Page 10 of Beast of Blood and Ash (Drakarn Mates #6)

OMVAR

I was her monster.

The thought was a parasite, burrowing behind my eyes, gnawing through the quiet hours after the city’s fever heat bled out and left the stone cold against my scales.

I did not see Reika again—not after she ripped herself away, not after the brand of that kiss.

It was hers, fierce and wild and broken, a last act of defiance before the shame crashed down and she fled.

I had stood there, my throat tight with her name, knowing I was the last thing she needed. Wanting anyway.

Now all I had left was the sour taste of her memory on my tongue, the scorch of her scent in my lungs.

I hated myself for wanting. Hated myself more for being the reason she ran. I was no fool. To taste her once was a blessing I had forfeited a thousand times over. To ask for more would be a gift I did not deserve.

So I did what I had always done when the shame came crawling: went in search of penance.

Scalvaris was forever hungry, demanding bodies to guard its borders against the desert’s teeth.

The surface patrols were a brutal exchange, warriors trading safety for honor, their wings thrown to the wind as their eyes peeled for enemy blades.

No one volunteered without incentive. The twin suns did not forgive.

The red waste would strip your scales and bake your flesh before an enemy blade ever touched you.

And if that didn’t kill you, the boredom would bleed you dry.

I volunteered.

I stood at the flight shaft’s edge, talons digging into blasted stone, felt the pulse of life far below. My scales drank the suns’ fury, every old scar a ghost of remembered pain.

I welcomed it. I pulled the insignia of Scalvaris tight, a thin strip of battered leather laced with a shard of heat crystal. It was barely earned, barely respected. The stone hummed faintly, a pathetic glimmer against the fire in my gut. Who would see me as anything but Ignarath’s mangled hound?

I launched myself anyway. My wings spread open, caught the first hot updraft, and soared above the city that would never claim me.

Base camp was a ruin of sun-bleached boulders and gear half-swallowed by volcanic dust. Water skins hung from a leaning spike, their shadows short and sharp, leaking the very promise of relief.

The suns were climbing, turning every rock into a forge.

The air itself was a weapon, a wavering distortion that promised to blister tongues and split open scales.

Nyx was already waiting, parked with casual arrogance atop a rock as if he owned the wasteland. His stormy scales caught the sun in fractured, ruthless light. He wore his command like a second skin.

The moment my wings slammed down, kicking up dust, he looked over with a smirk. “Who did you piss off?”

I grunted, rough in my dry throat. “I’m here to help.”

He cocked his head, one wing flaring for balance as he stood, his expression unreadable.

“Champion of Ignarath, come to babysit recruits?” He let the words hang, a test for bite.

“Not what I expected. But I won’t complain.

Things have been quiet.” He jerked his chin at the motley crew by the boulders, a few soft-scaled whelps feigning bravado around a spear rack.

I forced my wings tight to my spine and picked up a discarded shield. “Show me around.”

He led me through the camp like I was a visiting dignitary, not a stray let in from the wastes.

The tension in my shoulders never eased.

Their eyes followed me, the new bloods. Their faces were bright with curiosity and something sharper.

Fear. Fascination. The kind of awe you feel for a legend you aren’t sure is real.

Nyx leaned in, his voice a low rasp meant only for me. “Don’t let their stares fool you. Half of them want your glory. The rest want you gone.”

I snorted. “Babysitting children. Maybe that’s all I’m good for.”

“Keep them alive, and I’ll owe you a debt,” he said. “That’s more than most get in Scalvaris.”

I didn’t want a debt. I didn’t want gratitude. I wanted a purpose that was more than violence, a way to carve out the rot of Ignarath’s shadow from my bones.

But I wasn’t thinking about Reika. Not now. Not with the sun burning down like a judgment I could not outrun.

The morning passed in suffocating monotony.

Four hours of wind slicing over sand and the slow, steady march of shadows.

Long-winged, razor-beaked birds wheeled in the distance, their cries warped by the heat.

Each time, a trainee tensed, fingers twitching on a weapon, mistaking simple animals for enemies.

Tarion, the youngest, could not sit still. His scales were a bright, unscarred green, his movements quick with untested energy. He watched me like I was a living myth.

“What’s it like in the arena?” he asked, his voice jumping with eagerness.

My eyes stayed on the horizon. The desert stretched into a fractured infinity of red stone and black sand. Nothing gentle. Nothing forgiving. The arena was in my bones, its memory carved into every scar on my arms. I didn’t want to talk about Ignarath.

