Page 22 of Dragons' Bride
"Up."
Quinton yanks the blanket off me, the few sad rays of sunlight peeking through the window betraying the early hour. He is in the process of dumping me from the mattress altogether when I scramble to my feet, catching myself just in time to keep from falling on the floor. He shoves the clothes I’d chucked off before going to sleep last night into my chest. “Dress. You have three minutes.”
I stumble around through the fog in my brain to do as I’m told. I’ve barely cleared the ladder and step onto the still damp deck, when Quinton’s shouting starts for real. I see nothing of the male who’d let me taste him last night and even less of the one who held me afterwards. I don’t even see the one who’d turned his back, his pain too deep to share. Instead, the Quinton who glares at me this morning is foreign and savage.
He wants me to haul bags of sand across the deck, crouch and jump, climb the ropes. Fast. Faster. Higher. Harder. I barely keep up with the commands, my mind wheeling from the sudden brutality. This isn’t Quinton’s usual cold intensity, but a hot torment calculated to grind me into nothing. It’s personal.
My lungs burn, my muscles shaking from the strain. "What am I being punished for?" I ask as Quinton tosses a sandbag into my chest so hard the corner of it snaps up to slap me in the face.
Quinton doesn’t bother to even acknowledge the question, much less answer it. He orders me to stand with the bag over my head until my arms give out and then sends me up a rope ladder. Despite the chill, sweat drips into my eyes and slickens my palms. I try to wipe my forehead with my sleeve and slip, the rope burning the skin from my palms as I slide from the rigging to the ground. My ankle buckles as I step off, and rolls painfully.
Quinton is there at once and for a moment I think he wants to make sure I’ve not truly injured myself. But he just leans over me instead, his lips pulled up to reveal sharp canines. "Did I say it was break time? Which part of ‘up the rigging’ is too confusing for your human brain to follow? Go again."
"I..." I stand up and look at my bloody hands. The thought of gripping the ropes with them makes my head spin.
Quinton’s jaw tightens and he knocks my feet out from under me, sending me backwards onto the deck.
I slap the ground as I land, the impact vibrating through my body. My blood stains the planks. Everything hurts and I’m dizzy from the strain. And so very thirsty.
"I said, again,” Quinton orders coldly. He doesn’t extend his hand to help me up. “From the beginning."
"He's going to kill the human." I don’t know which crewman the voice at the sidelines belongs to, but I'm not inclined to disagree. Today feels dark. Vengeful. As if he wants me to fail. To hurt. To hate. The bond between us is silent, but Quinton’s brutality vibrates through every shout he sends at me, every bruise he doles out, every mistake that he notices and punishes.
When I flinch at the order to climb the mast, he orders me to go higher. When I drop a sandbag onto my bare feet, he makes me carry iron cannon shot balls instead. When I'm too slow peeling myself off the deck, Quinton drops his knee into my stomach and cinches down the pressure until I can’t draw my next breath.
"Five gold she's about to bawl,” a voice murmurs somewhere to my right.
“No chance. She’ll pass out before she gets enough breath for a good cry.”
Bets on my training prowess aren’t new, but with how Quinton is going, I'm ready to bet against myself.
"What's going on here?" Dane’s voice fills the deck. I can’t see the captain as I try to dislodge Quinton's hold, but the atmosphere on the deck shifts immediately. At least for the crew. Nothing changes between Quinton and me.
"The prince is training the human," one of the sailors offers.
"Training her to be dead."
"If none of you have duties to attend to, I will find you gainful employment,” Dane announces. Footsteps sound as the seamen jog away, but I know they're still staring. Watching. Waiting like vultures. Not for me to die – I'm merely a bit of human entertainment – but for Quinton to peel back what's left of his civility and show off the real darkness of his soul.
"Pitiful." Quinton releases me. I roll to all fours, gasping for breath. I’m not sure whether the deck beneath me is rolling for real or just in my head.
"Is your training over for the morning, my prince?" Captain Dane asks. His voice is utterly professional, but it is the first time he has ever interfered in Quinton’s handling of me.
Quinton looks down at me, then surveys all the men watching. More than one of them make a sign against evil.
Quinton nudges me with his toe. "It’s useless to keep going today. Tomorrow we do this again. Understand?”
Rage gathers inside me as I sit back on my heels to meet Quinton’s gaze. My hands curl into fists, my nostrils flaring. I want to hit Quinton so badly that red pulses at the sides of my vision. Except my limbs won’t obey.
The prince pulls his mouth into a snarl. “What’s wrong, Kitterny? Did you imagine you tamed a dragon last night?”
For a moment, I can do nothing but glare at him as the anger spilling into my blood turns to a raging boil. "Is that what you are so afraid of?" I spit the words. “Being thought tamed? If I knew you were so bloody fragile, I’d never have tangled with you.”
Gathering what pitiful dregs of strength I have left, I peel myself off the deck and climb up to my knees. In the corner of my vision I see Hauck has come on deck and is now fast approaching the human puddle Quinton has turned me into to appease his own worries.
Despite Dane’s edict, another seaman makes a sign to ward off evil spirits. I throw the seaman an annoyed look. "Stop doing that. You are just feeding him the darkness he wants."
Quinton rocks back on his heels and I get childish satisfaction from seeing him startled at the turn of phrase. Apparently, he expected me to sob and slink off quietly to my maid, where I would then mourn my fate and the terrible dragon princes it brings with it. Or something like that.
