Page 38 of Exquisite Monster

“Surprised?”

He sneered. “He’s going to take you apart in front of those bastards. You’ll wish you died down here.”

“Strong words with a weapon at your throat.”

A crash behind him told me Gleym had taken down another soldier. One more ran past us and out the door. I didn’t know how many were left. At my side, I felt a nudge, andVaríslipped a new dart into my free hand with his mouth.

The soldier laughed. “Think that’ll stop me?”

He didn’t have a chance to move. I brought the second dart up and shoved the one I already held, piercing his throat from both sides. He’d been standing so close to me that his body nearly took me down with him. I stumbled away from him, gasping at the warm wetness of blood under my bare feet. Seeping into the bottom of my robe.

The floor of the room was littered with bodies. Only one man remained alive, held against thesheytenby Gleym’s power. He struggled and smacked the stone behind him. “The only reason you have any power is because of this. We should fuckingdestroythem all.”

“You do that,” Gleym said. “Hasten your own end, by all means. Katalena.” Her voice summoned me, but I stood still. She nodded her head toward the man. “Him too.”

I stared at her. “What?”

“Kill him.”

My mouth opened, and I closed it again. I swallowed. He was pinned and now unarmed. Not attacking. I couldn’t?—

Magic flowed over the man and seemed to sink beneath his skin. Gleym’s hold shook him a little. “Repeat your orders for coming here.”

“Fly to Evrítha and down into the pit to see if there’s any chancethat Katalena is alive. If she is alive, bring her back, so I can kill her myself. If she’s alive, I need her to break them. If she’s dead, try to find her body so I can use that.”

She looked at me, expression expectant. I understood the lesson though my stomach revolted. This man was here to take me to Andaros and my death. The second she released him, he would try, and he would end up dead anyway. I looked back at the bodies on the floor. Three of them were already mine.

Would they forgive me?

I shook my head. They’d already killed for me. More than once. If the roles were reversed they wouldn’t hesitate. So why was I?

The blood on my skin felt hot and vile, sweat gathering at my temples. I approached the man slowly. “If you were to go free, what would you do?”

His eyes fastened on mine, and he struggled again, unable to fight Gleym’s hold. “What?”

“If you were free to go, and did not have to return to Craisos, what would you do?”

He glared at me, and it was clear he was trying to keep himself from speaking. Still, the words were forced out of him slowly. “There is no world in which I would not return. I will follow Andaros to the death if it means the dragons finally lose their hold on the world.”

Fuck.

“My—” I stopped. This man had no reason to know who they were. “The dragons you hold captive. What are you doing with them?”

“Harvesting them. And breaking them.”

“Harvesting?”

He smiled, the movements of his body growing slower as his strength waned. “All that fire we can turn back on them. We’ll burn them all to ash and they’ll stand there and let us do it once we take their minds. They’ll make every dragon present themselves for slaughter.”

The power holding his mind and tongue shivered out through his skin, his face going slack before alertness returned to him with force. “What did you do to me?What did you do to me? You and every dragon will burn. I swear it.”

I startled when something touched my hand.Varíhad a dart in his hand, and I’d never seen his scales that color before. A brown so dull it was fading into grey. Sullen and dead and angry. Sad too. He pressed the weapon into my hand slowly. With regret, but no hesitation.

He was with me.

Curling my fingers around the dart, I walked forward, placed itagainst the weak point of his armor—exactly where I’d been trained with a blade.

“No,” the soldier begged. “I take it back. Please. Don’t kill me.”