Page 5 of Exquisite Monster (Dragons of Viria #2)

CHAPTER FIVE

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KATALENA

T hey tore Endre out of my hands, his shirt ripping with how hard I tried to keep him with me. Andaros smiled, and suddenly I was falling, and this time there would be no magic to catch me ? —

I blinked my eyes open and winced. They were dry and felt like sandpaper. My limbs were stiff, and it hurt to move. Like I’d trained with my dagger for too long, or like my mates had taken me just as hard as I wanted them to.

A shrill chirping sound echoed in the room a second before Varí slammed into my chest and began to purr. His scales faded into a calm blue as I watched, where they’d been a bright orange before.

“Hello,” I said, my throat also dry. “What’s wrong?”

“The little one has been beside himself.” Gleym stood at the entrance to the room, leaning on her staff. “Thought I was going to have to drag your human ass back to the water and dump you in.”

I frowned. “How long was I asleep?”

“Time means almost nothing down here, girl. But I would guess around three human days.”

“Three days?”

She shrugged. “Given what you told me, I’m not surprised. What you went through is a lot for the human body. But the small one was worried.”

“His name is Varí .”

Her gaze cut to him, and her soft smile was reluctant. Like he’d charmed her against her will. “I know. He won’t stop recalling how you found it out.”

Varí tucked his head up under my chin, still purring. “Sorry I worried you,” I said quietly. Not for the first time, I wished he were still up on the surface. Maybe with Idroal. They would take care of him, and I wouldn’t have to worry that the worst might happen down here and I’d doomed him.

Hunger struck me hard and fast. No wonder, without having eaten for three days. My body clearly needed the rest, and I did feel better, though weak.

“Can you stand?” Gleym asked.

“I think so.”

Scrambling onto my shoulder, Varí hid under my hair, allowing my hands to be free to push me upwards.

My legs shook, but held. I was barely dressed in anything.

It was warm down here, and humid. I could put the dress back on, but I didn’t want to.

It reminded me too much of what had happened while wearing it.

My immense happiness followed by terror and fear.

Gleym nodded to the corner. “Clothing is there. It probably won’t fit, but you can fix it later.”

“Thank you.”

She left me alone, and I went to put them on. A dark bundle of clothing. The dress was loose and shapeless. Far too big, but it covered my body, and that was enough. The length of the cloth was so great I had to lift it and tie it off before I sought out the dragon.

As I tried to find the room where we’d eaten, I realized I’d been more exhausted than I remembered, because every room I passed through was completely alien. I didn’t remember any of them. And there were so many .

If I’d had any doubt about how long Gleym had been down here, it was put to rest with the extent of her underground home. There was a room entirely of shoes. Based on the way they looked—and smelled—I was pretty sure all the shoes had fallen down here the same way I had.

“Do you know where to go?” I whispered to Varí.

My instinct told me the older dragon wouldn’t eat me like she claimed, but I wasn’t going to take the chance of angering her if I wandered somewhere I wasn’t meant to be.

Launching off my shoulder, he led me back through the complex maze of rooms that had no logic.

There weren’t any hallways, just rooms that opened up into each other.

Which made sense if she dug—or melted them—into existence.

Whenever Gleym needed another one, she would create another room. Or that was how it seemed.

I’d gone in the wrong direction entirely. Soon though, following Varí , I smelled food. Good enough for my stomach to respond with sound.

Varí looked over his shoulder in shock, like he wasn’t aware I could make a sound like that.

Gleym didn’t look away from where she stood before the fire, one hand over the pot that bubbled there like she held the contents in the palm of her hand. What I could see of the liquid swirled on its own. “You got lost?”

“Yes.”

“Not surprising. I still do, and I built it.”

I laughed softly, desperately trying to contain the questions in my brain. Like how she was down here at all. Why she was down here, and if there was a way back to the surface.

Because I couldn’t stay. Whatever Andaros had done to my mates, they weren’t dead, and I wasn’t going to let him have the chance to kill them later. Whatever his plan was, it wasn’t going to favor the four of us. And he already thought I was dead .

By all rights I should be dead.

