Dragon's Leash

Hazel

One year later…

It was the end of our mining shift, and Pirouette emptied mine-made liquor into everyone’s cup. Including mine.

Although I grew up to know it was against my way, today, I give in.

Because it’s my birthday. I’m twenty—the age I would have made it to the official ascension as the real Queen of the Apogee.

Everyone is drunk deep within the new shaft.

The most dangerous and unstable part of the Fahrenheit was the new tunnels. It was the only place we could get marginal privacy from the guards.

The chances of the new shafts caving in were…ha, one in four? So it also made it exciting to risk it!

Would we risk death to celebrate?

I wish we had the choice to say.

I’m used to this reality of having nothing under my control.

The party of twenty have dozed off to sleep, our party space being the narrow way.

I’m resting next to Pirouette and her boyfriend when I hear a scream.

“NO!” No! No... no...!

The boom of the yell echoes back toward me, of an animal who cries deep—hurt?

A man.

I shake Pirouette, but she’s asleep with her head buried in her boyfriend’s neck. Wiley is also fast asleep—and no one else heard the scream.

I check over the heads, and the party is all asleep from deep exhaustion.

I lie back into the rock, prepared to ignore the scream, when my nostrils suddenly flare.

And I stand immediately.

To go in search of that smell.

What the hell was this?

I can smell something that would taste like night or an ancient luxury wine. It’s like a warning, but not a threat. No—a signal.

I breathe in deeply until I taste iron on my tongue.

Blood?

I sniff the air again as I move.

Why did it smell so alluring when it was clearly dangerous?

Perhaps my first sip of liquor had gone straight to my head. Could you get drunk after one sip? Pirouette and Wiley had laughed, as did the rest of the party, but I didn’t drink any more than that.

I reach the end of the new shaft, which isn’t far, and I hear a sharp inhale down one of the older dead rock shafts—dead ends with no value in the gray flat rock.

I wait where I am at the crossroads to see if I hear the jiggle of a guard’s belt anywhere nearby.

Total silence down this far in the Fahrenheit, so I decide it’s safe to investigate.

I walk down the narrow, dead shaft until it widens, and I find the felled man.

Fancy that.

I recognize him quicker than he recognizes me, as the shocked giant pulls back to gaze at my intrusion in confusion and I stand back to observe his predicament.

The giant is sitting back in a corner, forearm stuck between a rock that squeezed shut in a crack within the shaft.

That was stupid of him. The rocks moved a lot down here.

I note that Korserath is not a slave anymore as I take my time observing him from afar.

No—after a year, this man is wearing black leather pants, and my gaze focuses on that.

In contrast, I’m wearing a blackened white skirt and a band of black cloth for my breasts, which were small anyway. I was tall, however. And while his hair is black, mine is white.

Korserath doesn’t scare me. He’s stuck, so I glower and gloat a little with my eyes.

A stuck man was yours to do as you wished with.

To steal from.

And I see something I want.

Not the pants.

The sword.

At his belt.

A black, otherworldly sword, medium length, but with a thick blade.

Korserath isn’t saying a word; he’s just watching me without breathing like some kind of man turned to stone.

His strange behavior doesn’t alert any warning bells in my mind. After all, he’s very, very stuck.

But he also smells really good—and that smell is coming from his mouth and his body.

I lean forward and take a step closer, whispering to him, “Does the night feel heavy upon your hand?” I mock because I can.

I am the night. Korserath doesn’t grace me with words aloud.

He touches my mind.

It doesn’t matter if he can read my thoughts though.

Since he’s stuck.

I lean down at his ankles, a little greedy, as his legs stick out.

I feel the leather he wears, and my fingers tremble with its soft touch.

I breathe so shakily I almost come.

I hadn’t felt something so soft and royal like leather in four years! And it’s real!

I then focus on the sword at his hip, sheathed in. I almost drool with how close the weapon is.

