Page 46 of Sass Me

“Get off.” Fleur twisted and slapped at his claws. She pushed her power far beyond where she’d gone before forcing the tree roots to twice, three, four times its normal size. A chunk of the ceiling fell, breaking away and landing in great pieces all around them.

One narrowly missed the half-dragon half asshole’s head. That pissed him off even more. She’d hoped that she could injure him and get him to let her go, even run away.

Nope.

He seized her by the throat with one giant clawed fist and grabbed for the shard with the other. Fleur clutched his arms attempting to save both her life and the shard.

“Never. You’ll never get it.”

He growled and flames licked at the edges of his mouth. “I will.”

The fire burst out at her and this time she did scream, turning her head away. But, the flames never touched her, didn’t burn her skin.

“What the fuck, what are you?” The man shook her and shot his fiery breath at her again.

It licked across her skin, but didn’t hurt any more than incredibly bad breath.

Fleur blinked. There was something different about her eyelids. Or was it her eyes? The world around her turned technicolor, sharper. The heat that the shard had protected her from lessened even more and the wounds on her chest hurt less. A change was rising in her from the inside.

She glared at her captor. Thorny vines wrapped around his claws and fist, drawing blood and crushing the scales. “Hells bells, why does everyone have to ask what I am?”

She’d been asked that her entire life. Those that didn’t care to ask, simply shunned her. Now she was being tortured, and she still couldn’t answer the question. She didn’t know herself.

She’d clung to her unknown destiny her whole life, hiding behind it. She would know who she was when her fate showed up to tell her.

Screw that.

A renewed power built inside.

“You want to know what I am?” She released her grip on him as more vines and branches wrapped around them both. “You can talk to the hand, no, talk to the finger, because I’m not taking any more questions today.”

Fleur raised her middle finger to the asshat’s face, holding it steady and strong.

Smoke curled out of the snarl-puss face. He glanced at the shard and to face. “There are plenty of other ways to get what I want, hundreds of dragons who don’t know how precious the gift is.”

He released her, breaking through the vines, and dropped her to the ground. She landed incredibly close to the lava, protected only by the thin layer of roots that were burning up by the second. Still she didn’t feel the heat.

“If you won’t give me the soul shard, you can die, and your dragon with you.”

He kicked at her, sending her careening toward the lava. She raised her arms into the air, calling the plants to her. A branch stretched down, wrapping around each arm and pulling her up and away from the danger.

The man transformed fully into a black beast of a dragon and crashed through the wooden barrier. He took flight and torpedoed across the lava, following its flow deeper into the ground.

The crone screeched after him and disappeared into a puff of black smoke.

A great roar bubbled up from the direction the black dragon had flown and the earth shook below her. More of the ceiling caved in and the floor below her cracked right on cue like the set of an action adventure disaster movie.

Crapping crappity crap crap. Fleur had been ready to release a sigh of relief, but they hadn’t let her escape at all. They were going to trap her underground in the cavern of death and despair.

Where was a dragon warrior when she needed one?

“He’s waiting for you.” The whisper of a soft feminine voice slid into her head.

“What? Hello? Who’s there?”

“Go, Fleur. Quickly.”

“Where? I don’t see a way out.” The floor shook again and she fell. “Oh, god. I’m going to die in here, aren’t I? This is my destiny coming to bite me in the ass.”

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