“Excuse me,” a gentle voice says.
Bellamy turns to the smaller woman approaching him. Her yellow and green hair is braided into a crown around her head, and her pale violet eyes crinkle with her smile. She wears a soft gray robe and carries a basket of fruit hooked over her arm.
“Can I help you with something?” Bellamy asks.
Her smile broadens. “That’s exactly what I was about to ask you. I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with those ruffians.”
Maybe not everyone in Draskora is rude and unfriendly after all. “It’s embarrassing, but I need somewhere to stay for the night, and I don’t know where to go. Do you know where the nearest inn or tavern is?”
“Of course, you poor thing.” She shifts her fruit basket from one arm to the other and beckons. Something about her smile gives a warm, maternal air. “This way, I’ll take you to the nearest inn. Orthin can be a very confusing town. You’re hardly the first to get lost here.”
“Thank you so much,” Bellamy says, before his sense of caution outweighs his desperation. Why is this woman being so friendly? Maybe he shouldn’t go out wandering off with a strange woman. “Actually, I don’t want to keep you from your shopping. You can just point me in the right direction.”
“Don’t worry about me. It’s no trouble at all.” She places a hand on Bellamy’s arm, and his skin crawls.
Bellamy yanks out of her grasp, an apology ready on his lips, before the crawling sensation intensifies. His arm feels too warm and cold at once, the sensation spreading through his veins—
Along with the faint blood-red glow of magic. Bellamy shouts and jerks away.
Or he tries to.
No sound emerges from his locked-up throat. His limbs don’t respond to his orders. As the blood magic infiltrates his body, he can’t move away from the smiling woman.
Her face is just as sweet and warm as it was moments ago. “Come along, dear.” She takes him by the elbow. “Let’s get you out of the cold.”
Bellamy has no choice but to walk alongside her, even as he screams against his disobedient body. Red magic pulses in his limbs, between his joints. It’s not too strong. It won’t last long against his struggling. But it will last long enough to get Bellamy off the street and out of the public eye.
He continues failing to scream.
A Draskoran peasant makes eye contact with him and immediately looks away. As do the next three. Bellamy realizes they understand what’s happening. Theyknowthis blood mage is abducting him, and they don’t want to get involved. Bellamy can hardly blame them.
The woman leads him on leaden puppet limbs down a narrow alley, strung with laundry from the windows above. “We’re almost at a nice place to stay, dear.” She pats his hand. “Just a little—”
A shadow blocks out the alley behind them.
“Don’t touch him,” snarls a furious voice, and the blood mage breaks off in a shrieking curse.
Shadows blur in front of Bellamy’s face. He staggers back and finds his limbs finally his own again. Painful, unsteady, but his. He falls against the wall, heart pounding in his throat, and his blurry-dark vision clears.
A man with long brown hair holds the blood mage by the hair. She shrieks and struggles against his grasp, but every flare of red magic disintegrates as soon as it leaves her body. Her assailant throws her to the ground, and steps on her arm. Her magic blazes brightly one last time before extinguishing.
And Bellamy recognizes Rakos kneeling on top of her.
Holding a long knife against the blood mage’s throat, Rakos turns to Bellamy with a grin. “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I?”
“Your hair is different,” Bellamy says, dazed.
“I know. Isn’t it hideous?”
Bellamy’s heart hammers painfully. Nausea lingers, every part of him aching in an unclean, unfamiliar way. As he recovers from the blood magic, an entirely new fear creeps into his mind. He doesn’t dare feel relief or elation.
How cruel of Rakos to return when he’s only going to abandon Bellamy again.
?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rakos
