Page 28 of Scalebound

“Excuse me?” I felt the venom readying to drip from my tongue, the fire about to set aflame from my hands. Scale slum was one of the lowest insults for Scalekind, and I did not take it lightly.

“You can’t go out in the city without getting a blade to your throat. You seriously cannot expect to be made queen.” The knife still twirled in between his fingers, the moonlight reflecting from the shiny silver blade. “There’s a reason your kind isn’t around anymore.” How he said ‘your kind’ lit something in my chest along with the distaste he said it with. I didn’t allow such disrespect. However, this time, I didn’t have a tower to run to, to be locked up in, to besafein. I had to defend myself.

“Last I checked, you were looking formy kind.” I un-balled myself, standing tall. He remained seated, his arms propped up on his knees. His eyes turned to slits as he observed me.

"Out of necessity," he uttered, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on me. A sudden flutter stirred in my chest as his eyes bore into mine, the intensity of his stare sending a jolt of anticipation through me.

“Face it, you will need me far more than I will need you,” the venom slid from my lips. The ice that spread in his eyes showed me it was true, as his wicked smile widened. One that made me want to curl up in a ball. One that made me wish that I had never left my tower. One that, for some reason, made my golden blood flush to my cheeks.

“If you are confident, my Queen,” he mocked me for the lack of title I beheld. “Why work with me at all?” His deep voice shoved the words into my mind. It made my stomach flutter, along withmy hands set ablaze. The urge to light him on fire, leaving him to ash, flooded my body. I had never killed before, but as his onyx eyes peered into my own, sparkling with mischief, it might be worth it to break that streak.

“When this is all over, I’m going to kill you myself,” I said, anger only continuing to rise in the pit of my stomach from our conversation.

His wicked smile enlarged, shining the dimple hidden on his cheek, his teeth flaring out. “You promise?”

1.Haxnau (Hah-nah-woo): Hell

2.Laneux (Law-neh-ooh)

Chapter eighteen

DAMIAN

The nightmare awoke me. The same one that had blistered my soul, haunting me every single night without a doubt. At this point, I hated the nighttime. I hated the moments right before I had to go to sleep, knowing that I was bound to wake up to the piercing screams, the fire so vivid that no imagination could ever conjure up such an image.

Walking back home late one night, I was fishing to clear my mind from the thick expectations that my parents had placed on me. I had a few prized catches in one hand with my fishing stick in the other. It was the same one that was passed down to me by my father, carved and created by my grandfather. It had fed our family for a few generations, and then it was my turn to provide.

I was doing something. I was doing it right. My apprenticeship was more than I deserved, giving me enough to provide. I was supplying for Sebastia and myself. We didn’t need anyone else. We didn’t need my parent’s help. We were all each other needed. She was all I needed.

Dropping the freshly caught fish and my fishing stick on the floor, the withered rod from an old oak tree snapped on the ground. However, the cracking of my prized possession was nothing compared to the cries that echoed in the air, reaching my ears from my own house.

“Sebastia!” I cried out, shaking the bones around what used to be my beating heart. The flames exhausted the building, the burn in my nose so prominent. “Sebastia!” The smoke in the air sent immediate tears down my cheeks. My eyes were scalded, clouded with smoke and the emotions lamenting down my face.

The pops of the embers burned my skin, and the sickening sound of the hissing flames scorched the walls alongside everything we owned. Our home was small, with only two bedrooms, but the chaos of the crackling roars and the shattering of glass made it difficult to find any sight of her until I found her lying on the floor in an unnatural position. Curled inwards, shielding her face from the smoke and flames. Radiating heat, her body scorched to the touch.

My fingers raised to her throat, praying to the gatekeeper ofEzu1 that there would be a pulse. The pulse was so faint, barely flickering beneath my fingertips.

Her eyes hardly opened, looking into mine. Her hand sprawled open, the fingers outstretched, clutching her silver locket carved with a large “S”. The sea blue of her eyes looked like waves with the soft touch of her saddened smile; she reached her fingers toward my own, giving me the locket.

The second the warm metallic locket grazed my senses, her eyes sealed close. The rhythmic sounds of her beating heart were halted, unmoving.

Blocking out the animalistic cries and pleas that roared from my mouth, I watched my entire future crash down before me, caving alongside the house in which we had built our dreams. Iremember pleading with the gatekeeper ofEzu, begging them to return Sebastia’s soul back to her lifeless body.

Holding onto Sebastia, I found her cold to the touch, even though my fingers were blistered and charred from cradling her in my arms. The ice trickled from her soulless shell, reaching my heart, which was unwilling to beat the same again. Unwilling to allow the warmness back in. Unwilling to beg or to care enough for anything again. The feeling of glass shards piercing every nerve in my body was one I’d never allow myself to repeat.

Realizing that the gatekeeper ofEzuwas not listening to my begging cries, I sang to Sebastia on her journey to them, reaching the Celestials above me.

Away from me.

Leaving me.

Racing back to the present, my body was sweating as heat engulfed my palms and my broken heart. I watched the Scaleborne laying near me, asleep and vulnerable. Unable to do anything about me knocking her out, giving me time to deliver her back to the sorcerer without being too far out.

I thought back to the rope that was strategically tied around my belt loops. I almost grabbed at it when I first found her. Good thing that I didn’t because she would’ve been able to blast it into flames, making it more difficult than I had originally thought.

However, the hilt of my dagger being hit against her head would do the trick. She was harmless right now–powerless.

Grabbing at the knife hidden in my boot, I raised it, planning the exact force I needed to come down on her with the hilt of my blade, when something started burning.

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