Page 104 of Cursed Shadows 2

The darkness starts to thicken. A calm, soothing sensation washes over them, like the welcome call of a fire in a hearth after too many phases fighting in ice storms.

The narrow walls of the tunnel swell again; and lead into a bulbed chamber. The nest.

A ripple of movement shudders down the line of five males, but the ripple is one of unease, too.

The dragon is nowhere in sight. It’s quiet—too quiet. And the silence is a sheet of ice pressing down on them.

Samick keeps to his artruleum sword, but his fisted grip tells that he’s grabbed a few of his throwing stars, too.

Alasdare reaches around his back for his weapons belt. His gloved hands clutch the ivory hilts of two daggers—glass blades frosted with dead ice. A better option against a dragon than the razored whip he’s partial to, or even the gold-flecked dagger Samick crafted for him so long ago now.

Daxeel trades in his daggers for the same as Dare—glass blades, both longer than the length of his forearms.

Rune takes his dead-ice sword from the sheath on his back.

Prit keeps to his artuleum.

Silent, the five of them move into the chamber.

Samick veers left into the swell of darkness, Prit at his heels. Daxeel moves for the right, Alasdare a shadow behind him whose steps are purposed with stealth and power. Then Rune stops at the mouth of the chamber.

All gazes slide to the far corner, where a crescent of beach pebbles are hugged to the cavern wall—and the nest is staring right back at them.

Three dragon hatchlings, all with their underdeveloped red eyes aimed at them. Daxeel’s lip twitches at the peachy tone of their wrinkled, loose skin, translucent enough that the grey of their bones are visible. There was always something off-putting about hatchlings to Dax. He would bathe in the blood and guts of his enemies before he ever touched one of those things.

But he doesn’t have to.

They only have to feed the hatchlings—and so, Prit has just one more breath to fill his lungs before it happens.

Faster than a heartbeat can echo in the chamber, before the hatchlings can throw their long necks back and cry out the danger call to their mother, Samick hasshudderedthrough space.

From one side of Prit, he now stands on the other side—and in his hand is a freshly torn throat. His extended talons are shards of ice, his hand black with blood, and his eyes shine through the darkness in a flare of frost.

Prit drops to his knees.

His short lashes flutter, black eyes glittering with obvious shock. The gaping hole in his neck pulses and sputters blood.

None of the other males move beyond turning their chins to angle their gazes at him. And they watch in stiff silence as Prit crumples to the cavern floor. His heart wavers once in his chest; his boot twitches… then nothing.

He is dead. Prit, who so willingly followed Dare to the caves, who so easily trusted a fellow dark male he once knew at the barracks.

Daxeel can’t deny Dare’s value. No one can.

It would have been better to have him enter the passage with them, to use Dax as an anchor and land at the foot of the cliff. But Dare had blood to steal from Nari, blood to then deliver to the iilra, and some he should still have on his person now.

There was not enough time for him to link with his brothers. It was a risk to have him enter the portal, land too far away, maybe be killed before he could bring Daxeel the extra drop of blood.

But it was a risk they had to take for this—to bring asacrifice into the chamber, one needed to keep the hatchlings fed and quiet while they search for dragon eyes around the nest.

Crumpled on the floor of the cave, Prit is a stack of muscle and blood, and Rune moves for him, fast. He boots out at the body’s side. Rune’s kick delivers, it always does. Brutal. And it sends the corpse cracking into the wall of the cave.

Bones crunch, a skull cracks, and then the body thuds down into the nest curved against the wall. The hatchlings start feasting on Prit before his leathers even stop creaking.

“That was harsh.” Dare aims an arched brow at Rune. “Did he fuck your mother?” Then, as an afterthought, he flashes a grin in the dark, “Or your father?”

Rune spares him a glower. “I’m not wasting our precious time being delicate about it.”

Dare’s grin darkens, but his eyes gleam brighter. “Whatever helps you look your father in the eyes.”

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