Page 14 of Burned Alive to Be His

He is right. My concern for her, the distraction of her presence, has cost me. But it has also given me something else. A focus. A purpose beyond my own pride.

He lunges again, but this time, he is not aiming for me. He feints to his left and then dives toward her, where she is huddled at the base of the rib cage.

“I will break your toy!” he roars.

And in that moment, something inside me snaps. The last vestige of the warrior, the last shred of the clan leader, is consumed by the pure, absolute instinct of the male protecting what’s his.

A fire, hotter and more primal than any rage I have ever known, erupts in my soul. I do not just move. I shift .

My body elongates, my bones cracking and reforming with an agonizing speed.

Obsidian scales, hard as stone, erupt from my skin.

My face pushes forward into a draconic snout, my teeth lengthening into fangs.

Wings, vast and leathery, tear from my back.

It is not a full transformation, but a partial, terrifying hybrid of elf and dragon, a form I have not taken since I was a youth.

A form of pure, uncontrolled battle rage.

I am on him before he can even reach her. I catch him by the throat with my clawed hand, my talons digging deep into his flesh, and I lift him from the ground. He chokes, his eyes wide with shock and terror, his hands clawing uselessly at my arm.

I slam him into the massive, bone-white rib of the leviathan. The ancient bone shudders, and he screams, a high, thin sound of pure agony as his spine cracks. I slam him again. And again. The sound of his body hitting the bone is a wet, percussive beat of death.

I do not stop until he is a limp, broken thing in my grasp. I throw him to the ground, a sack of shattered bones and ruined flesh. He is still breathing, his chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged gasps, but he is broken. Beaten.

I stand over him, my monstrous form heaving, my blood and his dripping onto the black sand. The rage is still a fire in my veins, and it demands a final, fatal satisfaction. I raise my clawed hand to deliver the killing blow.

“Xvitar.”

Her voice.

It is quiet, barely a whisper against the roar of the sea, but it cuts through the red haze of my fury like a shard of ice.

I freeze, my hand poised in the air. I turn my head, my draconic eyes finding her. She is on her feet, her face pale, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and something else. Something I have never seen in her before. Concern.

“Don’t,” she says, her voice trembling but firm. “Don’t kill him. Not like this.”

I stare at her, the rage in my blood warring with the strange, calming effect of her voice. She is speaking to me. She is telling me what to do. And the most insane, the most terrifying thing of all, is that I am listening.

With a final, guttural roar of frustration, I lower my hand.

I turn my back on Grakar’s broken body and stalk toward her, my monstrous form slowly receding, my bones cracking and shifting back into their elven shape.

The pain from my broken arm and the gashes in my side hits me with a vengeance, and I stumble, my vision swimming.

She rushes to my side, her small hands surprisingly strong as she helps me stay upright. “You’re hurt,” she says, her voice filled with a genuine, shocking worry.

“It is nothing,” I grit out, shoving her away, the contact too much, too confusing. I lean against the leviathan bone, my breath coming in harsh pants.

She does not retreat. She stands before me, her dark eyes scanning my injuries. “He is your clan,” she says softly. “You should not kill your own.”

“He tried to take what was mine,” I snarl. “The only law that matters is that the strong survive.”

“My name is Judith,” she says, her voice quiet but firm.

I stare at her, my mind reeling from blood loss and the sheer, unexpected force of her words. “What?”

“My name,” she repeats, her gaze unwavering. “It is Judith. I am not a thing. I am not your prize. I am a person. And my name is Judith.”

“I will call you what I please, human,” I rasp, the words a reflexive defense, a desperate attempt to rebuild the walls she keeps tearing down.

I push myself off the bone, my body screaming in protest. I need to get back to the settlement, to have my arm set. I begin the long, painful walk, expecting her to follow.

She does. She walks beside me, her small presence a strange, unwelcome comfort. We walk in silence for a long time, the only sound the roar of the sea and my own ragged breathing.

As we reach the edge of the Bone Yard, my broken arm sends a fresh, blinding wave of pain through me, and I falter, my knees buckling.

Before I can fall, she is there, her shoulder under my good arm, her small, wiry frame taking my weight.

“Lean on me,” she says, her voice soft.

I want to shove her away. I want to roar at her for her weakness, for her presumption. But I cannot. I am too weak. And her touch, her warmth, is a strange, steadying anchor in a sea of pain.

We walk, slowly, painfully, back toward the settlement. The sun is setting, painting the sky in shades of blood and fire. As we clear the last of the rocks, and the lights of our home come into view, I stumble again.

“Easy,” she murmurs, her grip tightening.

I look at the top of her head, at the fierce, determined set of her jaw. She is a creature of impossible, infuriating strength. She is a puzzle I cannot solve.

And without thinking, without wanting to, I hear my own voice, a low, rough rasp in the growing darkness.

“Judith.”

The name feels strange on my tongue. Foreign. And yet… right.

She stares up at me, her eyes wide with surprise. And in their depths, for the first time, I do not see fear. I see a flicker of something else. Something that looks terrifyingly like hope.