She will be the salvation of me. The warlords cannot touch me while I have her. And she belongs to me.
LYDIA
I am warm in a way I feel like I haven’t been warm since forever. There’s a soft scent of spice, of wood smoke, like if I were in a little cottage in the woods I could call my own. One where no one will bother me, where I can bake bread and cakes, where I have a tabby cat on the windowsill, where I have all my knickknacks and cute, cosy throws over old chairs and a clock ticking in the corner, marking time in a way which is easy and slow.
Only there is no cottage.
There are no cosy throws or ticking clock or tabby cat.
There are scales. There are claws. Burning eyes with slit pupils and the very tip of a forked tongue.
There is ahugealien dragon staring down at me.
“Little ember,” he rumbles.
I scramble away from him until my back hits a wall and I can’t go any further.
This Sarkarnii is not like any of the others I have encountered. His long hair is matted in places, his scales dirty, his face streaked with what could be mud but it’s hard to tell as his hair is hanging over most of it. His eyes gleam in a way which makes me want to look away. He is as if a Sarkarnii has been left on an uninhabited planet for a very long time. He crouchesdown, leaning on one knuckle, staring at me as if he’s working out if I’m a snack or worthy of a main course.
“What…what do you want?” My words come out with a wheeze, my chest far too tight for comfort.
“You,” he says.
“I…I’m not available.”
I’m not available? What sort of ridiculous response is that?
“If you have another Sarkarnii, give me his name, I will rend him into pieces and give them to you on a platter.”
“Oh god.” I swallow the bile rising in my throat. “What?”
“Iwillkill him before he tries to do the same to me.”
I don’t know if the clarification makes this situation any easier.
“I meant…I meant I don’t belong to you. Not that I have a mate or a Sarkarnii you can kill,” I say as quickly as I can before some poor Sarkarnii warrior has to contend with this particular behemoth, who has to be one of the warlords, even if I’ve not seen him before.
“You are with me. You belong to me,” he rumbles.
“No, I don’t,” I say, far braver in the face of an enormous dragon than I ever expected to be. “I don’t belong to you or anyone.”
The Sarkarnii huffs out a big cloud of smoke and turns away from me, rising as he does.
He is, as I’ve already determined, absolutely enormous. Close to Dalox in height, I think. His wide shoulders drop to a thick, muscular waist which dips to a ‘v’ where he’s poured into his pants. I think even his muscles have muscles. He could do whatever he wants to me, and there’s no way I would stop him.
The whimper I release is not one I wanted to.
Instantly, he snaps around.
His eyes narrow.
He bends, only slightly, reaching down an arm towards me.
I have nowhere to go, nowhere to flee. I can’t do anything but watch as his ragged, clawed fingers get ever closer. Then I can’t watch. I turn my face away, squeezing my eyes closed, waiting for…
An oh-so-soft touch on my chin, a gentle, firm pressure turning me, tilting my face upwards. I open my eyes, more in surprise than anything else. He holds me, like a butterfly under a pin.
“Who…”. His tone is low, demanding, dangerous. “Who hurt you?”
