Fischer waggled the dagger playfully.
“Skinning myself a Serpent.”
I could barely register the thrash of wild and searing magic in my chest before the lock finally gave way beneath Caelan’s body and he burst into the room. He took several purposeful strides toward me, and perhaps I drifted for him too, because he was within arms reach before he finally graced Fischer with his attention.
His former deputy gave a lazy nod. “Captain.”
“Fisch,” he returned in that same bored tone. He didn’t look at me, but I could have sworn he wanted to. A vein jumped in his tensed neck, and beneath his stiff and pissed off stance that last ember of my Flame within his chest strained for me.
“What’re you doing here?” He drawled.
Fischer leered.
“I came all this way to hunt a Serpent, I wasn’t giving up that easy. I’ve been back forweeks. Wasn’t hard, you never changed the rotation times at the border.” He waved the dagger at Caelan like a disappointed parent might wag a finger in yourface. “Sloppy.”
“You shouldn’t be here, Fischer.”
“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He barked out a laugh, and with his shaggy head thrown back it was only too easy for Caelan to take another sideways step toward me. “I saw Brennan marching them all off like a troop of snub-nosed schoolboys. Thought you’d get to hoard all the glory, did you? Collect her skin on your own and win His Majesty’s favour as some beast-slaying hero?”
I had been watching Caelan intently, warring with my Flame. Despite the fear and anguish weighing on my heart, the tears now drying on my cheeks, I knew that whether I decided to or not, I would unleash that fire without a second thought if Fischer and his dagger got within an arm’s length of Caelan’s skin.
But then those three words hit my ears belatedly;Collect her skin.I whipped around, tearing my eyes from the Captain for the first time.
“You thinkI’mthe Serpent?”
Fischer didn’t even look at me, but it was Caelan’s silencing hand held up in my direction that had my jaw giving way. He smirked, and I could only gawk in shocked silence.
“How in the hell didyoufigure it out?” said Caelan.
Fischer held up his palm. It was thick and scaly, brown against the ruddy pink skin of his wrist. He was still healing from where he’d tried to choke me, where my magic had flared protectively – back when it still had the inclination to do so.
“Little bitch burned me with her venom.” He lifted his chin and dragged the tip of his dagger around his hairy neck in a crude demonstration. “The females have glands in their throats. Here and here.”
That didn’t soundremotelytrue.
“You can’t possibly be this stupid,” I spat at Fischer. “I amnota Serpent.”
I was so busy glaring at him that I didn’t notice Caelan move until it was too late. He took those final two steps towards me and then his arm was tight around my waist, and I could do nothingbut thrash and scream myself hoarse. I tried desperately to dig my elbows into his solid stomach but he just yanked me tighter against him.
“Stop,” I shrieked, the plea ragged in my raw throat. “Fischer, I’mnotthe Serpent. It’s not me.”
Even facing death at his hand, I couldn’t bring myself to point him toward Caelan. The words burned in my throat like swallowed bile; they simply would not come. It didn’t matter either way. Fischer just sneered, and Caelan went on as if I’d never spoken.
“Fine,” he said, grunting as I struggled against his hold. “We’ll share.”
He unsheathed his sword.
Panic speared through me at the sound, at the hungry look on Fischer’s face, and still my Flame would not rise. Not with Caelan’s arms around me. Not even with the edge of his blade hovering at my neck.
“Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
The scream was trapped in my throat like my Flame in my chest, but I was sobbing, stomping at Caelan’s toes the best I could, knowing that if I moved too much I’d slice my own throat open. I needed to breathe – I needed to think. I needed my fucking Flame.
Please.
But the only response I got was that strange new voice within, repeating the only thing it had ever said;Mine.
Fischer’s dagger glinted evilly, preceding him as he moved across the floor like a predator on the prowl until his feet were almost flush with mine. I could see my own eyes, practically black with fear, reflected in the shining slash of his dagger.