“Come get it.” Korserath’s deep, grating voice challenges me without so much as a smile.

I’m not stupid. He can read my mind, but I can learn.

And I’m too tempted by his lips, cut hard despite the full blush of blood, the fact he’s a handsome, dangerous man—and he’s stuck too.

And that smell. From his mouth. The night.

If I could taste that dark fire…

I reach for his arm and distract him with my touch there as I boldly sit on his thighs and look into his eyes. We’re inches apart.

His other hand is laid to the right, free, but no man could kill me with one hand while I had two.

Korserath smiles a little down at me, and I get closer to his face, a half-breath from his mouth as I look up into his eyes.

The closer I get I see the black is really a dark red, but the smell from his mouth… I breathe it in directly now.

“Mmm,” I moan a little uncontrollably. It was like a nightmare coated in lust.

I keep my eyes closed as I kiss Korserath, now too tempted by it all. This dangerous man, so utterly stuck for me. Almost like a gift.

It’s my birthday, I tell him quietly as I reach up my hands and press them against the sides of his neck, feeling his steady pulse. His heart beats so ~slowly.~

Korserath doesn’t exactly kiss me back, and I wish he’d give me something more.

I’m almost losing myself in a trance when I remember to roll to the side and pounce up while I still have my wits.

I lose myself willingly to the dancing moves I’ll never forget.

I’ve twirled onto one hand while the other snatches the sword handle, and then I land upright.

Too easy for this trained body of mine.

I’m holding his stolen, dark, glimmering sword now, and his hand is not close enough to grab my ankle. He tries to snatch it, and I kick his hand back with my pointed toes.

I ignore him as I walk backward holding the perfectly weighted sword.

I’ve got what I wanted.

And I’m in love. With this beautiful thing.

I practice a few dance moves in the shaft, slicing the blade up and around me as I spin down and back up straight, holding it above my head, and then lowering it slowly to the trapped man.

Korserath is no longer calm.

Even though he’s stuck there in his corner, I see how tense every muscle has become.

The giant criminal is completely confused by how I managed to steal from him.

I am better trained than him in grace. Than any man ever could be.

I smile as he struggles to pull his arm out again, but he faces me as I step closer.

“You just need to spit on it,” I advise him as I lean in to spit on his arm. “You’ll live.” Just a little poorer.

Now, I leave. I walk past, I strut off, entranced with the sword in my possession.

I would hide it immediately.

Leaving Korserath behind.

I’ve just made it out of the shaft when I hear that grating, deep animal killer inside my head.

Happy birthday.

I’m almost swallowed up by the anger in those words as he mocks me with deep-rooted sarcasm. I think that will be all it is.

Until Korserath adds, “You want freedom?”

Obviously.

“Then leave with me right now,” I respond.

Even if it was true, that he had a way out of here—ha, as if I’d trust a convicted rapist I just stole from.

“No,” I respond. No way.

“I’ll burn a hole through your chest and burn your heart while I steal your mind when I get my hands on you again, butterfly,” he threatens.

It’s a drawl that doesn’t sound like an empty threat.

“Burn alone,” I speak over my shoulder. “With your twin, wherever he is. I remember that you’re both criminals. Choosing the mine can’t be the worst option. I’ll live.”

“There is nothing worse than a pissed-off Devorex, sweetheart. You stole from me,” he warns.

He speaks of himself? His mind—full of himself. Except…

“You’re Korserath,” I correct him.

He laughs aloud, and it echoes to my ears from up the dead shaft.

I’m Korserath? HA! And you’re safe.

He can’t stop laughing, so deeply amused.

D—

No.

I just stole.

From the more violent, crazy one.

That was Devorex. I don’t like that one. I had only ever fantasized about the other one.

I kissed the one I punched in the face. And now I also stole from him.

Not good.

I run back to the shaft beds, creating as much distance between us as humanly possible. I could lose him before he found me.