Page 53 of Upon Buried Embers (Upon Buried Embers #1)

“Hey! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” I hear Tofa’s voice, and I look up as she punches Darcia, blood instantly spurting from her nose. “You bitch!”

“Tofa?” Calian comes rushing in, grabbing Tofa from on top of Darcia as she screams, holding her bloodied nose, Rhett looking wide-eyed just beyond her. “What is happening?”

“Come and fight me and see how you like it,” Tofa shouts. I take deep breaths, trying to get more air into my lungs. “Let’s see who will win, Darcia? Come on, challenge me!”

“Calm down, Tofa,” Calian tells her.

“No.” She scratches Calian’s hands, thrashing in his hold as he picks her up off of the ground, legs dangling. “Let me go!”

“What, is going, on!” The roar is sudden, sharp, and we all look to Rohan and the crowd that has gathered, some dragons included.

Even Drogonah has come over, his head higher than everyone else’s as he watches with a keen eye.

Oh no.

I quickly lift my hood up, covering my ears, but others are gaping at me, eyes wide.

“Rohan,” Darcia cries, getting to her feet and holding her bleeding nose, tears streaming down her face. Rhett still hasn’t moved, his face pale. “She attacked me.” She points at Tofa.

“Fuck you!” She escapes out of Calian’s hold while he’s distracted, heading for Darcia and tackles her to the ground, punching her again.

“Tofa.” Rohan barks, rushing over to them and grabbing her. I don’t think he’s seen me yet. “What has gotten into you?”

“Let me at her.”

“Are you okay?” Beau’s voice startles me. He’s crouched before me, looking at the crowd.

“I think they saw,” I whisper to him, pulling my hood tighter around me.

“That’s okay,” he says gently. “We’ll figure—”

“Elf?!” Rohan says, rushing forward and shoving Beau out of the way. “What are you doing here?”

“Rohan!” I chastise, reaching to help Beau up but his hand snaps out. “Do not touch him right now, you will not like what will happen.”

I swallow roughly and give Beau an apologetic look.

He mouths, “it’s okay” before heading toward Tofa, who now has Darcia’s hair in her grasp as Calian tries to untangle it.

“Elf,” the rumbly voice comes again.

He shouldn’t call me that in front of all these people.

The crowd is a plethora of colored ribbons. Everyone is probably here.

“Elf,” Rohan says again, and my eyes lock with his confused ones. “What happened? Why…” His eyes drop to my throat, and he stills. “What. Is. That?” He grits out, and I eye the crowd warily.

“Maybe we should—”

“Start talking. Now!” he shouts, and I flinch at the sudden outburst.

He curses, then rises, pacing back and forth.

I sit there in the dirt, holding on to my hood as if it will hide me away. He looks from me to Tofa, then to Darcia, Rhett, and back to me.

His brows furrow as he takes me in, as Tofa is shouting to kill Darcia, and I see the moment it clicks. The way he stops pacing and slowly… so very slowly, turns to Darcia who is now Tofa-free thanks to Beau and Calian’s help.

“Oh my Gods, Rohan,” Darcia gasps, stumbling toward him, wiping her face. “They’re insane! I did nothing to— thwack.

Everyone gasps when Rohan backhands her, and she cries out and falls to the floor, holding her cheek.

“R-Rohan.” I stutter.

“You dare touch her? You dare hurt her?” I can feel his anger from here, tension rising.

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Rohan turns his head and looks at me. “It was her, wasn’t it? The bruises, who hurt you?!” I avert my eyes. “You fucking…”

I get to my feet and rush over to him, placing my palm on his chest as he advances on her.

He stops, instantly.

The heat coming off of him is like fire, his chest rises and falls rapidly, eyes focused on a whimpering Darcia.

“Rohan,” I say, and when he doesn’t acknowledge me, I start to rub what I hope is soothing circles on his chest. “Rohan, can you look at me?”

“Careful, Short Stack,” Calian calls, but even he stays where he is, Kaldar at his side, Adora next to him.

Dorkin is at the edge, arms folded and then I spot Sigrid, dagger in her hand, and when she sees me looking, she nods in encouragement.

“Rohan.” I reach up and touch the braid on the side of his head, the one I did this morning and gently tug at it.

That gets his attention, his eyes slowly dropping to mine.

“I don’t want to be here,” I mumble. “Can we go back to the tent?” His eyes drop to my neck, and his nostrils flare.

“She hurt you.” He growls, his chest rumbling and Drogonah roars behind us, causing people to move away from him.

“She…she did,” I agree, finally admitting it aloud. “But I think Tofa hurt her enough, and you. I just want to go back to the tent. To be with you. Let her go so I can be with you.”

I just want to be away from here.

“Elf…” his jaw tics.

“ Please .”

“Fuck.” His hand engulfs my own on his chest, and his head drops forward against mine and there he just… breathes.

I sense the restlessness around me, the unease at what he’ll do next, but he eventually gets himself under control.

“What is it that you want, Elf?”

“What?”

“For her to leave?” he growls. “Let me kill her.”

“I…”

“She deserves it.”

I suck in a sharp breath and look at Darcia. She looks pitiful with a face full of blood and tears. Her hair is a mess and her tunic is ripped at the shoulder, a bruise is already forming on her cheek from Tofa.

“I just want her to never bother me again,” I mumble. “To leave me alone. To never come back…”

He stares at me, body tense, nostrils flaring.

“She needs to die.”

I slowly shake my head. “She needs to leave. That is punishment enough.”

He’s quiet for a while, but eventually, he nods.

“If that’s what you want.” I nod. “Kaldar?”

“Here,” he says, coming up to Rohan, still eyeing him warily.

