I thought I felt arms around me, strong and careful, lifting me off the soaked bedding.
I thought I felt hands wiping foam from my mouth, cleaning blood from my wrists, tucking me under clean sheets.
But I think I imagined it.
It all felt too gentle to be real.
And right before the void swallowed me whole, I saw something else.
A dragon.
Black as a starless sky.
Huge. Ancient.
Waking from a long sleep.
He lifted his head — slow, deliberate — and looked at me.
I looked back.
And fell into darkness.
Chapter 21
Ash
I threw the desk across the room. It hit the wall, smashing apart instantly. I went to lift another chair.
Dev grabbed my arms.
“Stop it!”
“Where the fuck is she?” I screamed back in his face. “And why won’t they open the goddamn doors?”
K was pacing back and forth, watching the sealed door like he might will it open with the force of his own glare.
But it had been locked for hours while the guards cleared the courtyard.
“Tell me again.” K said to Dev, who stood there looking at the bloody glove still in his hand.
“I don’t see how that would help –“
“Tell me again!”
Dev clutched the glove tighter in his grip. I wanted to rip it from his dirty fingers.
That wasSeph’s glove.Not his.
“I don’t know what it was, only that it was - feral.”
“Ash feral?” K asked.
“Fuck you.” I growled.
“Worse.” Dev looked at me. “ It was like a monster – like it was half human, half demon. It ripped into that girl like she was butter. And Seph – “
“Why do you have her glove?” K demanded.
