Page 7

In a really, really bad way.

I take more interest in where we are going as it is light. The ground beneath us is getting rockier, and Fenrother is climbing as the green pastureland beneath us rises into swooping fells ahead of us. They have a steely look, weathered rather like the Yeavering stone but with a presence which is unsettling, as if they hold secrets no one should want to know. The lower parts are dark burgundy with heather, but as we climb over them, the highest are dusted with snow.

Shivering in my damp clothing, frost nips at my exposed skin. I feel Fenrother’s huge paw tighten around me. I doubt it’s anything to do with not letting me fall, more his concern at what I am.

Humans persecuted the creatures we called dragons until they were nothing but a legend in the real world. No wonder they have retreated to the Yeavering. I suppose I probably shouldn’t blame Fenrother for his attitude.

But I can blame him for stripping me naked out on the hillside. For inspecting my body like I was a piece of meat. None of that was necessary. And all of it I acquiesced to in order not to be bitten in two.

We cross over the peak of the fell, and Fenrother’s beating wings slow. Down below us is a forest of dormant trees, the multitude of browns almost warm after the snowy hillside. He turns into a sickening spin, and out of the corner of my eye, I see it.

A castle.

A huge lump of a castle, each corner a vast turret. The slab sides have mere slits for windows, and the roofline is heavily crenelated and fortified. It squats in the landscape like a honeyed stone monolith as if daring anyone to attack it. The Wyrm dips again, and the central courtyard is revealed. He dives, and I’m absolutely sure his massive form will not fit.

There is a scramble, a rush of wind, and Fenrother is setting me on my feet, claws diminishing as he becomes his human-like form. His pants have returned, and incongruously, part of the red strap of my bra sticks out of his pocket.

“This is my lair, my castle keep and the lands of my ancestors,” he growls at me. “It is your home.”

I start at the use of the wordhome. After everything he’s put me through, after everything my aunt has put me through, the concept of home is entirely alien.

“My home?”

Fenrother gives me a narrow-eyed look, as if he’s trying to work out if I’m dumb or playing him.

As he thinks my bra is a weapon brought to kill him, it could be either of those two things.

“You are my mate. You live here,” he says, as if I’m simple.

If I was expecting any further words from him, I don’t get them. Instead, he stalks away from me, across the sandstoneflagged courtyard and through a large archway. I look up at the imposing walls, hemming me in on all sides. In the yard, there are more glassed windows which rise up and up the walls to at least the third storey.

It feels like there are a thousand eyes watching me. As much as I’d rather not find out what Fenrother has in store for me inside this vast keep, given his recent pronouncement, I don’t think I have many other options. Plus, it’s started to rain again.

As the drops splash around me, I troop across the yard and through the archway. Ahead is a vast wooden door with an iron portcullis firmly in place. To my right is an equally imposing, if smaller, wooden door set into another arch. This one is open, and I see a twitch of a tail inside.

I enter as the clouds burst outside. The sound of running water is dulled within the thick walls and behind me the door slowly swings shut.

Now I am trapped.

Now I am his.

ALICE

There is nowhere to run. As if running was an option.

I’m in a vaulted ante-room. Large, dark, carved wooden furniture fills the various alcoves. A bench, a sideboard, and a huge chair which looks more like an instrument of torture than a place to park your behind. Several heavy tapestries line the stone walls. They’re complex swirls of flowers and vegetation, some of which I don’t recognise. Here and there, I’m sure I see figures, but when I look closer, they are gone.

Other than the door I came through, there is only one exit at the far end of the room. It’s the only way Fenrother can have gone, and it means, unless there’s a trapdoor somewhere, it’s the way I’m going to have to go. With some trepidation and a strange feeling of not wearing a bra, I make my way over and peer through the opening.

The door, not any bigger than the others in this place so far, opens out into a vast hall. The ceiling is a run of criss-crossed carved stone beams, dotted with ancient shields where they intersect, their once brightly painted colours dull.

The flagged floor leads the eye to the far end where there is the big brother of the chair I saw in the ante-room and a largetable, all in front of a large open fireplace, soot staining the stone directly above the opening, disappearing into the enormous wall hanging which covers the vast chimney breast.

A wall hanging which depicts an enormous dragon gobbling up what looks very much like humans, their body parts tumbling to the ground.

It is horrific.

Beneath the tapestry, slung in the throne-like chair, is Fenrother. He is eating an entire chicken carcass like it’s an apple.