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I wake up panting, disoriented and alone. Dark rock with golden veins arches over me, plants growing in the cracks. Water trickles outside, and the scent of wet stone and spices fills my nose.
Spices.
Drakoryas.
The events of the previous day filter back into my mind as I sit up. I glance down at my bare breasts and shiver.
Where is he?
Light is spilling into the cave from the opening. The night has passed. Did he just leave me here and go hunting, or whatever it is berserkers do when not abducting girls or fighting in the Empire’s army?
“Hey! Where are you?” I keep my voice low as I step out of the cave, my hands over my bare breasts, noticing in passing signs of human habitation: a metal pot, a wooden spoon, a kind of wooden bench by the wall. “Berserker!”
An animal wouldn’t have utensils, I think. An animal wouldn’t have language. Finnen and Taj were wrong.
Yet he did kidnap me.
And was concerned to know where I hurt.
“Dragon-kin, they call themselves.” Finnen had said that. “Wild men without taboos or ethics.”
Goddess, I miss him. And Taj. I hope they’re okay. I wonder what they will do.
Come after us, that’s what they’ll do. I just know it in my heart. They wouldn’t sit on their asses and let this Wildman take me.
But how will they track us down? Where am I?
I blink in the watery morning sunlight, then blink again.
Wow. It’s a dreamy spot on the side of a rocky hill. The water trickling down the face of the rock gathers in a small pool before streaming downhill. Trees grow all around, green with small white blossoms, like snow. I don’t know what they’re called, in fact, I’ve never seen the likeness of them before. Birds sing on the branches. A huge, blue butterfly flies by.
It’s… peaceful, perfect. Strangely civilized. Like I’m in a palace garden and not a Wildman’s backyard.
I manage to shrug off the ruined shirt and tie it around my torso, covering my breasts, and feeling bolder, I venture a little further. A sound reaches my ears, like a bird squawking, and curious, I step past the blooming trees and—
—down the slope. I don’t even have time to yelp as I roll down, hitting stones and packed dirt, sliding in mud, for what feels like forever. A howl rolls over me, an animalistic cry of anguish and rage as I struggle to stop my fall, but whatever root I try to catch slips through my fingers. A tree looms up ahead, right in my path.
I’m going to die, I think, and that’s all. I can’t think past that.
Can’t think at all except—is this really how it ends?
But a whirlwind picks me up with what strangely feels like hands and swings me out of the path of the tree—then a muscular body wraps itself around me as we hit the ground, once, twice.
Ow.
All movement stops and I remember to draw a ragged breath. A scent of spice punches me right in the chest, and I realize my face is buried in smelly furs and lift my head. I almost sneeze.
Then another realization hits me: I’m lying on top of a solid, long body, the wide ribcage underneath me rising and falling with breaths.
I lift my head a little bit more—and meet the Wildman’s annoyed blue gaze. “You.”
Without much ceremony, he sits up and shoves me off him. “You crazy?” he growls.
Figures that the only words he knows can be used to berate me. “What do you mean? I fell.”
“This, path!”
“I slipped! I didn’t know your backyard had a trap at its end!”
