Page 13 of Burned Alive to Be His

XVITAR

T he hunt is a necessary purge. The confrontation with the human at the cliff’s edge has left a foul, restless poison in my blood.

Her impossible certainty, her refusal to break even when faced with her own death, has shaken something deep within me.

It is a feeling I do not like. It is a feeling of being known, of being seen in a way that leaves me exposed.

So I hunt.

I leave the settlement at dawn, seeking the jagged, treacherous ravines on the island’s northern face.

This is not a hunt for sustenance for the clan.

This is a hunt for blood. For the clarifying, focusing fire of violence.

My chosen prey is a dripir, a blind, tusked monstrosity the size of a boulder that burrows in the volcanic scree.

They are notoriously difficult to kill, their thick hides capable of turning a blade, their vicious, curled tusks able to gut a dragon with a single, upward thrust. It is the perfect challenge.

I find its trail easily, the scent of its foul musk thick in the hot air.

I track it for hours, a silent predator, my body moving with an innate grace over the treacherous terrain.

The hunt strips away the complexities of the past few days, the confusing thoughts of the human, the political games of Vorlag and Grakar.

Out here, there is only the hunter and the hunted.

The strong and the weak. An order I understand.

I corner the beast in a narrow, dead-end canyon. It knows it is trapped. It turns, its blind, milky eyes facing me, its massive, warthog-like head low to the ground. It lets out a deafening squeal of rage and charges, the ground trembling under its weight.

I do not meet it head-on. I am a dragon, not a brainless Gilak demon.

I use the canyon walls, leaping up, my claws finding purchase in the volcanic rock.

I let it charge past me, its tusks gouging deep furrows in the stone where I stood a moment before.

As it passes beneath me, I drop, landing on its broad, bristled back.

It shrieks, a sound of pain and fury, and begins to thrash, trying to throw me.

I hold on, my legs clamped tight around its massive girth, and I draw my blade.

I drive the thick, obsidian knife down, again and again, into the thick muscle and hide at the base of its skull. It is like trying to stab a mountain.

The beast throws itself against the canyon wall, trying to crush me.

Pain explodes in my side as I am slammed against the rock, the impact jarring my teeth.

I grunt, tasting my own blood, but I do not release my grip.

I roar, the sound of pure, primal fury, and put all my strength, all my rage, all my frustration into one final, devastating thrust.

The blade sinks to the hilt. The beast shudders, a great, convulsive tremor, and collapses, its lifeblood pouring onto the black grit in a thick, steaming torrent.

I stand over my kill, my chest heaving, my body bruised and aching, but my mind… my mind is clear. The smoke has been purged. I am Xvitar. I am a predator. I am strength.

I butcher a hindquarter from the carcass, the meat a heavy, satisfying weight on my shoulder, and begin the long walk back to the settlement. I am in control again.

The feeling lasts until I reach the settlement’s edge.

The air is wrong. The usual sounds of the clan—the clang of steel from the training circle, the murmur of conversation—are absent. There is a tense, watchful silence. And her scent… her unique, earthy scent that has become a constant presence at the edge of my senses… is gone.

A cold, sharp dread, utterly foreign and unwelcome, pierces the calm I had just reclaimed. I drop the dripir haunch, the heavy meat landing with a thud in the dirt. My head snaps up, my nostrils flaring, tasting the air.

I smell her fear, a faint, lingering trace. And beneath it, stronger, fresher, is the scent of Grakar’s sweat and smug satisfaction.

He took her.

The thought isn’t really a thought. It is a detonation. A white-hot, blinding rage erupts in my mind, a fury so absolute it eclipses everything else. The hunt, the kill, the politics of the clan—all of it turns to ash in the face of this one, singular violation.

He. Took. What. Is. Mine.

A roar tears from my throat, a sound that is not dark elf, but pure, unadulterated dragon. It is a sound of territorial rage, of a promise of death. The clan members who had been watching from their caverns shrink back, their eyes wide with fear. They have seen my temper. They have never seen this.

I don’t need to think. My body is already moving, my predator’s instincts taking over completely.

I find their trail instantly, a clear, brutal path leading away from the settlement, toward the treacherous, crumbling sea cliffs to the west. He is not being subtle.

He wants me to follow. He is laying a trap.

