Page 8 of Beast of Blood and Ash (Drakarn Mates #6)

OMVAR

I stomped through the marketplace and glared at anyone who had the misfortune to stumble into my path.

The air in the River Market was always thick, a miasma of sulfur, damp stone, and the thousand unnamable scents of a city carved into the planet’s heart.

It clung to my scales, a film of foreign sweat and unfamiliar spices I could never scrub clean.

I cared about one person in this Forge-forsaken city, and she wasn’t there.

But the imprint of her touch still scalded my scales. I’d stayed up half the night, body primed for more, chest burning, tongue tingling with the ghost of her nearness. The memory of her, small and shivering, fitting against my chest, was a brand.

She was mine, but she trembled in my presence like a frightened animal.

My own form was a torment to her. She’d let me hold her, though.

In that one moment of desperate need, she had stepped into my arms. Would she let me again?

Could I touch her without the specter of violence rising between us?

I couldn’t let the thoughts cascade, a torrent that would drown my control.

Control was all I had left.

The market thronged with life under the oily pulse of the heat crystals overhead. Drakarn of every color bargained over lavaforged blades and shimmering bolts of fire-resistant cloth. The sound was a deafening clang and hiss, a symphony of life I would never truly be a part of.

My wings stayed folded tight in a conscious, burning effort. Here, I was a weapon on a leash, an Ignarath dog granted a kennel in the enemy’s camp. Every stare I met was a fresh accusation.

I cut a path through the crowd, looking for the only other warrior in this city I trusted not to stab me in the back.

Zarvash was sitting beside his mate, Vega, at a small cluster of tables near the back of the market, tucked into an alcove where merchants sold dried meats and potent, sour-smelling ales.

If there was anyone in the city I could count as an ally, it was these two.

Zarvash and I had fought side by side in the pit in Ignarath, while Vega posed as his slave and tried to learn as much as she could about the humans held captive in my former home.

He was all dark calm and patient eyes, scales burnished bronze, light flickering off the planes of his face.

Vega perched at his side, smaller, paler, her gaze sharp as a blade, red hair twisted up and catching stray beams in a tangled halo.

Human in stature, but with a force that made trainees step aside.

I’d suspected she was up to something then.

I’d sensed the attraction between the two of them even while they played their parts.

But the strength of their bond now was staggering, a current of affection and trust humming in all their glances and gestures.

I didn’t see how I could have that. Not when Reika wouldn’t look at me for more than a heartbeat without fear jumping in her throat.

He sat with one arm draped possessively over the back of her chair, his scarred form a fortress around her. She leaned into his space, a small, fierce human who looked as if she belonged there.

I didn’t see how I could have that.

Not when my very presence was a source of terror for the one I was bound to.

Zarvash greeted me with a nod, his amber eyes sharp and assessing. Vega raised one of her expressive human brows, her gaze sweeping over me, missing nothing.

“You’re scaring the children.” Her voice was lightly mocking. She gestured with her chin toward a pair of younglings who had frozen mid-chase, their eyes wide saucers fixed on my scarred, red scales.

“The children could use a fright.” I didn’t bother to sit.

The rage from the night before was still a live coal in my gut, and I felt too large, too volatile for the small space.

I might have looked like an ancient monster, risen from some forgotten lava flow.

Good. Let them see it. My tail flicked in restless agitation.

“Your Forge Temple acolytes,” I spat the word like a curse, “cornered Reika last night by the river. I don’t think they would have stopped with taunts if I hadn’t shown up.”

The change in them was instantaneous. Vega jerked, her casual posture snapping into coiled tension. Her hand dropped to the hilt of the wicked-looking blade she always wore. Zarvash’s eyes narrowed, the lazy possessiveness hardening into a commander’s focus.

“Who?” Vega’s voice was a low growl.

Zarvash held up a hand, a quiet command for restraint aimed at his mate, not at me. “The river is sacred territory. The Temple?—”

“Zarvash!” Vega shot him a glare, the kind that would have cowed a lesser male. He just held her gaze, his calm unflinching, but I felt the ripple of tension between them. Even the best pairs fought with knives drawn when their priorities clashed.

“It is true, veshari ,” Zarvash said, his voice a low rumble meant to soothe her, but his gaze remained locked on me. “The Forge Temple is protective of its domains. She should not have been there without permission.”

A guttural snarl tore from my throat before I could stop it. The nearest merchant flinched, pulling his wares closer. “You think it is right to terrorize my …” I stumbled over the declaration.

My mate.

The words clawed at the inside of my mouth, desperate for release, but I choked them back. No one knew what Reika was to me, and I would not reveal it, not there. To name her as mine would paint a target on her back, to claim her in a way she couldn’t want.

It would make me no better than the brutes who had enslaved her. I forced the words out, each one scraping my throat raw.

“To terrorize the humans you give sanctuary?”

“Of course not,” Zarvash said, his tone clipped. “But the Temple’s reach here is long. Karyseth’s followers believe the Blade Council’s agreement with the humans is an abomination. They see it as a stain on Scalvaris. They will use any perceived transgression as an excuse.”