Between this and almost being killed by the dragons multiple times over, I wondered how long I could escape the fate that seemed to be determined to come for me.

“Eat,” Gleym said. “Your stomach is louder to us dragons than it is to your human ears, and it is screaming.”

I obeyed, serving myself and sitting at the same table I had for the first meal. Gleym didn’t sit with me this time, instead sitting on a stool nearer the fire, leaning on her staff, watching me.

When the bowl was empty, I met her gaze. “You told me to sleep and then we would talk. I have questions.”

“I imagine you do.” Her eyes held a feral gleam.

Varí curled up on the table, leaning his head on my arm and closing his eyes. If he’d been worried, how much had he slept? Instead, I pulled him onto my lap and allowed him to snuggle close.

“I cannot promise I will answer all of them,” the dragon finally said. “But you may ask.”

The most important first, then. “Are you going to kill me?”

She snorted inelegantly. “If I was going to do that I would have easier ways. Like simply allowing you to remain in the water until you drowned, or snapping your neck while you were dead to the world. Not after I fed you and clothed you.”

“Are you planning on helping me?”

The weight on her shoulders seemed to grow heavier. “That depends greatly on what you mean by help, and truthfully, I have not decided.”

At least her answer was not no .

I swallowed. “How did you come to be down here?”

Her reaction was not what I expected. She smirked and stood off her stool, making her way slowly to a counter across the room.

“I got here the same way you did, little human. A creature who wanted me dead… well, more than one, I suppose, threw me down here hoping the fall would kill me. Too bad for them, the fools didn’t finish the job. ”

She poured herself a drink and sipped it smoothly. All I had were more and more and more questions. How did she have everything she had down here? The room with the shoes was explained, but food? Clothes? Whatever it was she drank from the cup?

Like she saw all of those things pass through my eyes, she shrugged. “More things get lost in the water than you would imagine. If it is not recovered, it ends up here. That net I caught you in saves most of it. If it’s useful, I’ll keep it. Though I’m hardly helpless.”

I’d been floating in the air—hovering like floating in a net. She’d stirred the pot without a tool and lifted me out of the water without touching me. “Your power is moving objects?”

“I can see why you’d think that, but no.

It’s not as simple as that. I control… the relationship between things.

Influence the space around them, within them, and between them.

” She extended a hand, and once again the liquid in the pot spun.

“I can will the stew to spin in relation to the pot.” The bowl I’d eaten from rose in the air and floated.

“Or the relationship between the bowl and everything else. I could do the same to you if the little one wasn’t sleeping.

Where you fell, I have commanded the air to repel everything. Slow it and stop it.”

I blinked. “Forgive me, but that is a strange power.”

Gleym barked a laugh, her voice rough. “That it is. But useful. I once knew a dragon whose power was the ability to make things glitter. Beautiful, but I am grateful my own is more than a passing trick.”

“Can you use your power on yourself?”

“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes like she already knew where my questions would lead.

“So you could return to the top of the world?”

Throwing back the rest of her drink, she glared at me. “And why would I do that? I’ve never liked anyone, girl. Not truly. Neither dragons nor humans. Why would I return to live amongst those who already tried to kill me? They would simply try again.”

“But—”

“And no,” she cut me off. “I cannot simply send you to the surface with my power. I am old and I am powerful, it is true. But even mine cannot reach so far.”

I deflated, cursing the bright hope that had bloomed so quickly in my chest just to be smothered once more. “I see.”

She laughed again. “Don’t look so distraught. I said I couldn’t send you to the surface. Not that I wouldn’t help you get there.”

“You never said you would.”

“True. But you don’t exactly have a choice but to trust me, do you?”

No. I didn’t. And I was weary of not having choices.

Gleym stood and stretched slowly. “You are not ready to return to the surface, Katalena, mate of dragons. If you want to survive the Elders and their schemes, you must be more than you are now.” She strode towards one of the doors and looked back expectantly.

“I haven’t yet decided to help you, but we shall see what you’re made of. Come.”

She disappeared, and I lifted Varí into my arms to follow her. It wasn’t a promise, but it was a chance.

Right now? It was all I needed.