Page 18 of Claimed By the Drakarn Warrior Lord

A mate.Mymate.

Her eyes narrowed, the sharp green of them cutting through the dim light like a blade. She didn’t understand the word fully—she couldn’t. But she recognized the weight of it, the way it lingered between us like the heat hanging in the thick air of Scalvaris.

“I fight,” she said, her voice hard, clipped. She jabbed a finger against her chest, her meaning clear despite the fractured language. “Me. Warrior.”

My wings flared slightly, a reflexive response to her audacity. The fire in her words made my blood simmer, equalparts frustration and something darker, hotter. I stepped closer, towering over her, forcing her to tilt her chin up to meet my gaze.

“You think you understand what it means to be a warrior?” My voice rumbled low, the cavern amplifying the menace woven into my words.

“Training begins tomorrow."

EIGHT

TERRA

The training area was everything I’d come to expect from the Drakarn: brutal, functional, and entirely unforgiving. Rough stone walls glimmered faintly in the light cast by heat crystals embedded in the ceiling. Their glow painted the cavern in molten oranges and reds, making the space look like it had been carved directly out of a volcano. The floor was worn smooth in some places, jagged in others, as if even the ground here would punish the unsteady.

A place like this didn’t care about mercy. And neither did the man pacing in front of me.

Darrokar moved with all the lethal grace I’d come to associate with him: dark wings half-unfurled, casting jagged shadows that danced along the walls. His tail lashed in sharp, deliberate arcs, itsspiked tip threatening to slice through the air between us. His claws flexed and curled as though itching for violence.

But it was his eyes—those molten gold, slit-pupiled eyes—that held me captive. Anger blazed within them like a forge stoked too hot, but there was something more, something darker writhing just beneath the surface.

"Disgrace," he snarled, his voice a low rumble that resonated through the cavern. The word ricocheted off the stone walls, its weight as sharp as his claws. "To attack one not marked as warrior. No honor."

I watched him, forcing myself to remain still. Observing. Calculating. If I was going to survive there, I needed to understand these people—their rules, their fragile egos, their ideology. And right then, I was learning a lot about what made Darrokar tick.

He wasn’t just angry about my unsanctioned expedition into the lower tunnels. No, this was something deeper. Personal.

"The punishment is exile," he continued, the words more to himself than to me. His tail slammed once against the ground, sending a vibration through the floor strong enough to rattle my teeth. "But it should have been death. Itwouldhave been death—if—" He cut himself off, his teeth clicking together audibly.

That barely reigned fury of his could’ve suffocated weaker prey. But I wasn’t prey. Not his. Not anyone’s.

"Why did you leave?" he snapped suddenly, spinning to face me. His wings flared wide, nearly brushing the walls on either side of us. It was a deliberately intimidating display, but I refused to flinch. "Why risk—why go?" His words were clipped, as though speaking simply, hoping I would understand, cost him effort. His control was slipping by the second, and I couldn’t shake how those seething remnants of anger lingered alongside something far less definable.

I pulled in a breath, readying myself for what I was about to say. My mask of control was thin, but I wore it like armor. "Because I needed to," I said evenly. With the translator's help, I'd picked up a lot of his language, even if it wasn't programmed to help me speak. "And I’m not helpless."

His eyes widened, a flicker of surprise cracking through his glowering mask.

"I won't let you cage me."

The resulting silence was deafening. He frozemid-breath, tension coiling through his massive frame like an earthquake gearing up to strike. Slowly, deliberately, his wings folded back against his spine, and his gaze locked onto mine with renewed intensity.

"You speak our words," he said, the syllables slow and measured. His breath hitched, almost imperceptibly, as though he’d walked into an ambush deeper than he could have anticipated. “All this time, you understood?”

“Long enough,” I replied, meeting his stare head-on. “I wanted to hear what you’d say when you didn’t think I could understand.”

“Clever,” he bit out. The word dripped with distaste. And yet, beneath the disapproval, there was something dangerously close to admiration. “You should’ve stayed inside,” he said finally, his voice losing some of its heat but none of its growl. "You are—" He paused, seeking the translation in his mind. "—too valuable to risk. Reckless."

"I don’t need your protection," I said. The sharpness of my words sliced between us. "I’m a soldier—a warrior. Back on Earth, I led people into battles you couldn’t begin to imagine. Iprotectedthem when no one else would. My people. My team.That’s who I am. Not some … fragile ornament you get to keep locked in a room."

Golden eyes narrowed. He stepped closer, enough for the heat radiating from his body to waft over my skin. “You think this is about keeping you? Claiming you?” His voice dropped lower, a throaty growl that somehow vibrated against the hollow of my chest. “If I wanted to ‘keep you,’ little warrior, you’d already be mine.”

The way those words lingered—low and rough and laced with something that burned hotter than anger—made my blood ignite in a way I didn’t entirely welcome. I swallowed hard, refusing to let him see even an inch of ground. “Thenprove it.Train me.”

He stilled. For one tense moment, he seemed to loom even taller, darker, his shadow stretching long across the cavern floor. “Train you?” he repeated, a new note invading his voice. His wings shifted, sharp-edged feathers rustling faintly as his head tilted to study me again. “You hope to challenge me, human?”

“No,” I said, the word delivered with pointed clarity. “I hope to survive. And if there’s anyone in this goddamned cavern who knows howto fight like one of you, it’s you.”

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