Page 5

Aurora

D reamlike. It was the only way to describe the way events were progressing around me. Everything was a blur as I retreated further and further into the depths of my own mind, leaving nothing but my body behind. A vapid shell of myself, I was sure.

How else was I supposed to react to my father’s actions?

“You.”

The word echoed in my ears, but I didn’t process it or react to the man saying it.

A man who was a dragon.

That had been my father’s—never again would I refer to him as “Daddy”—plan. He possessed just enough guilt to not kill me. So, instead, he’d shipped me off with a bunch of other women to become tributes for the dragon men.

People whom we’d been at war with until just days ago. Now, I was part of the peace treaty.

“I said, you.”

The voice repeated itself. Trying to catch my attention. I heard someone else say something. A woman this time. Fingers dug into my back, propelling me forward. I stumbled, staring blankly as the man talked.

He was tall, broad-shouldered with long, wavy blond hair, and he had brown eyes and a wide chin. There was a brutish, almost wild air to him, from the untamed nature of his hair to the free-growing beard and beyond. I took that in, but I never truly saw him.

Fingers like thick sausages gripped my arm, easily carrying me along beside him. I was supposed to go with him.

Why? Why did it matter? What did any of it matter anymore?

My life was over. Gone.

My father had seen to that.

It bothered me to know he would never get what he was due. No justice would be served for the crimes he’d committed or those he would continue to do. Nothing would change for him.

For me, everything had changed.

“What’s wrong with you? Are you okay?” the man holding my arm asked.

Was there concern in his voice? I didn’t know.

“I’m fine,” I replied. I think . He grunted something and continued to pull me along with him when I didn’t immediately follow of my own accord.

My legs didn’t want to respond.

We went up an incline, where the rocky stone floor of the underground cavern eventually gave way to carved stone hallways. Torches glittered on the walls, providing a modicum of light. I had to squint to see much of anything.

Which was why I cried out in surprise and pain when he pushed open a door to reveal the bright rays of sunlight shining through a window. Flinging my arm over my eyes, I blinked rapidly to make them adjust faster.

The surprise brought me back to myself, shocking my system into action, and I looked around with renewed focus.

“Sorry about that. Are you ready to continue?”

My eyes never made it to the speaker.

As I swung my gaze around, my attention was brutally and forcefully ensnared by the man resting stiffly against the wall next to the window.

Piercing gray eyes stared back at me, pinning me to the spot like daggers through my clothes, holding me still and seeing right through me.

He pulled himself upright as our eyes locked, strong, powerful shoulders stiffening and pulling his dark gray shirt tight across his chest. The movement only served to emphasize the power of his toned, fit body as it moved with effortless grace.

Hair blacker than the darkest night settled into place behind his neck, the long strands held there by a deep crimson band. The color contrasted sharply against the bronzed tone of his skin—what was visible of it on his face and hands.

Frost cracked and slid away as the stranger and I continued to lock gazes, melting swiftly from the intensity of those strange gray eyes. A ghost of a shiver ran down my spine.

His mouth opened, but his lips moved silently, any sound silenced beneath the ringing in my ears.

The man who’d brought me from the depths shook my arm slightly, pinching the skin of my triceps when I didn’t immediately respond. The pain snapped the world back into clarity.

The men waited for me to respond.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes not budging. “What did you say?”

“Gray Eyes” stared back, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. “I asked if you were well, and if you are being treated properly.”

His voice was like the steel of a blade being unsheathed, ready to be used. This was not a man who spoke to hear himself talk. When he opened his mouth, there was a purpose.

I nodded, glancing up at my escort then back at Gray Eyes. The difference between the two could not be more profound. Muscular-oaf against tall, tanned, gorgeous and mysterious.

The tension was so thick it had to be cut with a knife. Even in my brain-addled bubble, I could feel it, like a physical, tangible thing stuffed in the space between us, pulling us closer and closer. Daring us to touch, to see what would happen.

But my escort looked on obliviously.

“It’s been ten minutes,” I said. “I’ve barely begun to register what happened to me. But in that short period of time, your, uh, countryman here has been fine. So, yes. I guess? I have no metric to measure it against.”

“Has he hurt you?”

Was that a flare of jealousy I detected in his voice?

“What? No!”

“No, I have not , Magistrate,” my escort said, reacting for the first time. “Nor would I. I am not a criminal .”

The man, the magistrate, whatever that meant, stared hard at my escort, then flicked his stare back to me. His face softened for a split second before hardening back up.

“Very good.” He leaned back against the wall but didn’t relax. He was a viper, coiled and ready to strike. I could see it in his body language. He was on high alert.

Because of me.

Our eyes lingered on one another as I was shuffled forward by my escort once more. My head turned to stare, and as we passed him, his eyes darted down and then back up.

I jerked, though whether in surprise or because I was slow and my escort was impatient, I didn’t know.

He just checked me out! That dragon-man eyed me up and down.

A wonderful ripple of heat rolled down my spine and into the bottom of my stomach. Coiling around other parts of me.

Threatening to wake them.

Who are you, Mr. Gray Eyes? And why did you have such a reaction to me?

More importantly, after everything that’s happened to me, why do I care?