Forbidden Honor (Dragon Royals #1)(63)

Given that the monster seemed to see me as its next dinner course, I had no choice but to strike first, even though I couldn’t shift. The longer I stayed down here, the more I’d get worn out from staying on the move, and the lower my chances were of surviving when the creature and I inevitably met face to face.

I snuck up behind the beast. It turned just as I reached it, nostrils flaring as if it could sense that I was close. Maybe it could smell me now. Maybe it could smell the moving carcass but either way, the monster whirled.

It snarled, lashing out with a long dangerous set of claws. I danced back, keeping my footing despite the damp stone underfoot.

Okay, this thing and I were definitely not going to be friends. And that was helpful. That meant I could kill it without guilt.

I slipped under the claws and drove my knife up into its throat. It let out a desperate squeal and slashed toward me, but I moved swiftly out of the way.

The knife came free and blood ran down my hands making the hilt slick. But I’d practiced for this. I’d gone to the kind of really fancy boarding school where they coat your hands in olive oil and make you practice your stabby-stab.

I had the knife free in my hand as the monster lunged at me. I danced back but its claws glanced off my abdomen. My skin tore, blood splattering across us both. But nothing could stop me now.

I managed to slip underneath the attacking claws and jumped up since the thing was bigger than me, slapping one arm onto its shoulder and hoisting myself so that I could slash open its throat.

The air filled with the scent of blood and the horrifying but promising odor of bowels releasing.

I jumped free as the thing landed hard on its knees.

It made a desperate sobbing sound that reminded me that it had been human once before it fell over. My stomach wrenched as I stumbled away, careful to watch my back in case it came back to life.

The putrid stench of its bowels and of the dead animal rotting around my shoulders combined, and I threw up over and over again until my throat was raw.

As I wiped my mouth on my bare shoulder, I tasted coppery blood in the back of my throat.

In that moment, I wanted the guys to pay, for them to suffer as much as I had in these tunnels. Though I wasn’t convinced that any of them would feel anything about killing a monster.

I got up shakily, my legs wobbly underneath me.

Now that I’d survived, the letdown of adrenaline was so intense my muscles ached and exhaustion flooded my body.

I retraced my steps to make sure that the monster was still lying there, then lit flame in my hands to examine its body. As I leaned over, I couldn’t help but feel like at any moment, it would come back to life to attack me. But nothing happened.

I was alive.

It was dead.

Simple math. So why did I feel so stricken?

How had this monster become trapped, torn between its shifted self and human self?

How long had it been here?

Had this been some kind of hazing ritual the guys had all been through? Had they all faced some kind of monster in these tunnels and survived? I had so many questions.

But I didn’t trust any of those bastards to give me answers.

Jaik’s stupidly handsome face, Talisyn’s easy smile—both rose in my mind. I even thought of Lynx picking spiderweb off Arren, and the longing that had risen inside me to be one of them.

I wouldn’t be so stupid again.





Honor



I still had to figure out how to escape. When I retraced my steps to where I’d been before, the doors were as unyielding as ever. The steady rush of water still trickled beyond the walls.

Fighting the Scourge with Talisyn almost seemed like a pleasant memory now. At the time, I hadn’t felt crushingly alone.

Now I’d never feel safe around the dragon royals again.

None of them would care, but it still felt like a loss to me. I’d been fooling myself to think that any of the Royals gave a damn about me, in either of my forms. If Lucien Finn couldn’t trust them, how could Honor?

The dragon royals were heroes. But they weren’t good men. And they’d never be my friends.

As I listened to the water running, an idea occurred to me—a crazy one. The conduit to the city water was obviously just on the other side of the wall. The noise was louder in some places than others. I could barely hear it when I was close to the doors. But further down, it was so loud it seemed as if there was the thinnest of barriers between where I stood and the lines of the city water, which made me wonder, could I reach those lines?

“This is probably a bad idea,” I muttered to myself, because I was apparently steadily losing my mind.

But I couldn’t let the dragon royals win.

I wanted the chance to surprise the bastards. Maybe I’d be able to tell from their faces if they’d been confident I could defeat the monster. There was a definite possibility they’d sentenced me to death for whatever Lucien had done to Alina. And while Talisyn and I had joked about my death in our banter before, I no longer found that very funny.

My sense of terror simmered white hot at being trapped again. What if there were more monsters? Something deep inside me seemed to squirm, a primal fear that had mutated into a shadow within me when I was just a child.

I ran my hand over the stone wall, trying to force the same icy chill over my heart that Jaik seemed to exude, until I found the thinnest place.

Please work this time.