Rohan takes another breath, fists clenching as he looks at me one more time. “Grab the slowest horse,” he says between clenched teeth.

“On it.” He gently pushes me aside and walks over to Darcia, still on the floor, eyes wide with fear as he crouches before her.

“You know I can call a challenge and no one would disagree with it after what you have done.”

“I didn’t—” his hand snaps out, gripping her neck, pulling her closer, inches from his face.

“I could snap your fucking neck right now,” he hisses. “I wouldn’t hesitate, I wouldn’t think for more than a single second to make the decision to end your fucking life.”

She’s crying now, sobbing as she grabs his wrist, just like I did with her.

“You know our culture sees men and women as equals, that if I were to hurt you the way you hurt her, it would be upholding our law. But know this.” He shoves her back down on the ground as Kaldar appears with a brown horse.

“Even if it wasn’t, I would still rip your fucking head off.

The only reason you are still intact is because of her.

” He points at me. “You don’t deserve what she’s given you, but if I ever see you again, I will kill you. Understand? She won’t save you again.”

“Please, don’t make me go. It was all her! She’s evil, she’s an elf! How can you trust an elf?!”

Sigrid steps closer and nods to Rohan. “I hope I am not encroaching here.”

“By all means,” he growls.

“I’ll see to it that she leaves.”

“See to it she’s bleeding at least.”

Sigrid nods, then grabs Darcia by the hair and drags her over to the horse, kicking and screaming.

“You can’t do this—Rhett, Rhett help me! You know she has to go.”

Rohan freezes, then slowly, very slowly, he turns to Rhett.

“What did she mean?” Rohan asks.

“Listen, Rohan.” He holds his axe up and begins to back away. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Elf?” Rohan asks, eyes still on Rhett.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Is he involved?”

I say nothing.

“Is one of the members of my council involved?” he growls.

“Yes.”

In the blink of an eye, Rohan has removed his axe from his back, and he’s throwing it through the air, sinking it into Rhett’s thigh.

He screams, falling to the floor.

“Don’t take it easy, Rohan,” Kaldar says, eyes hard.

“Fucking traitor!” Calian shouts.

“What a pig.” Adora glowers at him.

“I was thinking of the clan!” Rhett blubbers, trying to stop the bleeding. “I was helping!”

Rohan stands before him, body tense.

“He hurt you, Elf?”

“No, he just… watched her hurt me.”

“I see.”

I swallow, tasting his fury as if it were my own as he stares Rhett down.

“You didn’t report to me or stop the hurting of what’s mine. You betrayed me, your clan.”

“Dragonbond, I was helping. Let me explain and then you can let me go, you can let Darcia go.”

“No,” Rohan replies, tone ice cold. “Elf let her go, and I allowed it because it happened to her. It should be her decision, as much as I loathe her choice. But you, however, have been an advisor, allowed at my table and still betrayed me…. I won’t be lenient.”

“I can explain.”

“There is no explanation for what you have done.”

Rohan reaches down and grips the handle of his axe.

“I’ve been by your side for years. You would kill me?”

“For her?” He removes the axe. “Yes. I would.”

He brings down his axe, taking off a hand.

I gag, hand going to my mouth but I don’t look away as blood spurts everywhere.

“That is for watching her be hurt.”

He grabs his face and takes the axe to his mouth, cutting along it.

“That’s for not telling me what was going on.”

He puts his axe in the ground, and then he’s on him, punching him everywhere he can.

“And that is for ever thinking you could do this to her, to the clan, to me! ”

Rohan doesn’t stop, continuing to attack Rhett, who is barely conscious. I understand now how people think the Dragorie are barbaric.

He’s covered in blood, a snarl on his face and I can feel the anger like it’s wrapping around me in an inferno.

The crowd shifts on their feet, even the Dragonbonds eye him with caution. Especially when Rohan stands, grabs his axe and then takes off Rhett’s head.

Silence descends, until a rustling starts in the crowd and Drogonah comes over. He stands next to Rohan, both looking down at the body before Drogonah opens his mouth wide and sets him aflame.

No one dares approach them, not even a Dragonbond, and I stand there, unsure of everything that transpired.

I know only one thing.

He did all of that for me.

A thorn protecting his rose.

“Rohan,” I call softly, and I hear the crowd suck in a sharp breath, tension filling the air.

But as the Dragonbond turns, it’s my Rohan I see.

His posture softens a little, and his eyes focus on me intently as he looks at me, bloodied and sweaty, but I’m not afraid as he stalks toward me.

He won’t harm me.

Never me.

So when he’s within reach, wary eyes that I’m sure he only shows me, I raise my hand and place it on his bloodied chest, and I see the relief in his eyes before it clears.

“She’s an elf, and she’s helping me,” he tells the crowd. “I’m sure you are all well aware of the rules in regard to something belonging to a Dragonbond?”

He says the words casually, but they are absolutely a threat.

They all murmur, yes, and then the crowd disperses, leaving the other Dragonbonds.

“That was over fast,” says Varan. He has a bloody lip which must be from the fight earlier, Rohan also has a cut on the side of his head.

“Are we done here?” Durruk asks, drinking from a mug.

“Disgraceful,” Karag spits. “A traitor in your midst?”

“Watch it, Karag,” Rohan growls, hands fisting. “I’m not in the mood.”

“You—”

“Come on,” Durruk says to Karag, “Let’s roll some dice.”

Karag sneers, but they leave without another word.

“I’ll be going now,” Calian says, Tofa still in his arms, hand over her mouth. She shouts from behind it while he walks her away.

“Come on Beau, let’s grab a drink,” Kaldar suggests.

And then it’s just me and a very angry Dragonbond, all alone.