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“And what did you say to him?”
“I considered the offer, but decided not to accept it.”
“How unexpectedly wise of you,” I say through clenched teeth. “Maybe you’re finally beginning to understand that your ally is a bigger monster than any dragon. He has used your clan to do despicable things. He leveraged your desperation and turned all of you into the agents of his cruelty. You can’t trust him, or his rewards. If you do, you’re a fool.”
The dragon’s lip hitches with a quiet snarl. I hurt him by telling the truth about the food and the tea, and now I’ve stung his pride. But I’m too full of helpless anguish to care.
“You gave my people into the hands of a terrible man,” I tell him. “The families I care about, the people who were kind to me—they’re in his power now, and that’s your fault. I can never forgive you for that.”
He snarls louder and shuffles back another step, his wings sharply arched and his spiked tail lashing.
“I’m surprised you didn’t hand me over,” I say. “You’ve done far worse things, like commit widespread carnage in exchange for new hunting grounds. Why not take the treasure and the Parrock Banks or whatever the fuck, and give me to him? You could always fetch another girl to take my place. Some meek little thing who wouldn’t annoy you, who would be happy to take your cock and birth your eggs.”
He paces toward me with his head lowered and his eyes aflame. Every word shows his long teeth, gleaming in the low light. “I don’t want another girl.”
A thrill pulses through my heart, but that only makes me more desperately angry. I can’t manage the towering thunderstorm of emotions in my body, so I grit my teeth and punch his scaly snout, right between his nostrils.
Kyreagan chuckles darkly. “Feels as if a fly landed on my nose.”
I screech with frustration and haul back to hit him again, but before I strike, he inhales sharply and shudders.
A burst of light obliterates him for a second, and when it fades, he’s the tall, toned man from before, with the light-brown skin, sharp horns, and a waterfall of inky black hair.
I punch him hard in the left breast, and he staggers back with a grunt. The violence eases my frenzied pain a little, so I hit him again, in the ribs. My knuckles ache, but that discomfort is nothing compared to the agony of my flayed heart.
Kyreagan steps back, snatches a blanket, and wraps it hastily around his waist, tucking it rather than knotting it. I suppose he has no idea how to tie things. He’s a bit steadier on his legs this time.
When he turns back to me, his dark eyes glow with earnest regret.
“Go ahead. Hurt me,” he says. “Your anger is raw and fresh, and it requires violence. When one dragon is responsible for another’s death, whether by intent or accident, the killer is chastised by one of the deceased dragon’s relatives. I have caused you unutterable pain and loss. No matter what my motives were, you deserve reparation. Tear my skin, bruise me, beat me—I will not resist. My body is yours.”
I stand motionless, galvanized by his words, so unlike the ones he spoke after snatching me out of the air by the city wall.
Back then he said, Your will, your future, and your body are mine.
And now he is giving his body to me. Yielding to pain for my sake, even though he, too, has experienced unimaginable loss. I can’t forget his voice when he told me of his Promised, his grandmother, his sister. I can’t unsee the tooth and the claw, set with such care on the ledge in his cave, inscribed with the names of his parents. I can’t deny the wordless testimony of the meal he planned for me, and the tea, the stupid fucking tea…
“Did you hear me, Serylla?” he repeats. “Enact your vengeance upon me. Use me.”
Heat rolls over my skin, burns at my core, singes my veins, my fingertips. Blood roars in my ears.
Use me. Use me…
I leap for him, grab his hair, drag his face down to mine. My mouth tears at his, teeth and tongues, frantic, hungry. My body is starved for touch, for warmth, for anything except the constant, wearying uncertainty. I’m so fucking tired of hurting, of being sad and stressed and frightened. I need the hot, smooth skin of his chest, the compact muscle of his abdomen, the ridges of his hips. I need the strong arms that fold tentatively around my body as my fingers dig into the broad expanse of his back. He’s unsteady on his human feet, so I push him back toward the other blanket and we collapse onto it, knocking aside the lumpy tea and inedible meal.
“You said I could use you.” I manage the words between violent kisses. “I want to use you to feel better. May I?”
“You need my tongue.” He darts it out suggestively, and it’s adorable, and I laugh. I laugh, and then my face falls because my mother is dead, my mother was beaten and beheaded and god what is wrong with me—I stop kissing him, press my forehead against his shoulder, and close my eyes against the oncoming tears. I hold them back so hard I can’t breathe.
My whole body spasms, the violent proof of my pain. Kyreagan’s hands tighten on my sides.
“Perhaps you don’t need my tongue right now,” he says quietly. “Perhaps you need rest.”
“No.” I rake my teeth along his thick collarbone, bite down until his breath hitches. “I need you to make me stop thinking, stop hurting.”
“Physical pleasure can achieve this?” The ache in his voice strums a string in the very depth of my soul.
“For a little while.”
