Page 8 of Caress of Fire
It shouldn’t hurt so. Lord Aymond Haal had never been a father to him. All he had ever been was a ghost with cold eyes, staring at him from the far corner of a satellite world Fedryc had never seen, judging him for something he had no memory of doing.
“She slipped the poison into his cup.” Isobel’s lips trembled and she bit them hard enough to draw blood. “He planned to have a meal with her, make her comfortable. Treat her like an equal, that’s what he planned to do. Well, she showed him what good that did.”
Fedryc stared at Isobel. “She betrayed him.”
Isobel’s green dragoness, Hydrad, curled around her legs and hissed at Nyra. In response, the red dragoness fumed at the smaller one, emitting a steady column of black smoke against the pure red of her scales. Fedryc reached for Nyra, more out of instinct than anything else, and flattened his palm against her neck. A wave of anger and pain assailed him, all mixed together in a tide of molten lava coming from the beast. It took all his self-control to tame the feelings coming from Nyra and turn them into something he could manage, push them down into the pit where his feelings went to slowly turn to ashes.
After he was relatively sure Nyra wouldn’t burn his aunt and her dragoness to death, Fedryc pulled his hand away.
“Where is she now?” His voice was a rasp, low and animalistic, dangerous. “Where is my father’s murderer?”
Chapter 3
Marielle screamed again, this time throwing the tray—and her dinner—through the bars at the guard standing right in front of her cell. The Delradon guard stepped aside quickly, barely avoiding the metal projectile, but ended up covered in the gooey gray sludge they’d served her for two days straight. A strong wind blew from the desert into the open face of the dungeon, hot and dry, making her mouth taste like sand and her lips crack. This was a Draekon’s idea of a jail: a hole in the face of the cliff, where prisoners would be exposed to the elements, their will shriveling up as dehydration from the day’s heat and teeth-chattering cold from the night used up their minds like old rags.
She was done playing nice.
“You can take back your food!” Marielle yelled, loud enough to be heard from higher above. To be heard by someone who mattered and who could pull her away from this place. “I want to talk to someone in charge.”
The guard lifted his dark maroon eyes to her and his mouth twisted in anger. He brushed food off the front of his bright red uniform, then reached for the long wooden stick hanging from his belt. “I’ll tell you who you can talk to.”
He took a fast series of steps toward the bars to her cell, the long, slim wooden stick held high. His intent was as obvious as the way his other hand clenched into a fist.
He was going to hit her.
Marielle backed all the way to the opposite wall of her cell, but that only gave her about six feet. It was enough to prevent him from hitting her through the bars, but she was done if he decided to break the rules and go inside. Judging by the way his eyes glowed with anger, he could very well decide to do so. After all, she was only human, and they’d accused her of the murder of a Draekon High Lord. She was as good as dead anyway. But she wasn’t going to make it easier on them.
“Here! Help me!” Marielle shouted again, remembering the instructions the Delradon servant lady had given the guards about keeping her intact for her punishment. “He’s going to kill me!”
“Shut your filthy mouth,” the guard shouted, then tried to hit her through the bars—without success, which only infuriated him more. “You’ll get what you deserve soon enough for what you did to Lord Aymond.”
“I don’tdeserveanything because I didn’t do anything!”
Hot tears of frustration burned her eyelids and she bent down, then grabbed a fist-sized rock from the dungeon floor. She knew she shouldn’t engage him further, should play meek and dumb, like most Delradon seemed to think humans—and especially human women—were. She just couldn’t. She had given up everything to save her family, but now that her sacrifice amounted to nothing, she wasn’t about to let them strip her of her life without a fight.
Without hesitation, she threw the rock squarely at the guard’s face. The man yelped in pain as it landed on his nose and he retreated, holding his injured face with his free hand.
Marielle watched, her heart beating so hard it hurt, as the guard lifted murderous eyes to her while his blood dripped steadily on the ground. The stick fell with a musical, merry sound and the guard straightened. His hand left his face and went to the key chain on his hip. All she could focus on was the mess of his nose, the bruised, battered flesh that oozed blood down his twisted lips and chin.
“I’m sorry,” Marielle said quickly, realizing she’d made a mistake, that she’d pushed things too far this time. She darted a few looks around but there was nothing in the bare cell but stone walls, a stone floor, and the metal bars that ran from floor to ceiling. The handful of tiny rocks scattered on the ground weren’t going to help her against the pissed-off Delradon guard.
She was going to die.
I’m so sorry, Devan. I did my best.
Marielle closed her eyes as the guard turned his key in the hole and a familiar metallic sound told her the only barrier between herself and violence was gone.
The sound of his boots on the stone floor got closer.
This is it.
Then they stopped.
Marielle opened her eyes to see the guard, a mere few feet away from her, close enough to touch her if he wanted to. The door to her cell dangled open on its rusty hinges. But he wasn’t paying her any attention anymore. His body was turned away from her and his eyes were glued to the spiraling stairway carved in stone that led to the upper levels of the castle, away from the gloom and terror of the dungeon. He was afraid of something. More afraid of it than he was pissed at her.
“What’s wrong?” she couldn’t help asking. Whatever made the guard so scared had to terrify her also.
Then a man came down the stairs to the dungeon, his shoulders large and square, his steps fluid, his entire body glowing with a feline grace. As he got nearer to the bottom of the stairs, his silver eyes reflected the light like a cat’s.
