by Ines Johnson
“Kimber is away at the wolves’ den with Cardi. But he left me your payment." Corun handed over the sack of gems in exchange for the bag and prepared to make a swift exit. Small talk was not his strong suit.
The Valkyrie’s eyes gleamed as she peered in at the diamonds inside the bag. Though they were the strongest creatures in the Veil, gems were the Valkyries’ only weakness. Aside from their brute strength, it was how the dragons maintained their second-tier status in this garden of supernatural creatures.
To get to the precious stones required both fire and the sharp, strong claws of dragons. No other being within the Veil had those two strengths. Gems were a prized commodity for that reason.
Unfortunately, dragons weren’t known for sharing their hoard. Corun thought the weight of Kimber’s bag of gems was a hefty price for such frivolous things. But dragons were known for doing crazy things for their sacrifices.
As Corun turned to leave, the movement in another sack caught his attention. He knew it had to be a human male. The Valkyrie went beyond the Veil into the human realm and removed the worst of mankind from the fray to take them to Valhalla, a place worse than the bowels of Hell.
Morrigan had a good haul tonight. There were two sacks on the dragon’s back. One wiggled about, the stench of death wafted through the material and to Corun’s nose. The other bag remained prone.
"Until next time,” said Corun, hefting the bag of trinkets over his back and turning inside the door.
"Wait, scaly boy," said Morrigan. "I'm not done with you.”
Not words any man wanted to hear from a Valkyrie. Dragons were not taken to Valhalla. But a Valkyrie was strong enough to best him. Corun took a breath. He hadn’t broken any rules.
“I have another offering,” said Morrigan.
Unlike Kimber, who bartered with the Valkyrie to bring back trinkets to please his mate, Corun had no care for the human world. Though he did prize the Rubik’s Cube that Cardi had discarded after one try. And he enjoyed the game of Operation and a few other board games from the human realm. Other than that, there was nothing he cared to give up one of his coveted rubies for.
The man in the bag squirmed more. His writhing caused a disturbance to the other sack. The scent of the contents of that second sack wafted over on the breeze. Cardi’s sack of treasures slipped out of Corun’s hands.
“What is that?” Corun’s voice was low and gravely, more dragon than man.
Morrigan grinned as she went over to the dragon and hefted the sack down as though it weighed nothing. The closer she got, the more Corun’s hackles rose.
The Valkyrie uncovered a woman. Eyes closed, heart-shaped mouth-slack, flaming red hair like rubies flowing like waves around her small shoulders.
The beast in him roared. His dragon nearly slipped out of his skin. But at the last second, Corun yanked the leash. He needed his wits about him to understand what was happening.
"What is this?" he repeated slowly. The man held onto his mind, but the dragon had captured his voice.
“Are you blind?” said Morrigan. “It’s a sacrifice."
This made no sense. Corun didn’t believe in coincidences. He didn’t like the unexplained. Everything had an answer, even that confounded cube the Valkyrie had brought to torment him.
“Your sister banned sacrifices from the Veil.”
“Not exactly. Hilda said no more men could sacrifice human women. I am not a man.” Morrigan laid the woman at Corun’s feet and backed up.
Corun couldn’t take his gaze from the bundle before him. The lower half of her body was obscured by the bag. The top made him lick his chops.
When Cardi had arrived, she was still more girl than woman. None of the dragons had lusted after her. They’d friended her instead and treated her as one of their own.
This woman had no danger of being mistaken for a child. Even now, Corun’s pants tightened at the sight of her clavicles. Yes, her clavicles. He couldn’t take his eyes off the shape of them. His beast studied them, wondering which part he would mark first.
“She's a feisty one,” said the Valkyrie. “She was trying to kill my mark. She would’ve never made it out alive if she had. Or she would’ve been jailed. So, technically, she isn’t even a sacrifice. In a sense, I saved her. Yay, me.”
Saved her? To bring her to a den of dragons where she would surely die. Corun hadn’t even seen the color of her eyes, but his gut clenched at the knowledge that one day he’d watch the life go out of them. Just as he’d watched the life go out of his own mother’s eyes and the triplet’s mother’s eyes.
Women given to the dragons were called sacrifices for a reason. He didn’t know this woman, but he knew he wouldn’t do that to her. He couldn’t. The Valkyrie had to take her away.
"You want her, Cory?”
Corun clutched his hands into fists. There were no fingers any longer. Claws dug into flesh.
"Rubies would go so well on a diamond necklace, don’t ya think?”
Chapter Four
Death was warm.
Warm and toasty, like sitting in front of a fire on a cold winter’s night. Chryssie didn’t want to move, not a single muscle, not even an eyelash. She was so comfortable. She hadn’t felt this way since … well, ever.
In life, her toes and fingertips had always been tinged with freezer burn. The numbness was a constant friend because her blood didn’t work the way it was supposed to. Her thumb and index finger touched, and she actually felt her nail. She felt the grooves that made up her fingerprint.
She gasped at the unfamiliar sensation. The breath traveled over her tongue and down her throat. It didn’t stop there. Her chest inflated, stretching the cavity to its full capacity. The swirl of air landed all the way in her gut.