Tarion did not take the hint. “I heard you were champion for years. Undefeated. Is it true?”

I grunted, letting the silence sharpen.

Champion. Pet fighter. Skorai’s dog. Survival in that place depended on selling pieces of your soul for one more day above the sand. The price was always too steep.

Tarion looked at me with wide, clean eyes, as if I held secrets he could steal. I remembered being that young, thinking victory meant something more than survival. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it did not.

The suns hammered down. Heat seared every breath. My claws dug into my thighs, grounding me in pain. In the now. I had just begun to let my mind slip blessedly blank when the alarm went up.

A sharp, metallic clang echoed over the wasteland, the signal blown through a battered war-horn. The sound ripped through camp. Trainees snapped to attention, faces blanching, weapons drawn with shaky hands. Nyx’s eyes flashed.

Interlopers.

We sprang into action. Orders cracked through camp. Wings snapped open. The young bloods fumbled with straps and weapons, some trembling. I launched skyward, heat buffeting my wings, the air already choked with sand.

Pursuit was the only thing that ever felt pure. No past, no fear. Just the hunt. My mind narrowed to instinct: track. Chase. Subdue.

We saw them fast, shadow-shapes streaking over broken stone, their clothes flapping with the distinctive style of Ignarath. My blood thrummed.

It was a brutal chase, wind tearing at my face, grit stinging my eyes, my muscles burning with ugly memory. The wasteland stretched open. No cover. We drove them forward, our wings beating a frantic rhythm against the oppressive air.

I caught one as he miscalculated a turn. I slammed him down hard, the impact kicking up a plume of black dust. He bucked, cursed in an Ignarath lilt.

My claws pinned him. I looked down, and the face that snarled up at me was no stranger.

Jerras.

Not friend, not enemy. Someone I had bled beside and ignored as he spat on the weak. Everything ugly about Ignarath lived in his eyes: cunning. Cruelty. Certainty. His dust-matted scales were a dirty gold.

“It is true.” Jerras scowled, straining under my grip. “Dog. Traitor. Prey-loving scum.”

The words should have slid off my scales. They did not. They found every old bruise and dug in deep.

Other trainees circled, their breath coming fast. Nyx barked a command, but I only had eyes for Jerras.

“Skorai wants his property back,” Jerras sneered, his voice pitched for my ears only. “It is time to stop playing.”

Property.

He meant her.

He meant Reika.

Ice flooded my gut, an arctic chill knifing through the heat. The mate-bond shrieked, a snarl of fire and panic clawing inside my chest. My world collapsed to the feel of his throat under my hand, the stink of his breath, the absolute threat in his words.

No. Not again.

Jerras twisted, shoving, but desperation made my strength absolute. I heard shouts as other Ignarath fought, the chaos of blades and snapping wings a distant storm. None of it touched me.

This is what I am , the words shook through me. This is what I am for.

The world shrank to blood and claws and teeth.

My grip tightened. Jerras’s eyes flared with panic, but it was too late.

I slammed him back into the stone. Claws tore through scales.

I felt bone crunch, the hot wash of his blood spilling over my hands.

It was a savage, ugly kill meant to send a message.

I didn’t care. I needed him dead. I needed them all dead.

I let the rage ride me, snarling through my fangs as the trainees stumbled back, shock and horror on their faces. Let them see the monster. Let them remember there are worse things than exile.

Jerras’s last breath rattled out, full of hate. But Skorai would not stop with one patrol.

I let his corpse drop to the sand and looked up, chest heaving. The remaining Ignarath were being herded by Nyx’s warriors, stripped of weapons, their wings pinned.

The silence that followed was thick, a bloody echo hanging over the desert. Tarion stared at me, his eyes wide with terror, the myth of the champion shattered.

Good. Maybe it would keep him alive.

My claws dripped red. The bond inside me screamed.

Protect. Find her. Kill everything else.

Nyx stepped up, assessing the carnage with a level gaze. “You finished your business?” His voice was cold, unflinching.

“Not yet.” The words came out raw, torn from my throat. “I need to go.” I could not stay, could not explain. There was nothing left but the need to find Reika. To warn her. To stand between her and the storm rolling in from my past.

Nyx nodded once, reading the desperation on my face. “Go. We will take care of the rest.”

I took off without another word, wings beating hard, blood trailing in my wake. The city shimmered on the horizon, a promise and a warning. Every muscle in my body screamed with purpose, the only clarity I had felt in months.

Run. Find her. Protect her.

The hunt had begun again. And this time, I would not fail.

Not again.