Page 32 of The Breeding Cave

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

YEOSIN

I pushed a tear off my cheek and squeezed my eyes closed, seeing Joseph’s head in my memory. It had sat in that box like a present that I was meant to find. After biting back a sob, I continued forward behind Brent through the forest to the cave.

While I hadn’t known Joseph for long, he had brought me to the cave that first night, calmed my nerves, and seemed so genuinely trustworthy. I swallowed hard and wiped my cheeks with the back of my hands.

Seeing him dead had screwed me up.

Joseph was gone because of me, because he had brought me to the cave, because … the Dragon Clan was after me.

And they weren’t going to stop until I was either dead or belonged to them.

“We’re here,” Brent said, pausing at the cave entrance. “Go clean off in the hot spring.”

Brent had covered me in thick mud before we walked through the forest. He said it was to cover my scent because we had to take extra caution after the Dragon Clan murdered Joseph. Yes, murdered him.

He didn’t just die. They had beheaded him.

Fire burned inside me at the thought of Alvin doing that to him. I could only imagine what his body had looked like— if he still had a body left and if they hadn’t burned it to a crisp. I gritted my teeth. They would pay.

I headed through the cave toward the hot spring with Brent keeping a distance behind me. When I reached the water, I peeled off my clothes and sank into the water to clean off the mud, anger reeling inside me.

This isn’t fair! How could they have done this to him?

“So … you come here with Luciano?” Brent asked, back turned toward me.

My muscles relaxed slightly in the warm water. I curled my shoulders forward and blew out a low breath, closing my eyes. “Yes.”

Brent—who usually was very not awkward—rocked back on his heels and looked anywhere except at me. I shook my head and wondered why this was happening.

The scars, the fire, Alvin?! Most importantly, killing Joseph!

When I reopened my eyes, Brent still had his back turned and hadn’t even inched toward the hot spring to clean himself off. He had smothered me and himself in mud earlier, and I didn’t want to spend the rest of the night with his stinky butt.

“Are you going to clean yourself?” I asked. “There are soaps over there.”

Tensing, Brent glanced over his shoulder at me. “Good. I can’t see anything.”

“What’s that mean?” I asked, brow arched.

Instead of answering me, Brent walked into the shallow end of the hot spring and slipped right into the water, completely clothed. He wouldn’t get clean like that.

“You’re going to clean yourself in your clothes?”

“Listen”—Brent held his hands up—“I’m not trying to die.”

“Why would you die?”

“Are you kidding me, Yeosin?” Brent asked, splashing the water onto his shoulders. “If Luciano found out that I was naked in the same hot spring with you, he would rip my throat out and feed it to me.”

While I might’ve wanted Alvin dead, Luciano really wouldn’t do that to Brent, would he?

“Where did Luciano go?” I asked, nerves pricking at my stomach.

“A meeting.”

“With who?”

“Warriors who will help us defeat the dragons.”

My mouth dried. “Nobody can defeat the Dragon Clan.”

Brent stayed quiet, and I took that to mean that he believed my words too. Once he finished, he jumped out of the water with his clothes soaked.

“There should be an extra change of clothes back here somewhere,” Brent said, heading deeper into the cave through a walkway that I hadn’t seen before, his voice becoming more distant by the moment.

Once I finished cleaning off, I waited by the rocks inside the water. Brent returned with two towels and clothes so big that they looked like they fit Luciano. He set them down by the edge of the rocks and walked toward the main area of the cave.

“I will change and find some firewood just outside the cave. It’s getting cold.” Brent tugged off his wet shirt and looked back at me. “Don’t wander off anywhere, or Luciano will deliver my head to you like Joseph’s.”

My mouth dried, and I nodded. “Okay.”

After he left, I climbed out of the hot spring and sat on the rock. My burns glistened underneath the thin layer of water that coated my body. I gazed down at them, my lips curling downward into a frown.

They were red and bubbly and ugly and disgusting.

No wonder why Luciano wants to fuck me, then leave.

No. No, I didn’t really think that, did I?

Stomach twisting into knots, I patted myself dry with the towel and slipped into the oversize clothes to hide the scars that decorated my body. What was going on with me, and how could I stop it?

Did the Dragon Clan really have this much power over my body? Over me?

I wanted to see them burn. I wanted to see them covered in scars.

With my hands balled into fists, I gritted my teeth, a million thoughts racing through my head about how I would do it if I had the chance, if I had the upper hand. But those were just daydreams of a time that would never happen.

Every scar and every burn made me weaker.

Though I couldn’t explain it, I could feel my body becoming closer and closer to death. The burns didn’t hurt as badly anymore like they used to, but … I could feel it burning on the inside. I could feel … life slowing down.

Before I could achieve any of my dreams …

Do I even have any dreams anymore?

“I’ll be back!” Brent called from down the walkway.

After smoothing out Luciano’s shirt, I headed toward Brent’s voice.

While I didn’t have many of my own clothes–or much of my own life–anymore, not after Alvin completely took my life from me, I did have a dream, a goal—give Luciano a child before the Dragon Clan killed me.

When I returned to the main area, where Luciano had bred me that first night, it was empty, yet Brent’s scent lingered in the air. I walked to the front of the cave and sat against a rock to wait for him to return.

My gaze traveled around the dark forest, and the hairs on my arm suddenly stood up.

I looked up at a tree in the distance and froze, spotting two glowing blue eyes from high up above. They were so far apart from each other that they almost looked like stars shining around the tree branches.

But then the creature, which must’ve stood twenty feet in the air, moved toward me.