Page 59 of An Accident Waiting to Dragon

Like having pieces of flesh sliced off him with a thousand sharp-bladed knives.

His fire would make short work of the wooden lashings holding him captive. But the fear in their eyes…that was what kept him still, waiting for whatever came next.

“Where is she?” he asked.

Her father’s jaw hardened. “You don’t get to demand things of us.”

Not an answer.

“Ewen—”

“No.” Ewen slashed a hand through the air. And that’s when Asher saw it. The fear in Gwen’s father’s eyes.

Not fear of Asher. This was different. This was… was Ewen afraid for Gwen?

“If she’s in danger, tell me,” he said, holding onto a growing panic clawing at his own belly. “I can help her.”

Ewen stared at him in silence, a muscle ticking at the side of his mouth.

“Please,” Asher begged. He stared them down from his rather awkward viewpoint…and waited for the answer.

“Tell him, Da’,” Garrett, the youngest of the family spat the words. “He deserves to know what he’s done to her.”

The bindings groaned in protest as Asher’s entire body went stiff. “What does that mean? Done to her?”

Ewen Woodshield crossed his arms, his face set, though more fear crept through the cracks. “Mauren took her to the spirit pixie.”

Spirit pixie.

Okay.

“What does that mean?”

“Gwen has gone to speak to the dead.”

Speak to the?—

The blood drained from his head, quite a feat in his current position. The effect must’ve been pretty damn obvious, because for a second, the hardness disappeared from Ewen’s expression, a frown or maybe confusion flickering there instead. Several of Gwen’s siblings glanced at each other.

“Goran?” Asher asked, his voice a harsh tear. “She’s gone to speak to Goran.”

“She said she has to hear the truth from him,” Garrett snapped. “You did this to her. You wouldn’t tell her what happened, so she’s gone to find out.”

I can’t. Asher didn’t say it. He only had one shot to convince someone before the oath took him, and that had to be Gwen.

Her family wouldn’t be this upset if this spirit pixie thing wasn’t serious. “Is it dangerous?”

They didn’t need to answer. He could see it in the strain on their faces, in their tightly held bodies.

His own fear rose up like those fucking wraiths, trying to drag him to his death.

Save her. Now.

He wasn’t sure if that was his thought, or his dragon’s.

“Returning to us with her mind intact will be a miracle,” Ewen said, every word a poisoned arrow to Asher’s heart. “If she comes back at all.”

Fuck.

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