Page 24 of Beast of Blood and Ash (Drakarn Mates #6)

OMVAR

The heat of her skin, the scent of her release, the impossible peace of the afterglow. All of it evaporated in the cold, sharp summons from the Council. One moment, she was a warm, sated weight in my arms. The next, I was a warrior again, the city’s problems crashing back.

The air shifted, thick with the tang of sulfur and the faint sweetness that still clung to our bodies. Her hand flinched where it rested against my chest, nails digging into a scale as she blinked awake, confusion turning to dread in her eyes.

The cocoon of the bath shattered.

The city was calling me back, demanding its beast. My muscles tensed. I was already arming myself in my mind.

“Go back to our quarters,” I ordered, my voice harsher than I intended as I climbed from the water with her at my side. “Lock the door.”

Reika’s eyes widened, the blissful peace already replaced by a familiar, wary tension. She shrank into herself, knuckles whitening on the edge of her towel. For a heartbeat, she looked as if she might argue, insist on coming, but the predator in my voice cut her down.

I hated leaving her. Hated it more than I’d hated anything in my life.

I hated the beast I became when crisis called. Hated how fast my tenderness became the weapon everyone feared.

She nodded, silent and resigned, lips pressed in a thin line. The scent of her fear stung my senses, a bitter smoke on the air. My guilt was a hot, spiked thing, but there was no time for softness now.

I dressed quickly, yanking on the rough tunic, the collar chafing my throat where her lips had marked me.

My body was still humming from her touch, the aftershocks of pleasure crawling raw beneath my skin.

I forced my hands to steady, fighting to bury the urge to turn back, to gather her up and shield her from the world.

Scalvaris did not tolerate hesitation. Especially not from me.

I pulled on my belt and blades, the familiar weight a cold comfort over fresh wounds.

The bath’s steam clung to my skin as I strode into the tunnels, every sense tightening, head on a swivel, devouring every scent, every echo off the walls.

I scanned the dark corners, the beaded glimmer of moisture on obsidian, the way the heat crystals flickered as if threatened by my passing.

Gone was the honey-thick air of safety. The chill pressed in, turning sweat to ice against my spine.

My nostrils flared, drawing in the city, damp, mineral, blood-metal, and threat.

Shadows deepened ahead, stone sweating in the chill shift of the city’s pulse. My footsteps, deliberate and silent, echoed over slick floor. The afterglow had calcified into vigilance.

I found Nyx waiting for me outside the interrogation chambers. His scales gleamed under the pitiless light, the blue-black plates burnished with readiness. Arms crossed over his chest, he looked carved from midnight stone, eyes hard and sharp.

“They caught one trying to sneak in through a sky vent,” he said without preamble. “Ignarath,” he spat. “He won’t talk. Says he’ll only speak to the great traitor himself.” His lips twisted. “Lucky you.”

The Great Traitor.

I couldn’t decide if that was better or worse than the Beast. The city’s whispers had followed me all my life, but Ignarath’s poison ran deeper than anything Scalvaris could conjure.

I gave Nyx a nod and jerked my chin toward the cell door. “Let’s see what the bastard wants.”

The chamber stank of power and pain. Ancient stone walls hunched over a floor slick with old blood. Heat crystals perched high above, their light harsh and twitching, casting every shadow sharper and deeper, as if the darkness itself was waiting for a chance to strike.

There was no comfort there, only the memory of violence, the taste of metal on the tongue. The air was thick with the scent of fear, sweat, and the acrid tinge of shackles left too long in the damp.

In the center, chained to an iron ring set deep in the floor, sat Dravka.

Purple scales stretched taut over corded muscle, spiked and glistening where the lamplight struck.

A cruel smirk twisted his wide mouth, revealing fangs stained with the remains of whatever he’d bitten through since capture.

His wrists bled where the shackles cut, but he wore those wounds like old medals, every bit as defiant as when we’d first met in Ignarath.

His eyes, yellow and bright as venom, found me the instant I entered.

My presence meant nothing to him. Not fear.

Not respect. Just the old rivalry, the old contempt.

Skorai’s favorite snake-in-the-sand, the champion whose blades were always slick with poison, whose pleasure was found in others’ agony. He rattled his chains in greeting.

