Blood Oath (Darkest Drae #1)(37)

The urgency in his voice spurred me to standing. “Al’right. But why? It’s not my fault.”

“I know,” Ty said. “But I can’t predict how Jotun will react. I’ve never heard of anything like this. Who knows what he’ll do.”

Drak. He was right. I stared at the garden, hating what I had to do to stay alive here. Gripping the corn stalk, I ripped it up.

The barley was next, and the rest of the sunflower stem, then the moss. But the moss clung to the rock and resulted in bleeding knuckles and torn feet from doing my best to scrape it away.

“Someone’s coming. Under your bed,” Ty urged. “Put it under your bed.”

“Who is it?” I hissed, heart pounding because I hadn’t heard the door open. My hands grew slick with trepidation. Please be Tyr . . . please be Tyr.

A cold voice answered me from the front of my cell. “Who would you like it to be?”

A sense of doom sank into me as I turned, hands full of leaves and stems, to face Lord Irrik.

I’d never seen him truly angry before. As I backed away from where he stood radiating fury on the other side of the bars, it astonished me that there was a more terrorizing level to this man than I’d encountered before.

“They just appeared,” I blurted.

His eyes were slits—he’d partly shifted to Drae—and he studied me with his reptilian eyes. “What have you done?”

My chest rose and fell as I hyperventilated. As he unlocked the door and entered my cell, I dropped the plants, and clasped my hands together. “Please, it wasn’t me. I have no idea what happened.”

“No idea?” he asked, his lip curling in a sneer.

The door clanged open down the hall, and Irrik’s eyes widened. He grabbed me in an iron grip and threw me from the cell. I rolled across the stones of the outside passage, crying out as my hip struck solid rock.

The Drae was on me in a beat, gripping me by the back of the neck. He directed me past a few empty cells before he shoved me forward to the ground and snarled to someone over my head, “Make it good.”

Gingerly getting to my knees, I tilted my head to look at Jotun.



“Why do you help me, Tyr?” I slurred.

He wiped the tear trickling down my cheek then bent over me and kissed my forehead in answer. I felt the warmth of his feelings for me radiating from his tender touch.

“That doesn’t tell me anything,” I complained as he lifted one of my arms.

A wry smile showed under his hood, but it was tight and lacking in humor. I must be a sight, so I could hardly blame him. Jotun had taken Lord Irrik’s command to heart. By now, I’d learned Jotun obeyed all the king’s orders, except when it came to Irrik-related matters. The mute guard seemed to hold an all-consuming hatred towards the Drae. I had no idea why. Maybe Jotun was jealous of him. More likely, there was politicking I’d missed while in the torture chamber. One thing I did know: Jotun’s deep-set grudge did not bode well as long as he believed Lord Irrik favoured me because that made me an Irrik-related matter.

Games. Always games.

I groaned as Tyr reset my dislocated shoulder, and then I asked, “How long will I live?”

My question was rhetorical, directed to the universe that allowed such atrocities to occur, not the man caring for me.

When Jotun dragged me down here, I never expected to live longer than a week, and I couldn’t bear the thought of this abuse going on endlessly. The game between Lord Irrik and the king surely couldn’t continue much longer. Soon, the king would realize I was worthless to him. . . If he even recalled he’d put me down here.

Either way, I was dead. It may take a week or a month or a year, but I was dead.

Maybe it would be better if Tyr stopped healing me, if the healing only put off the inevitable. How much could one body take before it simply failed?

Tyr paused, and I realized I must’ve said at least part of this aloud. As I looked around, I saw the room was now back to its stony, plant-free self. Too little, too late. I hoped the plants didn’t come again.

A drop landed on my arm, and I startled, glancing up at Tyr’s hooded face. His strong jawline wasn’t clean shaven, not like it usually was, and his full lips were twisted as if trying to contain . . . A tear trickled from his cheek to his chin and then dripped.

“Tyr,” I whispered.

He was crying. For me.

My heart squeezed, and my throat clogged with emotion. He held one of my hands gingerly, stroking his thumb over my palm. Instead of pulling it up to his face, he brought his face to my hand.

Ryn, he thought, full lips pressed together. I’m going to get you out of here. I swear. Please hold on.





16





I’ll get you out of here. I swear . . .

The words tumbled over and over in my head, even after I fell into an unquiet slumber. At some point in my dreaming state, my learned terror twisted the errant hope I’d felt at Tyr’s promise, morphing it into a nightmare of fear and pain.

Hours later, I stared at the low stone ceiling, heart thundering in the aftermath of a horrific dream I couldn’t recall. I took deep breaths, closing my eyes to the dreadful reality that was my living nightmare.

Tyr was going to get me out. I’d be free from Jotun, free from Irrik, and free from Irdelron. I dug my torn nails into my palms and tried to imagine what my life could be like if that happened. I tried to picture what that would mean, but there was a solid barrier in the way of that dream— cold fury.