Page 94 of Vows of Sacrifice

“I’m sorry. I just . . . I need a fairly specific scent of yours. The only one that can send a dragon into a state of fury, really.”

He raised his hand up to his face, then closed his eyes and inhaled.

“A shame, really. You’re the only one I want to make come in this world,” he murmured dreamily. “Maybe later, if you’re still alive.”

There, under my frightened and anxious gaze, he undressed down to his breeches. Smiling at me, amused by the spectacle he was putting on, he ran the hand he touched me with all over his body. His torso, his belly, even much lower.

“Ah, I might get a hard-on if you keep staring at me like that,” he chuckled. “You know what I’m going to do? Well, I’m going to go and see Dovah, who’s also chained up. And believe me, Nadrisse had a hard time putting him to sleep. I’m going to drive this stone into his heart and tell him that I’ve taken you again and again. He’ll refuse to believe me, and that’s when I’ll get close enough for him to smell your scent on me.”

Once again, he crouched down as I screamed at him through my gag. Elendur stroked my cheek with his index finger. He almost had a tender expression on his face. This man is mad. He’s completely mad. He’s truly a creature of the Abyss!

“If all goes well, fury should seize him, and he will transform.”

The King of Osacan paused.

“It’s been a long process, Ashana. I was forced to be born and grow up here. I had to find you, then make sure it was you. After that, I had to kill my father when the time was right. Take the throne. Declare war on Muvaria. Get you to marry Dovah. Wait for you to unite spiritually through various rites. Fuck each other to make sure the bond would be strong enough to shatter like glass. And here we are at the end of the first act. What suspense!”

Elendur straightened up and, after a mock gesture of farewell, disappeared into the darkness of Baal Castle’s dungeons. I waited. My heart was beating so fast I felt like I was suffocating. I was waiting to hear a sign from Dovah. Any sound that would let me know if Elendur’s plan was working.

Suddenly, there was a cry. Hoarse. Imbued with a pain that made me close my eyes and sob. I almost regretted waiting for that fateful sign. I wished I’d never listened. There was another cry, followed by a mad laugh, King Elendur’s. He was laughing so hard that I felt he was still standing next to me. Then, nothing.

I wasn’t sure which was more terrifying: the screams or the silence. The ground began to shake, and I understood. I understood that my situation had just reached a critical level. It was a beast on the move. An extremely heavy beast. A beast whose breath was so powerful it shook the walls . . .

Dovah had transformed. I was certain of it. He was the Patriarch again. He was once again the black dragon, the lord of ashes. Time seemed to stand still, and I waited once again, my body trembling and my heart racing.

And then, I saw them. There. Standing out from the darkness like bloody flames. Two incandescent, reptilian eyes. Two eyes with vertical pupils. Two eyes devoid of love, staring at me with rapt attention. He roared. I screamed.