Page 25 of Beast of Blood and Ash (Drakarn Mates #6)

REIKA

Our quarters.

I kept repeating the words in my head, as if I might transform their meaning into something less loaded, less dangerous. But there was no mistaking what Omvar had said. I could still hear the deep roll of his voice, echoing in my head.

Our quarters.

At first, I’d thought I’d misheard. Or maybe hallucinated. Maybe I was overtired or still riding the aftershocks of a nightmare. But that was definitely what Omvar had said.

Our quarters.

I sat there, the syllables clattering around. The possessiveness of it, the assumption, sent a prickle of alarm down my spine.

Was it logical after the whole mate declaration? Sure.

Did I give a damn?

Not even a little.

So I didn’t go back there, despite his instructions.

My pride was a knife I gripped in my fist, pressing the edge to my palm until sense bled away. I wasn’t property, certainly not his, not anyone’s. I was nobody’s “ours.” Not after everything I’d bled for to claw my way out of cages.

I needed to see my own people, to remember who I was when a seven-foot-tall, red-scaled warrior wasn’t taking up all the air in the room.

The solid stone corridors held familiar, old shadows as I turned away from the path Omvar had expected—ordered—me to take.

The farther I walked, the more my uncertainty melted into stubbornness, daring the city itself to disagree.

I wouldn’t be claimed. I wouldn’t be domesticated, no matter how soft the bedding or how steady his heat against my back.

Not that they had soft bedding in Scalvaris.

The human quarters smelled of stale sweat and scorched rock, a stew of bodies and humid air.

My breathing eased as the shape of the tunnels changed, low ceilings crouching above the carved stone cells, footsteps echoing in the semi-dark.

There, even sulfur was familiar, overpowering, yes, but it didn’t scare me the way new things did.

My old room greeted me without ceremony. It felt smaller than I remembered, the stone sleeping platform barely a suggestion of comfort. I sat, hugging my knees to my chest, letting the rough blanket dig into my shins, the surface unyielding beneath my weight. The room was mute, lifeless.

It felt very small and not at all like mine.

My heart did a slow, bitter circuit, bouncing off the memory of Omvar’s space, the low thrum of heat, the way his scent clung to every fabric until my skin prickled just walking through the threshold. Maybe Omvar’s quarters really had become home.

How strange.

I tried to shake off the thought. I couldn’t decide if it was more terrifying that I wanted that home, or that I’d started to believe I could belong there.

A sharp rap at the stone frame. “Reika? Omvar let you out of his sight?” Vega stuck her head in my doorway and offered me a lopsided grin.

Her hair was a wild, coppery halo, the only thing bright in the half-light.

Her voice, low and teasing, should have stung, but it didn’t.

I would have expected a bite with her question a few months ago.

She’d been the one most suspicious, most defensive, of us all.

But she’d found her own mate in Zarvash and now definitely understood the appeal of the Drakarn.

I shot her a half-hearted glare, the edge blunted by exhaustion and a flicker of relief. “He was called to the council. Any idea why?”

Vega rolled her eyes, stepping farther into the room and leaning against the wall. “Zarvash has been in the council chambers all day. More of this Ignarath bullshit.”

The room felt less empty. She picked at a loose thread on her sleeve, her sharp gaze flicking to me and holding for a moment, weighing my tension, maybe sensing that I was ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.

I wanted to ask her about home, about safety, about what it meant to rest with a Drakarn’s arm flung over your waist in the dark and not want to run screaming.

But that wasn’t a conversation for that moment.

We talked about nothing in particular, her words brusque but steady. She brought up council rumors, the scrape of politics inside the chambers, whispering about the creepy new priest and the tension between the temple zealots and the warriors.

She was keeping me company, making me feel safe. Included. Like this place really might be where I belonged.

My pulse slowed, the air tasting marginally less toxic. Whatever this was, it sounded routine, council squabbling, Drakarn pride, not an omen of doom. Maybe I could let myself breathe, imagine the city might hold a day without bloodshed.

Then a noise cleaved the air.

Not the low scrape of worry, not the ordinary rattle of pipes or the distant ring of forges, but something sharper.

A scream. Terrified.

Human.

My body recoiled. Every instinct I had screamed at me to run, to find a hole and burrow deep. The old Reika would have.

She would have frozen like a deer in a hunter’s sights.

But I wasn’t her anymore. Not completely.

Omvar’s training, the bruises still blooming on my skin, the phantom ache in my muscles, it all kicked in. There is no honor on the dirt of Ignarath. The words were a brand, cauterizing panic into action.

I didn’t run away.

I ran toward the sound with Vega right behind me.

Stone bit at my feet, the corridor’s shadows flickering under frantic, broken light. My heart hammered, a thunder that drowned out everything else. I could hear my own breath, ragged, desperate, mixing with the trouble ahead.

