Page 43 of Kingdom of Darkness and Dragons (Empire of Vengeance #4)

He walked toward me, his movements unhurried.

He stopped just inches away, close enough that I could see the flecks of silver in his grey eyes, the intricate lines of the tattoos on his collarbones.

He lifted a hand, and I flinched, expecting a blow.

Instead, his fingers brushed against the side of my neck, his touch feather-light.

His skin was cool, and for a half-second, a strange jolt, like static electricity, passed between us.

His gaze was intense, searching, as if he were memorizing the beat of my pulse beneath his fingertips.

That was when the true horror of my situation hit me.

This wasn't just someone who looked like Tarshi.

This was the shadow mage. The one whose magic had been tearing Imperial soldiers from their dragons, who had somehow reached me through the chaos of battle and carried me away from everything I knew.

And I was completely at his mercy.

Panic gave way to a primal terror. I had seen what these shadows could do on the battlefield, seen them tear men apart.

He could kill me with a thought. He reached out, and I flinched, but his hand was steady as he traced the line of my jaw with a single, calloused finger.

The touch was not violent, but proprietary, as if testing the quality of a new possession.

When he reached for the straps of my armour, I understood what he intended and fought harder against the shadows that held me.

"No," I said desperately. "No, don't you dare touch me. Don't you—"

But the shadows were implacable, and his hands were steady and sure as he began to strip away my armour and clothing. I couldn't move, couldn't fight back, couldn't do anything but endure as piece by piece my protection was removed and discarded.

I clenched my jaw, refusing to give him the satisfaction of tears, forcing myself to meet his gaze with all the defiance I could muster.

He didn’t leer or smile. His grey eyes travelled over my body with an unnerving, analytical focus, cataloguing the old scars from the arena, the fresh bruises from the fall, the muscle I had built through years of training.

His gaze paused on the twin scars on my throat, my mates marks.

For a fraction of a second, his expression tightened, a flicker of something unreadable in those icy depths.

He reached out again, his fingers tracing the scars.

A low growl rumbled in his chest, a sound so inhuman it made the hairs on my arms stand up.

His gaze lifted from my throat to meet mine, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of raw, possessive anger in those winter-grey depths.

It was the look of a predator who had found another’s scent on his kill.

This was not about injury. This was about ownership.

When I was finally naked, suspended helplessly in his magical bonds, he paused and looked at me.

There was desire in his gaze—I could see it clearly, the way his eyes travelled over my exposed body with obvious appreciation, the way the leather strips on his skirt shifted.

My skin crawled with revulsion and terror, waiting for him to do what captors had been doing to their prisoners since the beginning of time.

But he didn't touch me. Instead, he picked up the waterskin and began to clean me with careful, clinical precision.

The water was cold but not unpleasantly so, and his touch was gentle as he washed away the blood and dirt from my face and body.

It was intimate in a way that made my skin burn with embarrassment, but it wasn't sexual.

If anything, it felt... caring? Protective?

When he was finished, he held the waterskin to my lips.

My throat was raw and my lips were cracked, but the thought of taking anything from him, of accepting his provision, felt like a surrender I wasn't willing to make. I stared at him, my defiance a fragile shield.

He waited a beat, but then before I could react, he cupped the back of my neck with one hand, his grip inescapable, and brought the waterskin to my lips with the other.

He barked a word at me, one that I assumed meant “drink”.

I drank, choking and sputtering, until he pulled the skin away, his cold eyes never leaving my face.

Setting the waterskin down on the ground, he took off his feathered cloak and wrapped it around me like a blanket. The feathers were impossibly soft against my skin, and they seemed to hold warmth in a way that defied explanation.

Then he stepped back, and the shadows moved with him, carrying me through the air like a captured bird.

They deposited me back on the hard stone floor by the fire, not unkindly, but with a finality that brooked no argument.

The shadowy bonds dissolved, melting back into the darkness from which they’d come.

I lay there, panting, every muscle trembling from the effort and the sheer, alien wrongness of his magic, but when he lay down next to me, panic rose again and I tried to pull away.

With a grunt, he yanked me back against his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around me, one powerful leg curling over both of mine to hold me still and secure.

His cock, most definitely hard, pressed against my ass, and I lay rigid in his arms, waiting for the inevitable.

But it didn’t come. I wriggled, trying to free myself, and he grunted, but apart from his arms tightening around me, he didn’t react.

Minutes stretched into an eternity marked only by the crackle of the fire and the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart against my back.

His breathing, at first a low growl of arousal, slowly deepened, evening out into a slow, steady cadence.

He didn't move to hurt me, didn't whisper threats or gloat over his prize.

He just held me, his body a cage of warmth and solid muscle.

The terror didn't fade, but it changed, twisting into a sharp, disorienting confusion.

This wasn't the behaviour of a conqueror with his spoils.

It was something else, something possessive and deeply unsettling, but not what I had braced myself for.

The hard pressure against my backside remained, a constant reminder of his desire, yet he made no move to act on it.

The warmth of his body seeped through the feather cloak, a slow, insidious comfort that my shivering flesh betrayed me by accepting.

The bone-deep chill that had tormented me began to recede, replaced by a heat that was entirely his.

It was maddening. How could the source of my terror also be the source of such profound, simple relief?

My mind raced, scrambling for an explanation.

Was this a game? A way to break me down before he did whatever he truly intended?

The man looked like Tarshi, but he was a void where my mate's warmth should have been.

This was a predator, and I was his captured prey, being warmed and soothed before the slaughter.

Slowly, cautiously, I let my own rigid posture relax a fraction. The exhaustion of the day, the pain, the terror—it all came crashing down. I was his prisoner, held naked in the arms of a man who commanded shadows and wore my mate’s face.

He said something then—a short sound, more like a grunt than a word, but the tone was unmistakably commanding. Sleep, I thought he meant. He was telling me to sleep.

I forced myself to relax, my mind racing. When he fell asleep, I could escape. I just had to wait for his breathing to deepen, for his grip to relax, and then I could slip away into the night. I would find my way back to the Imperial forces, back to Jalend and Marcus and Antonius. Back to safety.

But as the minutes passed, I found myself growing drowsy despite my determination to stay alert.

The fire's warmth, the strange comfort of the feathered cloak, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against my back—it all combined to make my eyelids heavy.

The events of the day had taken their toll, and my body was demanding rest whether my mind wanted it or not.

I would just close my eyes for a moment, I told myself. Just rest them while I waited for him to fall asleep. I wasn't actually going to sleep, just... just rest...

The last thing I remembered was the feeling of strong arms around me and the soft whisper of feathers against my skin. Then darkness claimed me, and I knew nothing more.