She did it again, breathed fully in and then out. And then again, reveling in the heady sensation of fullness.
Death was awesome.
For the first time in her life, she felt alive. Her body fully inflated with air. Her fingers and toes filled with feeling, Chryssie decided to open her eyes and see her new digs of Hell.
It was as she expected.
Red.
Red as far as the eyes could see. But a pretty, sparkling red.
Looking up, she saw that the dark ceiling twinkled with red, as though the stars of Hell’s sky were rubies shining down on its inhabitants. But the gem-like gleam didn’t stop there.
She knew she was underground. The place had a cave-like feel. She could make out rock and sediment. Shafts formed from all sides, like craggy spears poking out of a wall. A few dark tunnels were visible from where she was. Through all of the darkness, glowed a ruby-like redness.
The gems were in the walls, on the ground, in piles in corners. The piles were neat. They appeared organized by size. Maybe the devil was a jeweler? An anal-retentive, net freak jeweler.
She lifted her foot to move closer. Only her foot wouldn’t budge. Chryssie looked down to find that her legs were bound.
A light brown twine of rope coiled up her thighs. The rope continued up her torso and around her arms. It was an intricate pattern; beautiful. The knots resembled a flower with loops that pushed outward. Much like her namesake flower, the chrysanthemum.
The sky wasn’t endless. She hung from a hook in the ceiling that she couldn't see the top of. Her toes barely touched the ground.
Was this how she was meant to spend eternity? Able to take a full breath and feel her toes while bound in a room of rubies? She was weighing the pros and cons, trying to determine where the tipping point was when a shadow moved in the dark.
"Hello?" Chryssie called.
No answer.
But she knew she wasn't alone. She could sense another presence. The air pulsed with a second heartbeat. She felt her own heart pounding in response. Belatedly, she wondered why the organ still beat in death?
Chrissy gave the bindings a tug. A weight settled on her shoulders as she pulled. The moment she relaxed her arms, the weight lifted off her shoulders. A lang
uidness washed over her entire body.
She took another deep breath, filling her lungs with the sweet heat in the air. This time, when she made a try for freedom, she stretched her foot, aiming her toes to reach the ground. But a cramp shot up her leg as a knot dug into her calf.
Chryssie let her leg go slack. Once again, all tension drained from her body. Her heart was not beating erratically. It was calm and steady, as though it could hang there forever, suspended in a dark room glistening with gemstones.
Why was she fighting anyway? It was all over for her. She was dead.
Still, all her life, she had fought hard to have a say in her life; be it what treatments she took, all the way to how she died. None of it had worked out for her on the surface. Down here, she could breathe. She could feel. Maybe she could have a bit more control. She gave another tug against her bindings.
"Stop."
Chryssie froze. Partly because the voice told her to. Mostly because the deep timbre of it vibrated through her entire body starting at her fingertips and zinging down to curl her toes. She was overjoyed at the sensations she’d felt there. The voice had multiplied the heat in her extremities tenfold.
"Keep still, or you'll rile him up."
"Him?" she said. "Who?"
"The beast."
Beast? He must mean the devil. She must be in the devil’s lair. Was he near? What would he do with her? Whatever it was, she was determined to fight. She hadn’t died just to be at the whim of another master.
“Will you help me?" she asked.
"I am,” said the shadow. “I tied you up."
"I'm helpless like this,” she said. “At least give me a fighting chance.”
The next sound from the dark was a huff of air. It was humorless. The tenor of it lifted at the end in a tone of skepticism.
"If only that were true,” he said.
He moved about in the shadows, always just out of her peripheral vision. The most she got was the impression of broad shoulders and towering height. He was behind her now.
“You're going to wake him up. He'll slip his leash, and I won't be able to control him any longer.”
Leash? Control? She didn’t want to be the cause of a beast losing control. She’d worked so hard to gain any semblance of control over her own life.
“I thought you might be our salvation,” her dark shadow continued.
She felt his breath on her neck. But she couldn’t turn to see any part of him.
“You’ll be the end of everything. Won't you?"
"No," she said. "Untie me, and I'll go away."
She didn't know where she would go. She’d prefer to stay with the soothing voice who was trying to protect her from the beast. She’d prefer to stay bound up in the knots he’d tied her in where she felt safe.
And then he moved into the light …
Chryssie was thankful she was now equipped to take deep breaths. The air went to her head when she gasped at the sight of the man. If indeed he was a man.
Tall, dark, and handsome did not cut it.
Tall was too small a word. He was massive, a titan that towered over her. She was elevated off the ground, but she still had to tilt her head back, way back to take him in.
Dark did not describe him in the best light. In the red glow of the cave, his honey-golden skin looked lickable as though it had come directly off a honeycomb.
Handsome did not adequately characterize the beauty in his face. His square chin brooked no-nonsense. His black hair tumbled down from a widow’s peak. His nose was long and aquiline, letting her know that even if he was just a man, he wasn’t just a man. There was something regal in his heritage. This man hailed from rulers, conquerors.
And then there were his eyes. At first glance, they were chocolate brown. Not the solid type of a Hershey’s Kiss. They were molten, melted over the fires of a fondue pot. In fact, she could see the red flames in them.