“Omvar,” Dravka sneered, the sound curling off his tongue like a challenge. “Playing hero for the weaklings of Scalvaris?”

Muscles bunched beneath my scales. I let the insult hang between us, let his confidence echo off the walls, feeding his arrogance. I knew his game.

The only way to win against Dravka was never to play by his rules.

“You wanted to talk. So talk.” I kept my voice level, a cold, flat thing.

He grinned wider, rolling his shoulders, letting the chains rattle and ring.

The noise was calculated, a performance for our benefit.

He wanted to remind me of the bonds I’d once worn, of Ignarath’s ability to cage even its best monsters.

He was chained, but his posture was pure predator, leaning forward until the shackles bit, head canted as if listening for the sweet sound of a scream.

“Talk?” he drawled, savoring every syllable. “Why would I waste words on rabble? You’ve traded the scent of victory for the stink of desperation. Look at you. Scalvaris’s lapdog. Broken, caged, sniffing after the humans like they’re worth more than blood on the sand.”

I didn’t blink. Didn’t waver.

Inside, the old rage simmered, warred with shame and the sticky residue of Reika’s touch. I hated the taste of violence, but it lived inside me, coiled and waiting. Every word Dravka spat was meant to draw it out, to make me brutal, to prove I had never changed.

He rattled his chains, a savage music meant for my ears alone. “Did they let you keep your claws, Traitor? Or did you hand them over with your spine?”

I forced a flat smile, stepping closer so he could smell my conviction, not my fear. “You want to test me, Dravka? You can try. But you’ll lose more than dignity.”

He just laughed, low and rough, a sound like grinding stone. “You’ve been so busy playing guard dog for your little human pet … so focused on the one cage.” He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with malicious triumph. “Did you even notice the other doors swinging open?”

Ice. Pure, arctic ice flooded my veins. He wasn’t a threat.

He was a distraction.

The realization snapped through me with the sharpness of a fresh blade. The slow, showy infiltration. Letting himself be seen. Asking for me, of all people. His presence here was no accident. It was theater.

A decoy.

I took a step back. My mind raced, summoning every detail Nyx had given me, every security protocol I’d ever mapped through these tunnels.

Whatever was happening, it was already underway. The humans. The enclave.

Reika.

Panic ripped through me, primal and undeniable. The city wasn’t holding its breath because it trusted me to solve this. It was waiting for the wound to open.

I was out of the cell in a heartbeat, my mind racing. “He’s stalling,” I snarled at Nyx. “He wanted to get caught. He’s playing with us.”

Nyx’s eyes widened, every bit as ruthless as mine in that instant, the warning sinking in. I grabbed him by the shoulder before he could move.

“Get to the human enclave,” I roared. Protocol, politics, none of it mattered. “Check on all of the humans. Now!”

He didn’t waste time with questions. Nyx sprinted away without a word, his footsteps pounding down the corridor, echoing like war drums. The world narrowed to action, to the pulse of duty and desperation crashing together.

I was torn. My every instinct screamed to run back to my rooms, back to Reika. But the other humans … they were vulnerable. Unprotected. I saw their faces in a flash: Kira, Selene, Eden, Kinsley, and more. My claws flexed, scraping deep gouges in the stone, anchoring me to the moment.

She wouldn’t forgive me if I left them to suffer.

I broke into a run, my claws scrabbling for purchase on the stone, heading for the distant human quarters. My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat a prayer and a curse.

Stones flew beneath me. Air moved sharp and fast, the scent of blood rising ahead, Ignarath, thick and unmistakable, slicing through the rich stew of market and river and sweat.

I tore through the tunnels, vision narrowing, body reduced to need and velocity.

Reika’s name rang behind my teeth, but I forced it back. Duty first. Hope later.

A new sound cut through the wail of the alarm, echoing from a side tunnel up ahead, followed by the unmistakable roar of Drakarn under attack.

I crashed forward. The city’s veins boiled with panic and resistance.

Up ahead, the darkness flickered with the strobe of enemy blades, the ring of Drakarn war cries, the shrieks of Ignarath’s invaders punching into Scalvaris’s heart.

I heard steel on stone, felt the deep-throated bellow of a warrior cut down, the sick heat of another death thrown like a torch into the dark.

The world was burning, and I was already too late.