Page 25 of Court of Rivals
Nothing eases the pit in my stomach. The one that whispers that I’m a shitty human, and an even shittier man.
Someone grabs my shoulders. My brothers. They have smiles on their faces, but they don’t reach their eyes. Both men look… miserable.
“Good job showing her that she’s not a rider,” Gareth says.
“It’s a lesson she needed to learn.” But Lucien is staring down at her as her vacant eyes stare up at the sky.
It’s strange. My brothers and I never get along. Not about anything. But for once we’re all on the same page, and it seems to be about something that makes us all feel sick.
What the fuck did I do? And who am I becoming?
11
Harper
My whole world is black but the sounds around me are loud, roaring in my ears. I can’t make out any particular thing, just that it’s so loud it’s deafening. I’m blinking rapidly, trying to make my world come back into focus. And it does, slowly, but so does the pain. My face throbs. My eye feels swollen.
Then, the world around me comes sharply back into focus. The men are everywhere. They’re cheering, laughing, shoving each other around, and I feel small and helpless around them. Small and helpless in a way I’ve never felt before.
Tears sting my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. I just want to escape. I just want to get out of here.
“She’s not so tough now!” Someone shouts.
“Did you see the look on her face?” Another man says, followed by loud laughter.
“She wants to be a Dragon Queen? More like a Peasant Queen?” Another one adds.
My stomach twists. These men hate me.Reallyhate me. I’ve never faced people like this before, and I feel so scared and so small. A part of me is even afraid to get up.What will they do to me if I try to run out of here? Will they hurt me again?
Suddenly, the earth shakes, and I sense him without seeing him. A roar shatters through all the cheering and laughter, seeming to go on forever, killing all other sounds. It shakes the ground. It shakes the building around us. Birds launch into the air. Dust stirs above the ground, making me cough. But still, it doesn’t end for a painfully long time.
Then, there’s silence. The men aren’t cheering now. They’re not laughing and joking. They look… scared. Exactly the way I’d felt just a minute before.
Ebron roars again, and the earth shakes, as if fearing the sound. The men around me scatter, and then there he is, looking down on me. Smoke curls from his nose, and fire burns in his eyes. He wants to kill these men. Every last one of them.
He lowers his nose to me and presses it into my body, and I wrap around him, shaking.Are you okay?
“I’m okay,” I whisper.
Why did they hurt you?
“To prove a point. To show me that I don’t deserve to ride you.”
His head swivels out of my arms and around to the men, smoke rising from his nostrils. They back up against the stone of the building, trapped in our little training area. Ebron opens his mouth, and a lick of fire explodes. I get to my feet as the men flinch back from the flames.
When Ebron speaks next, I can feel that he’s speaking to everyone. That his voice ripples through them like a wave.I will have no other rider. And I will kill for her.His threat isn’t quiet. Isn’t subtle. He’s sending them a message he wants them to hear and hear well.
“Can we go for a flight?” I ask Ebron.
Yes. Before I cook the lot of them.
He uses his wing to help me get onto his back, and then he starts flapping. We launch into the sky, and just the feel ofthe wind around me eases something inside of me. Perhaps I should’ve been born a dragon, because being in the sky just feels so good.
“I’m more embarrassed than hurt,” I say into the wind, rubbing my swollen face with one hand. “I guess I knew they were mad at me for being your rider, mad that I’m not a noble, mad that I’m not a man, but I didn’t think they truly hated me until right then. But today they made that painfully clear.”
They don’t hate you. They fear you. For what you mean to them.
“How so?”