The corridor was chaos.

A table stood overturned, two of the smaller human women, Kinsley and Eden, crouched behind it.

They hurled anything they could grab: battered bowls, cracked mugs, a length of pipe.

Each missile sailed through the air, only to be batted away by the two Drakarn standing before them, brown-scaled, brutish, massive.

The Drakarn moved with a bored, almost casual violence, their arms sweeping the air, fangs bared in hungry grins. The table shuddered with every blow, stone splintering under the onslaught.

“Shit,” Vega hissed at my side. I caught the glint of her blade, her posture shifting to fight, but I grabbed her arm—it was a reflex, an order, a plea: don’t get killed, not today.

Then I saw him.

A third Drakarn stepped into the dim light, and my stomach dropped, bile surging up my throat. I stumbled, legs suddenly weak, a cold fire racing through me.

Draskeer.

His scales were the color of a fresh bruise, his face a mask of cruel, familiar arrogance. A guard from the Ignarath slave pens. A tormentor from my nightmares. The sight of him sent a spike of pure, cold terror through my heart.

I would never forget his laugh.

My breath caught. My limbs went numb. For one horrible, sinking moment, the world dissolved into the roar of the arena, the clang of chains.

No. Not again.

Omvar’s voice was a low growl in my memory. Stop thinking. End it before you bleed.

Draskeer’s eyes locked on mine, hungry and cunning, his smile a sharpened blade. “Little prey! I knew you couldn’t hide forever.”

I didn’t answer. I charged, grabbing a fallen training staff someone must have brought back from the training grounds.

My body moved before thought could root me to the spot. The staff was an extension of my hands, my rage, my old wounds.

I barreled forward, running into the fray, not with caution, but with everything I’d learned since the last time I was a victim. The air was thick with the reek of sweat, scorched dust, and the iron tang of my own fear.

The first Drakarn lunged for me, claws slicing through the air. I ducked, rolling beneath his outstretched arm. I swung the staff in a low arc. I remembered Omvar’s voice, the lesson was pain and precision, not honor.

I was not just defending; I was attacking.

I aimed for joints, for knees, for anywhere flesh was vulnerable beneath those impossible scales.

The staff found a target: a knee. The sound was a meaty, satisfying thunk, followed by a roar of pain and surprise as the Drakarn buckled, clutching his leg.

It wasn’t a killing blow, but it was enough to prove that I was no longer the frozen prey he expected.

Vega was at my back, hurling a bowl straight into the eye of the second Drakarn, who staggered, then turned on her with a bellow. The table shielded Kinsley and Eden for another heartbeat, but it wouldn’t last.

Draskeer prowled forward, his focus locked on me. “You’re not hiding well enough this time, little prey,” he crooned, his voice digging under my skin. “You belong on your knees.”

My mind flickered, the memory of chains and sharp, metallic laughter trying to drag me down. But I wouldn’t let it. Not now. Not for him.

Every muscle screamed as I lashed out again, the staff cracking against Draskeer’s forearm, scraping scales until they bled.

He barely flinched. He grinned, the smile a promise and a threat.

Kinsley’s scream rose again, a thin, terrified thread. One of the Drakarn seized her by the arm, wrenching her bodily over the barricade as she kicked and thrashed. Eden tried to help. She lunged, only to be disarmed and thrown to the ground, a massive foot pinning her.

Kira appeared at my elbow, wide-eyed, clutching a broken chair leg. When had she shown up?

“Do something!” she panted, but the words barely registered. The world was sound and motion, a mess of blows and snarls.

Vega fought with desperation, a wild animal hissing, driving her blade into the side of the Drakarn’s thigh. He howled but didn’t fall. Blood streaked the wall as he yanked her aside and flung her into the far wall. She slumped, dazed but alive.

I locked eyes with her across the chaos, my voice catching against the words I couldn’t shout. My mouth formed the words: get help.

She hesitated, the need to fight burning in her eyes, but she nodded. She faded into shadow, sliding away as silent as breath.

I had seconds left.

Draskeer surged forward, batting my staff aside like a twig, his strength overwhelming. His claws wrapped around my arm, the grip a brand of iron I remembered all too well.

“You’ve learned some new tricks,” he sneered, his breath hot and foul against my face. “It won’t be enough.”

He dragged me backward, my heels scraping uselessly against the stone.

A last glance over my shoulder—Eden cowered on the floor and met my gaze, eyes wide and wild, a storm of terror and grief. She was shaking with a hopelessness I knew intimately.

I wouldn’t let her break. I wouldn’t let myself break.

Stone bit at my back as Draskeer hauled me into a dark service tunnel. The world shrank to the scrape of claws, the copper stench of defeat, Eden’s silent scream echoing behind me. But inside, something fierce held on—a refusal, a ragged promise.

Not this time. Never again.