“You have been given as a sacrifice to the beast of this castle."
So close to her, his voice hummed into her nostrils and exhaled out of her ears. It wasn’t until her brain unraveled his actual words that the fog cleared.
"Sacrifice?”
That’s what she’d been born to do. She’d been born to save her sister. And she’d failed at that. She had no intention of picking up that mantle in death.
“I’m not going to be anyone’s sacrifice.”
His brown gaze narrowed into red slits. “You don’t get a choice. That is in the definition of a sacrifice.”
“I won’t do it.” She gave a tug of the ropes with her wrist, giving herself enough slack to strike out her foot.
He caught it deftly. She felt the warmth of his fingers through the leather of her kickass boots. It was as though the fabric wasn’t between them.
He was standing close enough that she could taste his breath. All she felt was heat. For someone who’d been cold all their life, it was delicious.
"She was right about you," he said. “You are feisty. Unfortunately, he’ll like that."
The sound of metal against metal made her jump. He’d flicked open a blade. The sharp point glinted in the light of the rubies.
Chryssie gulped, no longer feeling brave.
His fingers brushed her bound wrists. Once again, she gasped, taking in more of his toasty taste. One by one, he unfurled the fingers of her right hand.
Cold slid against her palm, causing her to jerk away. She never wanted to feel that sensation of cold again. He pressed the flat end of the blade into her hand.
"Don't try to use this weapon on the beasts. It'll only annoy them.”
“Beasts? Them? You said there was only one. Now there’s more? Wait? Where are you going? What am I supposed to do?”
"Free yourself." He stepped back into the shadows, taking his heat with him. “And then run for your life.”
Run for her life? But she was already dead. His words made no sense.
There was something in his voice when he said the words. Reluctance. Hopefulness. Resignation.
Whatever it was, she knew he’d spoken the truth. He was giving her a chance, another chance at determining her own destiny. Dead or something like alive, he didn’t know what a gift it was for someone like her.
The knife nearly fumbled from her hand as she aimed it for the bindings. She caught it, blade side. Chryssie hissed as the sharp edge sliced into her skin. Her blood made the work of freeing herself from the rope slippery, but she was focused. She still had a shot at controlling her own destiny, and she was taking it.
Chapter Five
Each step away from her was a battle.
Claws scratched at the soles of Corun’s boots. He lost more ground than he won. It took him forever to make his way out of the mines that were at the base of the mountain and back up the long trail to the castle. The area wasn’t made for walking on human legs. It was made for flying with a dragon’s powerful wings. There was no way Corun was letting the beast inside him have an extra ounce of control at this moment.
All his life he’d been digging in those mines, searching for rubies in the rough stone by day. Picking apart the thoughts in his mind by night to find a solution to his and his brothers’ damnation. Tonight, the answer to all of his problems was bound and hanging at the center of his most treasured possessions.
Every time she moved, his beast reared, ready to devour her. Corun had needed to keep her still. That’s why he’d bound her. To protect her from herself as well as to protect her from his beast.
As she’d hung there helplessly, he’d had a chance to look his fill. Even now, her every curve was imprinted in his mind. No matter if he closed his eyes, he still saw the gentle arch of her neck. With every step, he fought to move away from her, he remembered the lushness of her lips that begged for him to take a bite.
No. She’d begged to be set free. To have her will restored. Unfortunately, choice was an illusion in this place.
Corun climbed the stairs, higher and higher. His head felt ligh
t with each step. He wasn’t taking in enough air. All of his energy, all of his concentration, was focused on putting distance between himself and her. Giving the dragon more air would only fuel it.
Corun needed every weapon in his arsenal to hold the monster at bay. If it got its claws into her, if he allowed it to sink himself into her soft flesh, she would be dead in nine months.
If his beast planted his seed inside of her, she would not survive the birth. Gems were tough and could handle a dragon picking them apart. Women were not.
That was why human women were called sacrifices. Since the dawn of their kind, women’s bodies were given to the dragons as incubators to grow their offspring. It was a task that the precious females would not survive.
Corun had heard the beating of his own mother’s heart when he was just a whelp in her belly alongside his brother Kimber. His still developing heart would beat a rapid pace whenever he heard her voice singing to them. The blood that ran through his still forming veins would warm as he rested inside her cradle of protection. Yet when it finally came time to meet the angel that gave him life, he and Kimber had ripped their mother apart as they made their entrance into the world.
Corun watched it happen again with the triplets. It was clear as Amunet’s belly grew with three whelps inside that she would not survive.
Elek’s birth had been different. But Corun preferred to think of Miyaoaxochitl’s fate, a fate worse than death, the least. Her survival did not change the fact that, if his kind were going to survive, they would need more sacrifices to birth the next generation of dragons.
Corun’s feet were like stones plunged into the flooring as he took the last of the stairs to his lab. He was exhausted from the climb and the battle of wrangling his dragon who was desperate to get back to the woman, their woman, his woman.
Mine, roared the dragon.
The dragon fought him tooth and claw, but Corun was stronger. He willed the beast into submission. But just barely.
Mine, the beast insisted despite Corun’s chokehold.