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My stomach flipped. I swallowed back the bile rising, burning my throat.
I knew what he wanted to do. I could see it in his eyes. And I was sure it wouldn’t stop him to know that I was no virgin.
There would be no calling out for help. There was no onetohelp me. Only me andhim. I’d be damned if I let the bastard get what he wanted.
“Such a waste,” he said again, his voice a suggestive caress. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
I felt the flames at my core. They heeded my call, growing the more danger I was in. I spread my legs, lifted my chin to the male hovering over me.
He licked his lips at the invitation, kneeling. His cold hand circled my upper thigh, and I resisted the urge to recoil. Letting it fuel my rage instead.
That’s it. Just a little closer.
He reached for his trousers, lips parted in anticipation, as he freed his cock.
The Draconian leaned in…
And I lunged. I grabbed him by the face, fingers splayed over his cheeks.Push.I fed the fire through my palms. Rewarded with a howl of pain and the repugnant and yet oh so gratifying smell of burning flesh.
I was shoved back. Could barely see through the haze of smoke when he struck me. His knuckles connected with the bones in my jaw and my feet left the floor. My body sailed across the cell and I landed in a heap against the wall. My face and hip bones throbbing.
“Bitch!” he shouted and then the light vanished, and I heard the lock click into place behind him.
“Pig!” I screamed back at him, panting. I spat blood onto the floor, trying to get the putrid coppery taste from my tongue.
I had already begun to swell from his blow, but I didn’t bother eventryingto heal the small wound. I’d need to conserve my strength for Ricon’s return.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Alaric
Healer Loris was a hag of a woman, but I had to admit, she knew what she was doing. Her sleep elixirs had been helping me fall asleep, and stay asleep, for weeks—since before what had happened with Thana.
It was the only way I seemed to be able to keep my eyes closed without incessantly worrying about her. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my men. Any of them would lay down their lives for her—even Tiernan. Though I didn’t know him as well as the others, I felt the depth of his feelings for Liana. It was how I knew I could trust him, and why I granted him his request to join the queen’s guard.
No, it wasn’t them. It was that if somethingdidhappen, and I wasn’t there to help stop it, I would never forgive myself.
So, though the others were surprised, I think we were all glad I had a cache of the elixir at my disposal. I took double the recommended dose and was asleep within minutes.
And it had worked. But deciphering the meaning of the vision proved a challenge.
“I couldn’tseeanything,” I told them after they’d spent near an hour trying to rouse me from the drug induced slumber, dragging my limp form from my bed to the table in the main barracks. And it wasn’t a lie.
I couldn’t see.
“But I felt the cold,” I said, remembering the way I had—shehad shivered, swallowed, “I felt the stone beneath her, and I could smell damp earth.”
My teeth clenched, and a vise kept the air from my lungs. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them the rest. How I felt the iron biting into her ankle. Her fear pouring into me, rushing over me. And her anger. The emotions left a stain somewhere in my mind. Tore a hole in my chest.
“But you couldn’t see?” Finn asked, and I saw the gears and cogs turning behind his eyes.
I shook my head, “No, it was dark. Like I’d been submerged in a vat of ink.”
He took a moment to string the pieces together, and we all watched as his eyes widened, “A cave, maybe?”
I thought back to the cold, dark stone. “Could be.”
Quick as a rat, he flew across the room, coming back with the map we’d already spent hours pouring over. Spread it across the table. Grabbed a quill and ink.
