Blood.
The bitch stabbed me with an iron pin.
I reach for the daggers stuffed in my bandolier, finding both empty, looking up in the same instant she tosses them in the fire, too.
My lungs squeeze so tight I’m certain they’re about to collapse as all the blood drains from my face, realization kicking me in the gut.
She’s been hunting me. The bitch has been fucking hunting me.
I stumble toward the door, clawing at the spot where the handle’s supposed to be, but all that’s there is a fucking hole I shove my fingers down, whipping them away when they slice against something sharp.
Razors.
The cunt.
My bulging eyes threaten to burst from my sockets as I bash the door with my bloody fist.
The air displaces to my right, and something smashes against my temple, a burst of sharp pain pitching through my skull—
Gone.
The Other straddles Rekk Zharos while studying him with overt curiosity, wondering where she should start. Which part of him she should burn first.
Difficult decision, given there’s so much of him to play with. And an entire slumber to have her fun.
The tips of her fingers tingle with bloodlusting anticipation …
She reaches for his left wrist, making sure the bind is as well secured to him as it is to the palletpost, then repeats the process with his other hand and both feet, all the while musing over the silence inside her. Not even a flicker of presence seeping up.
The one she loves did not fall easily into the watery den. She battled and slashed, kicked and screamed, then only went still and quiet once The Other packed her in a tomb of ice.
To protect her.
This Rekk must suffer a similar fate to the one he bestowed upon his dragon, something her precious Raeve would’ve struggled with. Much as she acts fierce and impervious to pain, it’s mostly because she tosses the hurtful things down to gather like tombstones within The Other’s den.
The Other understands loss, death, and pain differently from Raeve, who is but a hatchling in her eyes. But Raeve will grow. Adapt. Embrace, and therefore conquer—if she is open to it.
But first …
The Other slaps Rekk’s cheek, probably a little too hard considering the way his head cracks to the side so fast his neck almost snaps and ruins all the fun.
He groans, opening his eyes—blue like the glaciers in The Shade. A nostalgic color that doesn’t fit in his vile face.
No matter. She will scoop them out and rid him of them before the end.
His pupils tighten, his face turning a sickly shade of gray.
A sharp smile stretches across The Other’s face.
Rekk thrashes, lifting his hips, trying to buck her off, bellowing, “Hoar heg!” over and over again.
She can’t be certain, but she wonders if he’s trying to say “You’re dead” through the material she stuffed in his mouth.
The Other chuffs.
Strictly speaking, he’s not incorrect.
She pushes off and sways toward the fire with animalistic grace, gripping the end of a stoker roasting in the flames, poking at embers that glint off her black, glitter-kissed eyes. She pulls it out, the space alive with Rekk’s panicked grunting sounds as he jerks and wrestles against his restraints.
Then he stills, eyes widening on the sharp tip of the metal tool blazing with a hot, radiant beat.
She prowls toward him in long-legged strides. “You know, I saw what you did to that Moonplume,” she muses, climbing onto the pallet again. “I heard how she wailed.” She brings the poker’s fiery tip to his left eye, sizzling the ends of his lashes, lacing the air with the potent musk of burning hair.
His bloodshot eyes water.
The Other clicks her tongue, whipping the weapon away. “No, you protected her eyes, didn’t you? That was nice.”
A small mercy that was not bestowed upon herself many cycles ago.
“I’ll deal with them in a different way.”
She drops the blazing poker to his naked chest and draws a jagged line.
Rekk screams, his muffled cries of pain turning to whittled whimpers, his tendons taut and risen. He begins to tremble beneath her—the room packing so full of the smell of roasted flesh that The Other realizes how hungry she is. Not that she intends to eat him.
No.
Raeve was quite repulsed when she learned The Other had chewed off this male’s finger, leading The Other to spend some time pondering whether or not she should be more considerate with the way she uses her host’s pliant, precious body.
Eating this Rekk is probably a step too far. Unfortunate, considering how delicious his fried flesh smells—