Page 3 of Heart of Chaos (Chaosborn #1)

Chapter three

Arik

“She’s barely more than bones.” Revna looked at me like I wasn’t thinking rationally. “She won’t survive it, Arik.”

“She will.” I leaned against the wall of the tavern owner—Henrik’s—tiny office. It hadn’t taken much to convince him to show us Eisa’s contract. A well-placed dagger to the groin was enough incentive for most men, and Henrik was already flighty after Baldur’s little outburst earlier.

He hurt her . He had it coming .

I don’t disagree, I growled at Baldur, closing my eyes as we waited. I just wish you’d been more discreet.

I am a dragon, Baldur rumbled. We are not discreet.

You’re a sentimental fool , I drawled, giving the lizard a mental scratch along the eye ridge. She’s not ours .

Yet, Baldur rumbled as if this were a minor inconvenience, and I rolled my eyes at the self-assured creature.

Revna scowled at me like I was out of my damned mind. “Kindra thinks there’s less than a fortnight until the Rifting. You can’t know—”

“Baldur knows,” I replied icily for the tenth time.

“We could come back—”

“We’ve been searching for nearly three fucking months, Revna. She’s coming with us.”

Revna sighed and shook her head.

I had my doubts as well. The girl had no fight in her, and I couldn’t see how someone so frail and sickly could survive the Chaos, let alone the Rifting.

I felt Baldur growl in annoyance at my skepticism.

You doubt me?

I doubt her , Baldur. She’s been beaten down all her life. That split lip was not the first time her master hit her.

Baldur bristled in my mind, as if curling protectively around my mental image of the girl. But it will be the last.

I sighed. I knew better than to argue with the stubborn beast when he’d made up his mind. Especially since he was usually right.

“Here,” Henrik growled as he slammed through the door and threw some papers on his desk. “It’s all here. She owes me twelve years still, at least.”

I rolled my eyes to Revna, who nodded and handed me the papers. It didn’t actually matter what the contract said—Dragejakt took legal precedence over everything else. But I made a show of looking through the papers. I had to resist the urge to crumple them in my fist and burn them to ash right there when I saw Eisa’s signature.

She had been a fucking child. Fuck the king for turning a blind eye to the practice of indenture like he wasn’t condoning slavery in his kingdom.

“And I want it known that I don’t like the drage coming here and stealing my property,” Henrik added. “I’ll be filing a formal complaint to the king.”

“Good luck with that,” Revna laughed. “He never reads them. Nor could he care less about your ‘property,’ as you call her.”

“You’ll be compensated for the length of the contract,” I said coldly as I threw the papers back at the desk. I weighed the contents of the leather purse at my hip. “Five years’ worth.”

“She owes me—”

“This contract should be void on the grounds that you enslaved a girl who had no legal ability to sign her life away,” I growled, slamming the purse into the desk. “And I suspect the same is true of that boy I saw behind the bar.”

Henrik paled, and Baldur chuckled darkly in my mind.

“I want her out by sunrise,” Henrik gritted out, greedily scooping gold and silver into a pouch.

“She leaves when she’s ready,” I replied, folding the documents and placing them between my shirt and my scaled leather armor for safekeeping.

“This is my—”

I looked up at the blustering brute and let a little of Baldur’s fierceness shine through, my pupils slitting as the dragon looked out.

Henrik looked like he might wet himself.

I swept from the room without another word to him, turning my attention to my second. “Send word to Jorgen.”

“What are you going to do?” Revna asked, matching my stride.

“Collect the girl.”

“Einar will try to claim her, Arik.” Revna gave me that scrutinizing look that always read more than I thought possible, especially with my cold mask of indifference firmly in place. “The minute you tell him she burned blue, she’s as good as his. He outranks you.”

Einar will not have her, Baldur replied in my mind with the certainty of something ancient and all-knowing. I am sure .

I shook my head. I notice you care little about my choice in all of this.

Baldur’s rumbling laugh tickled my spine. Your choice was made when you bonded me. Have I ever led you astray?

I rolled my eyes. Even though I knew Baldur couldn’t see it, he sensed the sentiment and rumbled another ancient laugh.

“He’s welcome to try,” I said aloud. “Let Ragnar fight Baldur and see what happens.”

Revna knew better than anyone that I longed for a reason to unleash my dragon upon Einar’s, but she frowned as she pulled me to a halt. “And what are you going to tell her, exactly? That you bought and paid for her?”

“That she has a choice.”

“None of us have a choice, Arik,” she replied darkly. “We are Chaosborn.”

I clenched my jaw, wondering how many other choices had been stolen from Eisa already. Wondering what she would say when she realized I was shackling her to us.

You make it sound like we are not desirable.

Vain beast, I countered at his air of indignance. She might not choose us. Your mate might not choose her.

You worry too much, the dragon sighed, a yawn rumbling through me. It will be as the Norns decree.

I shook my head, unwilling to nitpick the details of dragon theology.

“Baldur can’t wait another ten years, Rev.”

She sighed, a blonde brow raised as she clapped me on the shoulder. “I hope you know what you’re fucking doing.”

“Me too,” I murmured as she strode away into the freezing night.