“You should have seen what they did to Orla,” Vega muttered.

For some reason, Zarvash gave her a remorseful look.

“They called her impure,” I said, the words tight with violence. “They spoke of cleansing her in sacred fire.” My claws dug into my palms, the sharp pain a welcome anchor. I imagined those claws sinking into the soft green scales of the acolytes, tearing, rending.

“They sure like that threat.” And there was another look at her mate. “But we’ll make them pay if they try,” Vega promised, her eyes blazing with a fury that mirrored my own. She looked at Zarvash. “Won’t we?”

“They will be dealt with,” Zarvash agreed, his voice dropping to a dangerous calm.

“But not with a public challenge. Not with overt violence that will only fracture the Council further and give Karyseth the ammunition she craves.” He leaned forward.

“You need to tread carefully. Karyseth holds much sway, and on the matter of humans, she has more in common with your people in Ignarath than she does with us.”

“Don’t call them my people.” I flung the words like knives. My throat locked. Ignarath was blood and scar tissue, home only to ghosts and memories I wanted to burn from my flesh.

Zarvash held my gaze, a flicker of understanding in his eyes. I had heard how he had once hated humans, a fervent follower of the Temple’s harshest doctrines. His bond with Vega had carved that hate out of him. He, more than anyone, knew the war I was fighting.

“I will speak to Jalliun,” Zarvash said, his tone softening as he looked to his mate.

“He’s a reasonable priest. He held our mating ceremony.

” A ghost of a smile touched his lips as he shot a fond look at his mate.

“Perhaps he can make the acolytes see reason. He can remind them that an attack on a human under the Council’s protection is an attack on Darrokar himself. And on me.”

It was a political solution. A slow, careful game of influence and pressure.

My entire being roared for a faster, more final answer.

For blood. For fear driven so deep into those acolytes they would never dare look at Reika again.

But Zarvash was not wrong. An open war with the Forge Temple would endanger all the humans, not just her.

I forced my claws to uncurl, my jaw to unlock. I gave a stiff, reluctant nod.

For a moment, there was silence. Then Vega leaned forward. Her gaze was sharp as broken glass.

“Are you watching Reika?” she demanded.

“What?” The question, and the force behind it, caught me off guard. It was still strange to have a human, so small and fragile, speak so forcefully to me. In Ignarath, such a tone would have earned her a beating. Here, it was a challenge.

Her expression didn't soften. It grew harder, fiercely protective. “Don’t play stupid with me, Omvar. I saw you in the training caverns when she was there. I saw you at the market the other day. Now you just happen to be there when she’s cornered by priests?

The assholes you used to call friends nearly killed her.

She was hunted in the Harrovan Mountains after she escaped.

She still won’t talk to anyone about it.

She flinches anytime a Drakarn youngling gets too close.

So let me ask again. Are you watching her?

Because whatever your game is, don’t mess with her. Don’t you dare break what’s left.”

Every word was a nail driven into my flesh.

A hot, possessive fury rose in me, the instinct to snarl, to put this small human in her place, to declare Reika was mine to watch, mine to protect.

How dare she question my motives? How dare she imply I would harm her?

Zarvash must have sensed it. His body went still, his hand settling on Vega’s shoulder, a silent warning.

His eyes fixed on me, no longer allies, but two alpha males on the brink of conflict over territory.

The air crackled with unspoken threats. He knew what I was.

A champion of Ignarath. A killer. He was reminding me of the predator he saw, and the one he could become if I threatened his mate.

But Vega’s words had struck deeper than pride. She flinches anytime a Drakarn youngling gets too close. The memory of her body, tense as a wire in my arms, and of the terror in her eyes before she’d collapsed against me, flooded my senses.

Vega was right.

My size, my scales, my past, I was the living embodiment of her nightmares. My presence, meant to be a shield, could be just another cage.

The fire in my gut cooled to a bitter ash of self-loathing. I looked away from them, my gaze falling to the ceaseless, glowing current of the river.

I let out a slow breath, forcing the rage down. “I have no intention of harming Reika.”

My voice was flat, devoid of the storm raging inside me. Vega watched me for a long moment, searching my face, before giving a curt, unsatisfied nod. Zarvash relaxed his posture by a fraction.

I turned without another word and stalked away, leaving them in their fragile pocket of warmth and belonging. The market’s noise crashed back in, but I heard none of it. I heard only Vega’s warning echoing in my skull.

Don’t you dare break what’s left.

Zarvash could have his politics. Vega could have her warnings. They saw a problem to be managed, a traumatized human to be handled with care. They were wrong. This wasn’t a matter of politics or caution. Those acolytes had threatened her. They had put their hands on what was mine.

I would not break her. I would protect her.

And I would not be careful. I would not tread lightly.

I would be the shadow that fell over anyone who wished her harm.

I would be the monster in their stories, the terror in their night.

I would spill blood for a city that would never claim me, and I would raze it to the ground to keep her safe.

Let them whisper. Let them hate me. It didn’t matter.

The hunt had just begun. And I would not fail her again.