I was on my feet before I was fully conscious. My hand moved to my throat, pressing against the burning column of my neck.
SHE IS ESCAPING!
I staggered against the bedpost in the dark of midnight as the dragon surged so hard, my vision went gold. My fingers curled around the post, and the wood groaned under the pressure.
OUR MATE! SHE FLEES FROM US!
“No,” I said out loud to the empty room.
That was new: talking to it out loud. It was the kind of thing men did before they stopped being men entirely.
SHE IS GONE!
“She can’t be gone, you fucking imbecile,” I continued. “She’s locked in the dungeon.”
Where I’d put her myself. After she’d finished feeding Merlin the information I’d told her to. Yes, I’d returned her to her cold and dank cell just because I could. Because I wanted to reinforce who was the master and who was nothing. Because I was angry that even imprisoned, she still rebelled against me.
SHE HAS ESCAPED!
I laid my head against the bed post and concentrated on breathing in, and breathing out. The fire pressed against me internally as I became aware of the spreading presence of the dragon, searching me, feeling for her like a bloodhound. It knew what it was looking for: the form of her; it had scented her in the encounters we’d had when we were standing close enough to share a breath.
FIND HER!
My legs moved toward the door, but then I stopped them, forced myself to stand still. The effort left me sweating. I braced both hands against the wall and stood there, shaking, while the dragon raged within me. The tattoo across my chest and backburned like a brand newly pressed. I could feel each scale of it, every line of ink becoming fire, and the whole mass of it pulling toward the lower keep.
She’s exactly where I fucking left her!I thought to the beast that was pushing against my boundary with everything it had.
SHE IS NOT THERE! OUR MATE IS NOT THERE!
“She’s not our fucking mate!”
SHE IS OURS!
Ours. The word landed like a coal on dry wood. Something in me wanted to agree with it, and that was worse than the burning. That quiet, treacherous part of me that had been unable to keep my hands from her, and so I’d bathed her. A king bathing his prisoner: it was ludicrous, just as she’d mocked. I just... I hadn’t been able to help myself. The need to constantly touch her was an impossible need to ignore.
Nor had I been able to help myself when I’d cataloged the line of her jaw and the particular way she looked at me: with something measuring and sharp that no one in this court had aimed at me in years.
I shoved that part back down with the dragon. I hated them both equally.
The floor was cold stone under my bare feet, and even as I wondered why I was bothering, I was in my tunic and braies momentarily. I didn’t bother with boots or armor. The dragon didn’t care. The dragon wanted to move.
“You will soon see, you fucking monster, that she sits in her cell exactly where I fucking left her.”
YOU WILL GO NOW!
I crossed to the basin on the table and plunged both hands into the water. It had gone cold hours ago, but that was the point. I held them there and waited for the gold to leave the edges of my vision.
It took longer than it should have.
SHE ESCAPES! EVERY MOMENT WE DALLY SHE MOVES FARTHER AWAY!
“Enough.”
My voice came out low and wrong. It wasn’t my voice at all, but something underneath my voice.
I straightened, then looked at my hands, which were still dripping water onto the stone floor. My knuckles were pale from gripping the basin.
SHE IS ESCAPING!