearing. Bodies littered the ground. Blood painted the trees. Nausea bubbled in my throat when my eyes landed on a severed head, the gore a mess around my feet. I pressed a hand to my mouth, stumbling back.
A hand latched onto my arm. The creature pressed his lips against my ear and hissed. The scent of him filled my nose. Darkness, filth, and sweat. “It was a very big mistake to run from me, little one. I would have let you live…for a time.”
“Let go of me,” I said through gritted teeth, yanking my arm as hard as I could. But he was far stronger than he looked.
He giggled into my ear. “So that you can stab me again? I think not.”
Tears filled my eyes as I was forced to face the gruesome sight before me. I knew without even asking that this creature behind me had done these vicious deeds. He’d killed every last one of them. He’d ripped their bodies to shreds. And from the chunks taken from legs and arms, it was clear he’d feasted on them, too.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I was going to throw up.
“Mortals,” he murmured as he dragged his nose along the curve of my neck. His tongue darted out, tasting my skin. “There is nothing more delicious than your flesh and your blood.”
“You’re sick.” I could barely squeeze out the words around the lump in my throat. “There’s something terribly wrong with you.”
“Is there? Or is there something wrong withyou? A mortal girl, trapped in the hidden kingdoms. One might wonder why you ended up in a place like this. One might thinkyou deserved it.”
A crash sounded through the trees, and a large form hurtled out of the darkness. Yuto landed before us with a beastly roar. A strange emotion charged through me at the sight of him. Hope. Relief. Disappointment.
The creature sucked in a slurpy breath and tightened his grip on my arm. “Yuto. What an unexpected development. Have you come to steal back your prize? A pretty little thing, isn’t she? Too bad she’s mine now.”
“Let go of her,” Yuto said, stalking toward us. He twirled his spear in his gloved hands, his eyes full of that terrifying fire.
“I don’t think so. Have you noticed her scent?” He dragged his nose along my neck. I shuddered. “She will make a delicious meal, just as soon as she delivers me to her mortal realm.”
“Aradia,” Yuto said, locking eyes with me. “I need you to listen to me, totrustme.”
I swallowed hard. The last thing in the world I wanted was to trust the dragonlord. Well, second to last. The thing I wanted most was not to die. Despite everything he’d done, I was certain of one thing. Yuto didn’t want to kill me. Hell, heneededme alive if he had any hope of getting out of here before his thousand years were up.
If I couldn’t trust him to keep me alive, then who could I trust?
Heart hammering, I blinked once, then twice, hoping he could understand that I was trying to say yes without letting the creature sense it. A nod would give far too much away.
Yuto growled, and then turned his fiery gaze on the creature. “What have you done to her? What have you said, Panos?”
“I didn’t have to say anything, dear Yuto,” the creature hissed, delight ringing in his voice. “She doesn’t want to help you. You’ve lost. Perhaps it’s those hands of yours that has her so—”
“Enough,” Yuto barked before the creature could finish.
Those hands again. The creature had mentioned them once before, and now Yuto had been quick to shut him up. I frowned. What was he hiding? Did it have something to do with those horrible gloves he always wore?
The dragonlord’s attention zeroed in on me. He stared at me with those gleaming red eyes and an intensity that made my bones quake. “Aradia, are you ready?”
