Page 29 of A Scar in the Bone
They stared down their noses at me rather smugly, as though they knew what I was and it could not possibly be anything so powerful and terrible as the long-gone dragon. I was but a whipping girl fed to the Beast of the Borderlands, the scraps from King Hamlin’s table used to satisfy an unworthy suitor.
They did not know me. No one did. Not any member of the pride. Not Vetr, who perhaps should know me after a year.IfI let him. If he even wanted to know me, but I had to face it—he didn’t. He’d made no move to get to know me better. He didn’t press me with questions. There was no prying or delving into my past. It didn’t matter to him. He didn’t care.
Perhaps there had been one who knew me, in Fell.
But not anymore.
The soldier named Ari looked me over dubiously. “Well, we can agree she is no dragon, but what are we going to do with her? Our liege lord would not—”
“We will bring her to him. Naturally. Let him see for himself that she’s just a woman. Cursed hair or not, she has tits and a cunny like any other woman.” He guffawed at his joke, that toothless maw gaping wide.
I flinched at the coarse words and dropped both hands to my lap, clenching them tightly together as I choked back a sound of distress.
Jorgen reached for my arm and pulled me to my feet. We were of like height and eye to eye now, his fetid breath in my face.
“You’re making a terrible mistake.” It was the only thing I could think to say. “I’m not who you think.”
He canted his head, considering. “He’s been looking for you. I’ll likely get a promotion for bringing you in.”
The words sank into me like fangs, tearing and deep, and I knew then this situation had become desperate. I was in a pit, sinking fast into the quagmire.
“Maybe he will finally stop with all the fuckin’ expeditions into the north now that we’ve found her,” the soldier named Ari muttered with an eye roll. “My brother lost a foot from frostbite in one of those excursions. Now he hobbles around on a crutch.”
“Aye,” the youngest among them opined. Like most human men, the boy was shorter, reaching only to my shoulders, and he regarded me with apprehension. “Maybe he’ll even send us home. I’ve had enough of the Borderlands. I’m tired of freezing my cock off. It’s too cold up here. I’d like to feel the sun on my face again.”
Jorgen started pulling me toward the door.
I looked back to Vetr, Harald, and Arran.
They watched me with varying expressions. Harald perplexed. Arran worried. Vetr …
Vetr looked ready to kill. It was in the ice of his eyes, the flex of his shoulders, the opening and curling of his long, tapered fingers at his sides, as though he felt his claws there, unseen swords at the ready.
He appeared far more animal than man, thanthesemen, his gaze stabbing, his features sharp enough to cut glass. Despite that … he didn’t make a move to come after me as I was led away.
Angry and ready and patently able to do harm, and yet he held himself still and stoic as he watched the humans he professed to hate walk me right out the door.
8
TAMSYN
ICOULDKILL THEM.
It was a knowledge that slithered and clung to my mind like the silk of a spider’s web. This dark whisper wove through me as we inched closer to my reunion with Stig.
Killing these soldiers was the obvious tactic to take and completely within my power. Even with their bone swords, I could catch them off guard and end them. Killing them went along with everything I had been taught over these long months in the pride.
Save yourself.
Save the species.
Leave no witnesses.
In keeping with that, it was an honorable recourse. My duty even. I would then be free to find Vetr and the others and finish out this rekon.
I could not permit myself to reach Stig and his regiment. I had to escapebeforethen because there would be no escapeafter.
I reminded myself that I had done it before. Arkin had forced my hand in his killing. It was in me, buried deep, this ability to wreak ruin and devastation, my secret talent that burned and cleansed and ended life. I could change form at a whim now. I was practiced and more in control. I knew how to manifest into my dragon with very little effort. If I willed it, it would happen.
