Warriors of Wind and Ash (Merciless Dragons #2)

Immediately Rahzien returns, detaches my manacles from the wall, picks up the lantern, and motions for me to follow him.

A little way down the hall there’s a rank-smelling privy, featuring a battered wooden toilet with metal pipes leading into the wall. A few rags lie near the toilet. There’s no door.

Rahzien stands in the hall, watching me enter the privy.

“Could you turn around?” I ask.

“Say, ‘Turn around please, Master.’”

I grit my teeth, and through them I mutter, “Turn around, please, Master.”

He turns his back, and he doesn’t look my way until I’ve finished with everything. It’s difficult to clean myself with my hands shackled, but I manage it.

For a second I consider fleeing down the hallway, but before I can make a move, the King grabs the back of my neck in his giant hand, steers me along the corridor, and shoves me back into my cell. He grabs the chain between my wrists and lifts it high, as if he’s going to attach it to the wall again.

“Wait, please! Could I be allowed to sit?” I ask. “And may I have some water?”

He waits.

Fuck him, fuck him, fuck… He wants me to call him “master” again. What the hell am I doing? Why am I going along with this? I’ve been in his presence for less than an hour and I’m already caving to his wishes. It’s weak, it’s shameful. I should be stronger than this.

“You have to let me go.” I lift my chin, straighten my spine, and try to look bold, but instead I wince and nearly cry out at the pain twitching through my muscles. I hold back the whimper and force myself to speak as steadily as I can. “I was stolen from the Prince of Dragons. He’ll come to fetch me, and he’ll make sure you rue the day that you took what’s his.”

“You think he’ll come to fetch you?” Rahzien yanks my arms up and attaches the chain to the wall again. “What makes you believe that?”

“He—” I hesitate, reluctant to reveal Kyreagan’s affection for me. “The dragon prince is very possessive. To him I’m a war prize, a valuable object. Part of his hoard. He will view this as the deepest insult.” My voice thins and a cough barks through my dry, scratchy throat. “I need water.”

“You are a war prize. A valuable object.”

I frown. “Yes… that’s what I said.”

“You were his pet, and now you’re mine.”

“No—”

“You are my pet. You do as you’re told. When you do as you’re told, you receive good things.”

I hate every word he just said, but I bite back a caustic response. Deep inside me resonates a warning, an instinct that being saucy will not have the same effect on Rahzien that it did on Kyreagan. From the day we met, I had a sense of Kyreagan’s nobility, his reluctance to hurt me. I sense nothing of the kind from the King of Vohrain. In fact, when he’s this close to me, my very bones tighten and my skin breaks into goosebumps, as if my body is silently screaming to get away from him.

“We can avoid further conflict,” I say hoarsely. “You once promised to be lenient to my mother and me, if we surrendered. And though she refused to give in, I would have yielded for the sake of my people, if I’d had any authority to do so. We can come to an arrangement that spares you from Kyreagan’s wrath and ensures a peaceful transition of power.”

A peaceful transition… until I can persuade the Southern Kingdoms to help me overthrow this bastard.

“Interesting.” The King stares at me, and another chill rushes along my spine because I’ve never seen eyes like his. There’s a flatness to his stare, an impenetrable cruelty. His voice rises and falls like anyone else’s, but it’s almost as if he’s forcing the cadence, as if beneath his normal human tones there lies a blank monotone—the true timbre of his voice.

“You would yield to me for the sake of your people,” he says. “I wonder if they would do the same? Would they obey me, if it meant sparing you pain?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You are beloved among the citizens of Elekstan, in a way your mother never was. Perhaps you are not aware of their affection for you. I personally don’t understand it. You seem rather soft and simple to me. You weren’t made to rule or to think, only to open your sloppy mouth for cock.”

His hand drops to his belt, and I shut my mouth tight.

He notices the clench of my jaws and smiles a little. “I thought you wanted a drink.”

I shake my head.

“I’ll make you a deal. Repeat these words five times, and you may have some water.” He doesn’t touch me, just keeps staring into my eyes with that soulless expression. “You are my pet. You do as you’re told. When you do as you’re told, you receive good things. Say it.”