Page 5 of The Wrath of Ashes
“I took my lashings,” the boy said, softly and sweetly, a mumble over tired lips.
And why were you lashed?
“Earl Tippin doesn’t like people saying I’m his son. I’m his bastard.” The admission turned reedy and thin, a voice that needed strong arms and wanted for a warm nest, one that had never known pleasure from the flat things of humans. How he wished he knew what the boy looked like.
Earl Tippin? Of Monsmount? The valley earldom?Rath had known the land as a young dragon, still glued to his father’s side. They produced fine stone there. Whitestone fit for kings, thrones, tombs and statues.
“Mm-hmm.” The voice trailed off, breathy and sweet.
Tell me of yourself, young one.
“I’m a footman and a groundskeeper. I dig the graves and see to it that Earl Tippin’s carriages are cared for. I also manage the estate.”
That is your job. But tell me, what is it that you love? What is it that you hate?
“I love… It is of no consequence what I love, for it is forbidden, for it’s the vile nature of a dragon.” The words ended bitterly, and Rath hesitated.
You love men?
“I prefer to say that I love no women.” The sleepy grumbles of his voice petered off. “Dunno what to do with ’em.”
You and I both, my friend. Men are far simpler.Rath bathed in the revelation that he already held the proclivities, but his mind was poisoned when it came to dragonkind, his own kind. An Ashen was one mating away from learning his dragon, taking his wings, and being forever changed. Without it, he would wither away as human.
“You speak truths.” He chuckled, and Rath bathed in the soft sound until he groaned and winced.
Are you in pain?A redundant question. Of course he was. He’d been lashed.
“Yeah. He struck so hard he broke the beads off his scourge again. I’ll get over it. It’ll heal. My back is too scarred to tell anymore.”
Scarred?An Ashen one’s skin didn’t scar unless it was done on purpose. Silver even then, unless his mark… He needed to see.Where are you and why is it so dark?
“Dungeon. He’ll let me out when there’s more work to do. ’M tired and thirsty. Can I sleep please?”
Rath’s blood boiled, and he brushed his mental fingers over the shape of this boy in his mind.
What is thy name, precious one?
“Asha.”
They’d known what the boy was from birth, in his name even, marking him as mate, as property of dragons, the unburnable, the Ashen ones. One might as well have named a dragonDrago.
Asha…Saying it aloud made the word melt on his tongue, in his mind, in his heart and soul, where the mating magic flowed. This was his mate, and his word was written on his heart.Heal well. I’ll come for you.
Chapter Three
Asha
Asha woke with the bitter taste of blood and metal in his mouth, as he often did after a good scourging. When he sat up, he spied yet another bead, a silver to add to his collection. He hurt, as he always did, but the bleeding had stopped.
“Lyss?” Asha called out.
No answer.
They must have let her out to start breakfast or clean.So much for punishment when help is low.About all the earldom had were slaves, if one was honest. The paid servants had left over the years and months prior, and the merchants supposedly took his mother with them, shortly after he was born. Tippin was a novelty sort of land that one only visited if they had relations there or nowhere else they could be.
Asha would rather have been anywhere else, but anywhere else he would have been a nobody. At least there, he was the bastard of a noble, of some note, and destined for a trade or apprenticeship. He’d be nineteen and free soon. If the earl allowed.If.That was the future that lay in wait for Asha, and it suited him. He’d seen the noble life since he was little, and while he maneuvered through it with effortless grace, he had responsibilities that were other, unique to the mistake of his father’s loins. He knew things about the estate that in ten generations, none else would. If the earldom made it that long, that is. At the rate his father lost those silver beads on his scourge whipping him, it wouldn’t make it another generation. Asha plucked the beads and silver shards from the floor.
He had a feeling that his father would sell the whole thing for half a stake in a merchant’s galley.
