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“No.”
Both her eyebrows go up this time, and her head lifts, haughty defiance overtaking her features. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
“You’re my prisoner. Of course I can.”
Her fingers flutter to her mouth in exaggerated surprise. “I’m your prisoner? Really? I had completely forgotten about that. Tell me, dragon, do all captors put their tongues inside their prisoners?”
“You said that sexual pleasure would not change anything between us,” I reply. “When I am in this form, you’ll do what I say, when I say it.”
She shoots me a rebellious glare and stomps back into the cave. At first I think she’s planning to obey me, because she puts on a simple white dress and packs everything else into a large bundle, ready for travel. But when the packing is done, she leaves the bundle near the mouth of the cave and walks farther inside.
“Serylla.” I prowl after her. “Come here.”
She keeps walking, all the way to the back of the cave, where there’s a short tunnel.
“That tunnel is a dead end,” I warn her.
“So?” She retreats down it with a satisfied grin. “You can’t follow me in here.”
Shit.
I leap for the tunnel and push my head and neck inside as far as I can, but she’s right—my shoulders won’t fit through, and I can’t reach her. My jaws clash, a vindictive snap that makes her jump and gasp, but then she laughs. She fucking laughs.
“You need water and food,” I tell her. “You’ll have to come out for that.”
She plops down on the floor and crosses her arms.
“Fine. Stay in there and starve,” I growl. “One less mouth to feed. It’s not as though we have much food to spare anyway.”
“Because of the plague,” she says. “I still think it’s strange that it would travel from island to island like that. It would have to be carried by something, like birds, dragons, insects—and if it was insects, it would probably be the biting kind, like—”
“Blood-beetles,” I say faintly.
“I don’t know what those are, but they sound disgusting.”
I whirl away from the tunnel entrance, spring to the cave mouth, and take to the sky.
Tell me I’m wrong, Fortunix. Tell me I’m wrong, tell me…
He had blood-beetles in that cave, inside those jars. Why would he keep so many? Certainly not as pets. There had to be a reason, a darker purpose. Blood-beetles infected with plague. If my suspicions are correct, he set them loose months ago, knowing they would decimate our prey, knowing they might even take down a few dragons.
Why?
Because once our prey became scarce, we’d be forced to look for new hunting grounds. Fortunix must have known my father wouldn’t steal new islands. Ancestral land is sacred to dragons, and we would never forcibly take earth with a prior claim on it. Fortunix knew the Bone-King would bargain for the land—bargain with Vohrain, the kingdom that held the nearest, richest hunting grounds. And in bargaining with Vohrain, we became their allies in the war against Elekstan, the nation Fortunix has hated ever since their dragon-hunting days.
It makes sense, and yet I can’t believe he would orchestrate something like this. Surely there’s another explanation. It has to be coincidence, or a paranoia gripping my mind, born of grief. An elder would never put other dragons in danger.
Fortunix’s home is a triangular cave near the top of a craggy peak. He has lived there ever since I can remember. As a hatchling, I dreamed of the day I would be able to fly that high. When I finally gained the strength and confidence, I used to visit him often. He always had a few fat eels on hand for hungry young dragons.
I’m wrong about this. I’m paranoid, I’ve concocted a demented theory that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Asking him about it, doubting him to his face, after all we’ve been through—it would be cruel. He’d be hurt that I questioned his loyalty, even for a moment.
And yet…
I sweep into the cave, rapidly folding my wings.
The space is just large enough to shield him from the elements, so I can tell at a glance that he isn’t there. There’s no sign of fresh kill, no food anywhere, and his scent is stale. He hasn’t been here for hours. Perhaps he stayed on the ground last night.
What does his human form look like? He never mentioned it during the clan meeting. Perhaps it is an aged form, weaker than most, and he’s ashamed for anyone to see it.
