Page 1 of Exquisite Monster (Dragons of Viria #2)

CHAPTER ONE

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ENDRE

I t was dark. Too dark. Not because there was no light, but because I couldn’t see it.

They’d done something.

It made my body sluggish and my mind muddled. My shoulders ached from the position they were in, hands held up and out by restraints heavy enough to keep me still.

Lena.

I couldn’t feel my mate. The bright spark where she lived in my soul was blank and gray. Not cracked and dark.

She was alive.

That was all that mattered.

Heavy footsteps approached. Multiple sets. The screech of unoiled metal hinges. “Good. You’re awake.”

My voice rasped in my chest, raw. “Why can’t I see?”

“You’ll be able to. Eventually. You dragons always react so much more strongly than humans. Thankfully.”

Why did he think that?

I’d barely heard his voice, but I still knew him.

Andaros.

The piece of shit who wanted to harm and cage my mate. Rage flooded my body and bounced back. With my arms locked as they were, I could do nothing. No…

I couldn’t fight back because I was still bound by Aeghi’s fucking command not to resist. I smothered the anger and grief. One more suffocating line of power wrapped around my soul to make me helpless. If I let the rage consume me?—

The thoughts stopped when I cut them off.

I didn’t feel Sirius and Zovai, like they were still unconscious.

Questions rose to the tip of my tongue. Where was Lena? What did he mean to do with us? If he was going to kill us, could he get it the fuck over with?

But I said nothing.

I’d been biting my tongue for three hundred years with the Elders. I could hold my tongue with this shameful excuse for a man and king.

“I was always told dragons were intelligent,” Andaros said. “But the Elders accepted the story about me wanting revenge on my father so easily.”

My mind went still .

It wasn’t true?

Of course it wasn’t true. We were alive. He wanted something more from us.

“One might think they wanted to get rid of you.”

I couldn’t stop myself. “What do you want?” The words ground out.

Hands grabbed my head and neck, forcing it back. I fought them out of instinct, but I was still weak, and the command rendered me unable to resist. Rough fingers wrenched my mouth open to the point of pain. Something was shoved inside and I couldn’t close it anymore, my jaw so wide it ached.

“I’m not a fool,” Andaros said. His voice was right in front of me, and he gripped my chin. “My plans have nothing to do with you. You are merely a tool. And tools don’t have their questions answered.”

He shoved my head back, and liquid poured down my throat.

Thick and foul, my body thrashed, trying and failing to expel it.

It burned its way into me, and my fire rose without me calling it.

So fast and so violent, I felt ill. Flames poured from my lips.

They tore from me painfully until my body forced me to take a breath.

Instantly, my stomach twisted, more fire hurling from me. There was no control in this.

Low laughter echoed. “Get used to it, dragon. This is your only use now.”

A clang of metal and retreating footsteps followed. I barely heard them over the roar of my flames. They didn’t stop.

They wouldn’t stop.

My shoulders nearly gave out, leaving me hanging, sick and gasping as fire was wrung from my body over, and over, and over.

Until it was nothing but pain. Until I was fading once more, my body still breathing fire.

Lena.

I whispered her name in my mind.

She was alive.

That was all that mattered.

If she was alive, I could bear anything to stay alive for her.

Lena .