The Dragon King by Heather Killough-Walden

Author:Heather Killough-Walden [Killough-Walden, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-10-23T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-three

The world intruded on Eva’s quiet, dark, and warm oblivion little by little, unwelcome and wrong. As always, first came sound. But there wasn’t much of that. Only the recognizable sounds of leather soles on a hard surface, the crackling of a controlled fire, and the chink of ice cubes in a glass container. It wasn’t enough for her to get her bearings.

The next thing she noticed was the smell. It smelled like sandalwood again, like that indescribable scent of night, and of the wood smoke from the fire. There was also the scent of leather. And, more subtly… of blood.

It was her blood, she knew. She must be injured.

The pain of those injuries was the third thing she noticed. There was a dull but persistent ache in her shoulders, running through both arms, and a sharper but equally persistent throb at each wrist. Her muscles ached. She had a bit of a headache, but thankfully nothing as bad as the migraines humans often talked about. Dragons didn’t get those.

The pain in the rest of her body was getting worse, though. Her brow furrowed, and regardless of how badly she wanted to keep her eyes closed to block out what she was so afraid she would see, she knew she needed to open them and assess her situation.

With a steadying of her will, she did just that. She opened her eyes, blinking against the dim light of the fireplace and recessed lighting of the very same apartment in Japan that Arach had taken her to previously. The only differences now were the two thick and sparkling chains that connected her wrists in a wide “Y” to strong metal beams in the ceiling of the living room. How had she not noticed those before? Or the thick metal hooks that hung from them?

Because they hadn’t been here before, her mind told her in resignation. Arach could probably create things at will. He was stupid strong. She had never gone up against an opponent like him. She had no idea what the fuck he was, but she knew he was probably going to be the death of her.

Automatically, she attempted to call up a bit of magic to free her wrists. As she expected, it didn’t work. And as she also expected, her battle with the Traitor had seen her once more drained of most of her power.

With palpable trepidation, Eva’s gaze followed the lines of the chains to her wrists, where equally thick and shimmering cuffs had been tightly secured. A thin trickle of blood descended from her right wrist. She’d obviously been hanging for a while, and the edges of the cuffs had not been smoothed down. They were cruel and harsh. Like Arach.

Now she looked down at her body, not knowing what to expect, but knowing it would be bad. She was unduly relieved when she found she was still fully clothed. More or less. She wore everything but her leather jacket. Scorch marks, rips, tears, and ash

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