AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So, you can’t take an order.” His feet hit the floor.
“I’m sorry, Master. I’m sorry.” I broke out in a cold sweat. This wasn’t going to be good, I knew it in my gut.
“You have a complaint? Maybe you don’t like being related to me?” He leaned forward. Despite every inclination I had, I forced myself to stay in position. Run, and he might kill me.
“No complaints, Master.”
His face inches from mine now, his eyes took on a cold, hard edge.
“The expression on your face tells me otherwise. So my hospitality is not to your liking, my daughter-in-law?” Suddenly he was standing, towering over me, all seven-plus feet of him. I instinctively scrambled away, but he caught me with that damned hair of his, holding me so tight I could barely breathe. After a moment, he used it to force me over a slab of rock, facedown, and brushed my hair from my back. Then, another long strand of his hair knotted into a harsh braided whip and, with a bone-jarring crack, he brought it sweeping across my lower back, right where the strain had been the worst.
My composure vanished. I screamed as the lashes fell, the bite of the braided hair stinging against my flesh. I could feel the welts rising.
“You are not my equal! Do you hear me? You are not my equal!” With each fall of the lash, Hyto grew more frenzied. After six strokes, he jerked away, panting, his hair coiling like snakes around his head.
I rolled over on my side, staring up at him, mute, unable to do more than stifle the sobs that lurched up in my throat. His eyes flashed and I knew we were at a pivotal point. I could so easily die if I made one wrong move.
“I would kill you now . . . I would kill you . . . but it would spoil my plans.” In a ragged voice, he railed against me. “How dare you lure my son away? How dare you set him up to take my place? To strike me down in his mother’s eyes? How dare you come into my family and ruin my life! You are a worthless lump of flesh. You are less than the worms of the fields. Slut—cow! Filthy mortal!”
I said nothing. Did nothing. My life was hanging by a thread.
Hyto caught me up, his hair so tight around my wrist that it felt like the bones were going to break. He pulled me close, eye level, and a sickly grin spread across his face. “Now, I think you shall learn what it feels like to ride a real dragon and not that weak son of mine.”
Gritting my teeth, I began to disassociate. I heard the swish of his robe as he pulled it back, and the next moment he was inside me, ramrod hard and fierce. With every grunt, he reverberated through my body like another fist in my stomach.
Menolly withstood this . . . she withstood worse . . . she was strong. She made it through hell and back. I can make it through this. I will survive this. I won’t ever let him win—he can violate my body but he cannot violate my soul.
“You like this? Answer me, slave!” He yanked on my hair, so hard I shrieked. “Remember who your master is, Camille.” The warning was so charged I had to respond.
“Yes . . . yes, Master . . .” The words echoed out of my mouth, but they were hollow husks floating on the wind with no power put into them. They meant nothing to me.
“I will kill you slowly, in front of him. My son will watch you die in agony, and he will know he could do nothing to stop me.”
After a few moments he tore away, grabbing me by the wrist and tossing me across the room, like a rag doll. I landed on the floor with a bone-numbing thud. Sucking in a deep breath, I glared at him through the tears and snot running down from my nose, no longer caring about his anger.
“Smoky loves me. He’s my husband. I will always know he loves me. Do you understand that? You can beat me, you can kill me a thousand times over and I’ll take that knowledge to my grave.”
He stood there panting, staring at me, and then with a terrible cry he was at my side, kicking me square in the hip. I screamed as he yelled for Hanna.
She scurried in.
“Get her out of my sight. Now! Before I kill her.”
Hanna hurriedly yanked me along, dragging me through the door and down the hall.
“Hurry, hurry! If we stay in his presence, we die.” She bustled me back into the safety of the cave with the tub, pulling the curtain shut. Only then did she let me rest, pushing me onto the pallet as she huddled with me. After a while, she let out her breath.
“He is in a murderous rage. If we are lucky, he’ll go out, to work off his anger. I know not what you did to him, girl, but I fear for you. I truly do.”
I caught her gaze as she began to move around, looking for the ointments and salves to treat the welts and bruising. I knew what I’d done. He wanted me. And he did not want to desire me. I’d inadvertently challenged him by not kowtowing to him. I refused to beg him, to make him feel superior. But most of all, I simply existed. Smoky loved me and had taken my side over his father’s. And there, right there, was the answer.
“All I have to do in order to anger him is exist. His son has turned on him. Hyto blames me.” I shook my head. “That’s the only thing.”
Hanna nodded. “That would do the trick, all right. He’s an arrogant beast—white dragons are the worst when it comes to their grasping ways. They crave power and they feed off fear. Any defiance is seen as an insult.” She gently swept my hair to the side. “Let me attend to your wounds, girl. Then, sleep. Right now, it’s the best you can do for your body.”
As I leaned forward for her to examine my back, I realized that I’d hit on the core of Hyto’s anger. My very existence had become an insult to him. He blamed me for his disgrace, for his fall from the Dragon Reaches. I had become his scapegoat, and he wouldn’t rest until I—and Smoky—were punished for his madness. And somehow, I had a feeling no punishment was enough to make Hyto feel strong in himself again. He would never be able to terrorize us enough to mend his ego.
I was in the hands of a psycho. A psychotic dragon. Somehow, fighting Shadow Wing didn’t seem quite so terrifying a prospect compared to this.
