Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“Come out. Now. Girl first. If I have to say it again, we will come in full force.” Drako tries to act serious to reclaim some kind of gravitas. I am doing more damage to his reputation from inside this cave than I bet anybody has done to him in years. Maybe decades.
“Don’t act like you know how to come in anything with that little cock,” I shout back.
“Selene!” Drako yells, losing his temper and his patience at the same time. “Out here. Now.”
“Fine. I’m coming. Just don’t hurt Thor. Promise you won’t be mean.”
“Little girl, I am always mean. Come out. Now!”
“Wish me luck,” I say, beginning to shuffle out of the cave. I know Thor wants to protect me, but all that will happen if he goes out first is he will probably be killed where he stands.
I am well aware that what I do next will determine whether or not either one of us survives.
I creep into the light of day and find Drako standing in front of the cave in full Vikar regalia. He is wearing tall boots that come to his knee, black and fur-lined. His leggings are likewise black, probably leather, and there is a long coat that covers them almost all the way to the boots. That coat is also black and fur-lined, but cinched enough that it makes the most of his broad shoulders and powerful waist. He towers above me, his long dark hair tied back in a braid, his beard likewise tamed. His glinting blue eyes regard me with cold triumph.
He reaches for me and drags me toward him, one hand at my collar.
“You think that was funny?” he says calmly. “You are going to pay for that disrespect.”
And that is when I stab him.
He didn’t suspect a knife. Didn’t think I’d have any ability to defend myself. He assumed I’d come out of that cave as useless and passive as he always imagined me to be. That was a mistake he will not soon recover from. The knife goes into the space where his neck, his shoulder, and his heart all meet. It pierces his ribcage and probably splinters a rib on the way in.
He drops me and I fall to the ground, spattered in an arc of his blood. It is warm, and the warmth is pleasant for many reasons.
His men move quickly. Two train weapons on me, bayonets in my face. The need to affix a blade to a gun has always fascinated me. I always thought it was stupid and redundant. Now I get it. They’re very intimidating.
“Leave her!” Drako says. “Arrest her, but don’t hurt her.”
“She stabbed you.”
“Hardly. Barely. I am fine,” he says, lying. His face is pale. Probably shock, but it’s also possible I hit something important. I hope I did. I hope it hurts like fucking hell.
“I’m not going to let this little thing think she has the ability to affect me,” he mutters to his men. “I’m fine.”
One of his subordinates tries to talk some sense into him. “She’s done some damage, sir. It’s going to need medical attention.”
“Obviously. She fucking stabbed me,” Drako deadpans.
The knife is still in him, because all these soldiers have done their first aid courses and know better than to try to retrieve an object in the body. That should always be done by medical personnel in a sterile and controllable situation.
“We need to get back to the ship. Call the shuttle. Get the man out of the hole and make damn sure he’s not armed,” Drako says, as if the fact he didn’t check to see if I was armed was also somehow their failing.
I am then put under arrest, Thor is taken out of our camp hole, and we are both put on a shuttle bound for the Vikar mothership. Drako was going to spend the whole time gloating and maybe monologuing, but he sits down in a chair very carefully and avoids eye contact with me for the duration of the very short voyage. It would be funny, if not for the fact that our lives are genuinely very much at risk. He might kill Thor in retaliation.
When we reach the mothership, we are separated. Drako goes off to have his stab wound looked at, and Thor and I are taken to different places. I don’t know where they take him. Me, I end up in a small bedroom. It’s not a cell. It has too many furnishings for that. It’s also not Drako’s quarters, because it’s only slightly larger than a shoebox.
I get a little sleep, because I am fucking exhausted, so one way or another, it is not all that long before Drako comes to see me. He has more color in his cheeks, and he has been patched up.
“Looks like you’re going to live,” I say upon seeing him. “What a pity.”