I do not care. I would walk into the heart of the sun to rip him apart.

I run, my powerful legs eating up the ground, my body a blur of controlled violence.

The world narrows to a single point: the trail.

The scent of his arrogance and her terror.

The fury in my blood is a living thing, a fire that demands to be fed.

It screams for his blood, for his bones, for his screams.

But beneath the rage, a deeper, colder fear is a serpent coiling in my gut.

Fear for her. For her safety. The thought of his hands on her, of his voice in her ear, of the terror he must be inflicting upon her…

it is an agony. It is a weakness. And it fuels my rage to an even greater, more terrifying height.

I find them in a place known as the Bone Yard, a desolate stretch of coastline where the skeletons of ancient sea leviathans lie half-buried in the black sand, their massive, bleached ribs curving up toward the sky like the ruins of some long-dead god’s cathedral.

It is a place of death, a fitting stage for what is to come.

Grakar stands in the shadow of a massive rib cage, his back to the sea.

He has her. His thick arm is wrapped around her waist, her feet dangling inches from the ground.

She is not fighting. She is utterly still, her face a pale, frozen mask of terror.

But her eyes… her eyes are on me as I emerge from the rocks, and in their depths, I see not just fear, but a flicker of that impossible, infuriating defiance.

“I knew you would come,” Grakar says, his voice a triumphant sneer. He tightens his grip on her, and a small, pained gasp escapes her lips.

The sound is a whip crack against my soul.

“Let her go, Grakar,” I say in a low, deadly rumble. I advance slowly, my hands clenched into fists at my sides, my muscles coiled, ready to spring.

“Or what?” he taunts. “You will challenge me? You will fight me for this… this scrap of a thing?” He shakes her, her head lolling on her slender neck. “She is nothing, Xvitar. A human. A weakness. And she has made you weak.”

“Let. Her. Go,” I repeat, each word a stone.

“You care for it,” he says, a look of dawning, delighted realization on his brutish face. “By the Thirteen, you actually care . The great Xvitar, brought to his knees by a pale-skinned pet.” He laughs, a harsh, ugly sound that echoes off the ancient bones.

That is his final mistake.

I don’t remember deciding to attack. One moment I am there, the next I am a blur of motion, a projectile of pure rage. I close the distance between us in a heartbeat, my roar of fury a physical force.

He is expecting it. He shoves her aside, and she tumbles to the sand, out of the way. He meets my charge with one of his own, and we collide with the force of two battering rams. The impact is bone-jarring, a shockwave that shudders through my entire body.

There are no rules here. There is no honor. This is not a spar. This is a fight to the death.

I drive my fist into his face, the crunch of his nose breaking under my knuckles a deeply satisfying sound.

He grunts, blood spraying from his nostrils, but he is a beast. He absorbs the blow and retaliates, his own massive fist catching me on the side of the head.

The world explodes in a flash of white light, and I stagger back, my ears ringing.

He presses the advantage, his attacks a wild, furious storm of fists and feet. I give ground, parrying his blows, my scales deflecting the worst of them, but he is relentless. He is bigger, heavier, and his rage makes him a formidable opponent.

He catches me with a kick to the ribs that sends me stumbling. He follows with a punch that I block with my forearm, the sound of bone on bone a sickening crack. Pain, sharp and white-hot, lances up my arm. It is broken.

I grit my teeth against the agony, a savage snarl ripping from my throat. I let him come in close, let him think he has me, and then I move. I drop low, sweeping his legs out from under him. He goes down with a surprised roar, his massive body hitting the sand with a heavy thud.

I am on him in an instant, my knees pinning his shoulders, my one good hand raining down blows on his face.

I punch, and punch, and punch, the world narrowing to the satisfying, wet crunch of my fist on his flesh and bone.

Blood flies, spattering my face, my chest, the white bones of the leviathan around us.

He is a warrior. He does not give up. He gets a hand free and his claws, sharp as daggers, gouge deep furrows in my side. Pain rips through me, hot and blinding. I roar, a terrifying sound of pure agony and rage, and he uses my moment of distraction to throw me off.

We scramble to our feet, both of us bleeding, battered, our breath coming in harsh gasps. We circle each other like two wounded predators, the sand around us stained with our blood.

“She has made you slow,” he spits, blood and saliva dribbling from his ruined mouth.