Dragon's Leash

Hazel

I’ve made it back to the Bunks, the shaft beds where all the miners sleep between shifts.

My own bed is a hollowed-out rock in an old mine up a steep incline that you have to tiptoe across as you scale the wall.

The bed is warm—the only benefit of sleeping on sharp and hard surfaces cut into a sharp and hard object.

I don’t head straight to bed, however. I go to my secret storage, a small, hidden nook near where the soldiers for Astro switch shifts between the First Luck, cut from Bloodstone and the Outside.

Due to the fact it’s closest to the surface, it’s heavily guarded.

Ironically, I note it’s the very place I encountered those twins the first time, a year back. They were strange, ethereal, and evil. They seemed to belong in this hell.

Now that I have escaped the trapped twin with his sword, I decide to conceal it with my other little treasures.

The First Luck may be heavily patrolled, but it was an ideal place for me to store my weapons for the day I escaped.

I would use my hidden weapons to help me kill the last guards so I could find a way out of here.

That day may have to come sooner rather than later.

My own luck would soon run out.

To make it to the First Luck, you have to walk through a Bloodstone shaft, a steep walk up. The black rocks drip crimson poison. The liquid they seep burns if it lingers on your skin too long.

No one touched these walls in this narrow shaft because of it.

I did, and I could—because I didn’t care about the pain of the poison.

I kneel a fifth of the way from the top, and I find the loose rocks I can remove to place my stolen treasures.

I thought I checked to see if the way was clear in the pitch black, with minimal light from sources too far away.

I didn’t take into account I would have a lurker in the shadows, waiting for me in advance.

“I wake up. I can’t sleep. I pray to Blood Raven Queen Apostis. She says to wait here. ~And I find you.”

Fell.

I hear him before I can even comprehend him.

I’m on my knees, trying to pull out the shelf to hide my sword with my daggers—but before I can be successful, I am intercepted by him and his words of faith.

Fell snatches my hair.

“NO!” I scream out for help as he hauls me up in the dark. I lose my grip on the sword, and I’m forced to face the piece of shit who tortured the slaves at every possible hour.

“It’s been a while since I had my way with you, love.” Fell holds me entrapped against the rock with one hand on my exposed stomach. “What makes you think you can do whatever you like?”

His one main trigger: disobedience.

I shudder with his spit that flings with his violent words from his pale blue mouth.

“I’m sorry,” I beg, as I know this rage in Fell is only expelled when he is in the mood to do heavy damage.

“Hiding weapons is punishable by death.” Fell smiles.

“Death,” I whisper as I suddenly calm down and my nostrils flare with the scent of night.

Fell keeps me still as he leans down to pick up the weapon I’ve dropped at my feet.

As I watch him lower for a moment, with one hand shoved between my legs, I look down the dark corridor, abandoned with my cries for help.

Except for one shadow getting closer in the dark.

“That’s right,” Fell straightens with the weapon in hand as he observes the fine detail in the handle. “Where the hell did you get this treasure, you stupid slut? Love?”

Fell brings it up to my throat, but it doesn’t come an inch too close, or in any proximity for that matter.

As he’s completely dwarfed by Devorex now behind him.

Fell’s wrist is taken, and the sharp edge is bent and forced backward into his own throat.

Slash.

A spill of blood as the sword drops between me and Fell, into my shaking hand, while his fresh blood pours over my arms and chest.

Devorex holds Fell up by the hair on his head, opening the wound wider by wrenching his head back.

I hear the tendons and bones crack in his neck while I stare past the gore to the man committing the murder.

Devorex is focused on me as he ends Fell.

“Butterfly.” Devorex’s voice is so soft, like warm and dying embers, as his black eyes drink me in, standing so small between him and the Bloodstone burning my skin along my back.

“You would have preferred his treatment of you.” He kicks aside Fell’s useless carcass and reaches for my throat now that I am vulnerable to him.

But I swing up.

I’m not waiting for my second death.

His sword that dropped from Fell was now hidden in my palm within the night, and I stab it up toward his throat—while Devorex snatches the blade before it touches his neck.

But it does cut through his hand.

I try to push it through deeper, gritting my teeth as I use all my strength.

I fail to budge it any farther, and now his hand bleeds onto my hand. My arm.

And his blood is black like the night—and hot. Like lava.

I feel it burn my skin on my arm as it drips farther to my elbow, and I hiss out from the unexpected pain of his lifeblood.

“Ungrateful slave. I just saved your life, and your gift to me is attempted murder.” Devorex leans in until our foreheads touch, and his eyes hold mine.

“Why does your breath smell like that?” I gasp the question, confused by his alluring scent. And the fact I almost wish I could kiss him again. Although now is not the time.

I smell like nothing. Devorex speaks through my mind, almost confused.

“And how can you do that?” I refer to his words through my mind.

“Let go of the sword, Hazel.” Devorex’s hiss is dark over me, worming its way into my ears, as I keep trying to pull it out of his grasp on the blade.

I let go eventually with the stubborn and pissed-off command from his tone. I drop my hands to my sides and surrender. Now, I just look up to meet his rage as he eats me with his glare.

“You’re coming with me... my butterfly.” His eyes stay on mine, consuming me.

“No,” I whisper immediately. “I’ll scream for help.” And I warn him, “There will be soldiers here eventually, and you’re not one of Astro’s allies. You’re ~wanted.”~

I guess this, simply trying to buy time.

“It wasn’t a question.” Devorex smiles then doesn’t give me a second to think any longer.

Because he pulls back, only for his forehead to collide back with mine. Hard.

My head falls back, and my fingers lose their grip on the second weapon I was trying to pull from the rocks.

The only thing I know is the blow to my head is not lethal.

I’m not dead.

But I’m not so sure being alive counts as much better for what’s about to happen next.