Page 6 of House of Ashes
He dragged me to the middle of the room, back straight as he paraded me through the tavern, showing my face to them all. I would never be able to hide on Mistward again. “We’ll make our own House, boys, with this royal draga right here. We’ll take Koressis and name ourselves—”
“The House of Whores and Shine,” a yellow-toothed ferryman shouted, and they all cheered again, toasting the name.
“Indeed,” Kalros agreed. His grip on my upper arm was painful, squeezing so tight I imagined I could hear my own bones creaking. “The House of Whores and Shine. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take Serafina here upstairs and fuck her senseless ‘til we’re mated. You can call me Drakkon after that.”
The Bloodless man whose tongue I’d bitten laughed, clapping Kalros on the shoulder like he’d made a hilarious joke.
I swore to Sunya of the Claw right then and there that if Kalros swung his cock in front of me, I’d bite it off at the root and make him bleed for this.
As he pushed through the tavern towards the stairs, I gritted my teeth, wracking my brain for the past lessons I’d had to sit through. Who was this dragon?
All royal draga were instructed on House lineages, but I couldn’t think of any besides our own that had been exiled in recent years…
“House of Bloodied Talons,” I said, the name popping into my head.
Kalros stopped, looking back at me with a frown. “Pardon?”
“I remember now—you’re Bloodied Talons.” I grinned at him, my teeth still stained red from the Bloodless’s tongue. “And exiled because your craven family chose to sit out the war of the Primoris. Couldn’t handle the flames, could you?”
“You know nothing of that.” His amber eyes darkened, the shade becoming molten with inner fire. Crimson scales crept over his chest, down his abdomen. “Have you ever seen a Primoris, little draga? Do you have any idea what it’s like?”
His voice had lowered to a silky, deadly tone. Soon he would snap…and just as well, because I’d rather be dead than raped into a mate bond.
“I know that my House went to war. Your entire House were cowards,” I taunted him, signing my own death warrant. “What makes you think you could claim any eyrie, let alone Koressis? Your House didn’t have the balls for war then, and you don’t have them now.”
His expression was frozen in place. It didn’t change even as he lifted a hand, drawing it back. His grip tightened, shoulders tensing to deliver a blow.
But it never arrived. A black-clawed hand gripped the crimson dragon’s upraised wrist, digging into his tendons.
The stranger stood behind him, more silent and deadly than any storm. Somehow, he made even a dragon as large as Kalros look small.
“Who in the Nine Hells are you?” Kalros growled, the muscles in his biceps bulging as he fought to extricate himself. “The fuck do you want?”
The stranger didn’t give an inch. The two dragons remained locked in place, Kalros straining against him, the stranger cool and unmoved.
His deep, smoky voice issued from under the hood. “That’s my princess you’re fucking with.”
Then he squeezed, claws punching through scaled skin, until the crack of snapping bones filled the air.
Kalros howled, releasing me to clutch his shattered wrist, and the stranger was immediately engulfed in a tide of furious exiles.
Chapter
Two
If there was one thing my mother had taught me, it was that no golden opportunity should ever be permitted to escape.
I was no hero. I was a starved, filthy, unmated draga.
So I let the stranger take the punches while I ran for it.
I dropped to the floor a mere second before a scaled fist flew towards my face, but none of the dragons were focused on me. They wanted the stranger, who had dared to challenge one of the strongest dragons on Mistward.
Crouching on all fours, I scrambled between boots and legs, ignoring the grunts and roars rising above me. Someone kicked me in my side, sending a bright white flare of pain through me, and I took a knee to the face with a sharp crack.
That blow almost made me pass out, but if I stopped now, I’d be either torn apart or mated bonded by force. I kept crawling, dizzy and nauseated, allowing myself one tiny whimper of pain as my eye began to swell shut.
I was half-blind by the time I crept out of the mass of fighting dragons. My outer cloak had been torn off; I got to my feet, gripping a table for support. My right eye was so swollen I could hardly see through it.