He’s looking at me.
I back away in shuffling steps until I turn and flee into the kitchen, the place that is quickly becoming my sanctuary.
Still, even here, away from them, alone once again, I feel the weight of Tage’s gaze boring into my back.
And it doesn’t feel like sanctuary.
25
A Taste
Iwake suddenly, bewildered, ripped from the comfortof sleep.
I’d been slumbering so soundly, deeply, dreamlessly. It took waking and opening my eyes to find a nightmare. The nightmare in question?
Cyphus.
He looms over me, breathing rancid, moist air into my face.
I suck in a hard breath, recoiling, shrinking back from his brutish features as though I can melt into the bench to escape him.
He balances above me, our noses so close they almost touch, so close I can see the striations of blue in his onyx eyes. Those eyes burn into me, the pupils fully vertical. His skin, more dragon than man, flashes in and out, iridescent scaled flesh one moment, human the next. A terrifying sight that sends my pulse battering against my throat so violently it hurts.
A whimper escapes me. The great wall of his body throbs over me. Bulging biceps surround me, one on either side of my body. One hand grips the back of the bench, the other on the edge of the plank seat beneath me, effectively caging me in.
“You think you’ve won your place here, human? That you are safe?” The plank beneath me groans and cracks from the pressure of his tightening hand, reminding me just how strong, how deadly he is.
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper.
“It was a nice trick earlier...” His lips move slowly around hiswords as though he’s savoring them, and I feel like a rabbit mesmerized, its little heart thrashing against a membrane-thin chest, frozen in the sights of a predator. “Letting Tage think you have the touch of a healer.”
I shake my head. “I’m not—”
“You think that will make Tage like you? Make you useful? Worth keeping?”
He might be asking me questions, but he doesn’t care to hear any answers. He’s not here to listen. He’s here to deliver his threats. To inspire fear.
And it’s working.
He removes his hand from the back of the bench and grips my face. “I think you’ve grown too comfortable here.” His fingers squeeze, digging into my cheeks. I feel his power in the way his hand trembles on me, his strength barely restrained. It would be nothing for him to crush me.
I shake my head mutely.
He presses on, his words like darts striking one after the other. “As clever as you are, it won’t work. You won’t ever belong here.”
I manage a nod, another whimper escaping between the small opening of my lips.
He’s too close, his sour odor assailing me. I taste it right alongside the fear.
“Tage plays the part of a human, but he’s not. None of us are. Don’t get comfortable. You will never belong here. We will never forget what you are.” His fingers flex, pressing deeper, grinding my cheeks into my teeth until I taste the flow of blood.
I try to nod, to give him some manner of assurance that I agree, that I don’t want to belong here either.
“You won’t last here. There’s a reason that humans don’t live in the Crags. You’re not bred for this. You won’t survive here.”
I flinch, unable to deny the truth of that.
He lowers his face, buries himself in my hair, his lips brushing my ear, and I shudder in revulsion as he breathes me in like I’ma meal he’s about to devour. Spit sprays my neck as he whispers, “Does it ever cross your mind that my forefathersateyour kind?”
