House of Dragons (Royal Houses 1)

Not again.

“Please no,” she whispered.

But the man didn’t even balk at her whispered words. He just came for her. His first hit was clean, right to her temple. Her vision blurred and wavered. Everything swam. The second knocked into her stomach, and the air whooshed out of her lungs.

She coughed and sputtered, spitting blood on the floor.

“Rahllins,” a man said, stepping in the room and momentarily halting the beating.

“You dare interrupt!”

“It’s just that the delivery to Black House was interrupted.”

Black House. Kerrigan swallowed down blood, just thinking about the name of the haunted mansion. What could possibly be delivered there?

Clare growled. “You stay here and work on the interrogation. I’ll deal with them.”

Clare stormed from the room, ignoring Fordham’s shouts of protest. The weasel-faced man stepped inside. For a moment, Kerrigan thought he might be better than having Clare, the vicious snake, but she was wrong.

“Now, why did the Society send you?” he asked, dragging over a stool and staring between the two. “Why is the Society taking an interest in our weapons? What member is in charge of this?”

“We don’t work for the Society,” Fordham ground out. “We tried to tell you that already.”

“Begin,” the man said, pointing at Kerrigan. “Perhaps watching her suffer will loosen your tongue.”

“She has nothing to do with this,” Fordham cried.

His gray eyes found hers, pleading with her to say something, to end this. But what could they say? They were telling the truth. She could rat out Dozan, but that wouldn’t save them. Dozan and Clare were enemies on a good day. And today was not a good day.

The next blow cracked across her jaw and then back the other way. She retreated hard within herself as pain exploded across her body. Over and over and over again.

Fordham was yelling something, but her ears were ringing. She couldn’t make out what he was saying. The man was hitting her. Using her pain to try to get Fordham to talk, but Kerrigan wasn’t here any longer. She burrowed deep within herself, losing her sense of identity and her sense of time and her sense of space. She vanished into that nothingness, where there was no pain or fear or torture. A place she hadn’t gone to since that night five years ago when she had her first vision. Just like…

* * *

Kerrigan’s green eyes glittered with excitement. For the first time ever, a human had just won the dragon tournament. Cyrene had won! Her success was a huge victory for humans and half-Fae alike, even more so for the cause.

Parades littered the streets. People chanted Cyrene’s name. They called her a saint. Kerrigan had tried to convince her friends to join her in celebration. It wasn’t every day that you got to witness history. But Darby’s parents were in town, Hadrian didn’t like crowds, and Lyam had been sent to do chores for his last indiscretion. They’d all agreed she shouldn’t go out alone, not after the Erewa bombing in the arena, but she couldn’t just sit there when the whole world was celebrating Cyrene’s victory.

She felt a certain thrill that she knew the human champion. That she had met her and spoken with her and confided in her for the month that she was here. She likely would never see her again, but still, she had met Cyrene Strohm of Doma!

Kerrigan turned down an empty alleyway, heading toward the Square. She wore her favorite white dress and a pink cloak. Bright colors to match the vibrant festivities.

Then a man stepped into the alleyway. Huge with a menacing air about him and sharply pointed ears. Full-blooded Fae.

“Hello there, pretty,” he crooned.

Her steps faltered and then stopped. “Hello,” she whispered, the fear creeping into her voice.

She took a step back, prepared to run, but when she turned, there were more of them. More Fae, not all male, but every one of them made her skin crawl to escape.

“What’s a leatha doing out here, all alone, on a night like this?” the first male addressed her.

She flinched. Leatha. What a horrid word. How dare he call her that!

“I’m just… heading to the parade. If you’ll let me pass…”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the man said.

“Please, I don’t have any money.”

The man stepped forward, pressing his chest against hers. She was only twelve, but she knew to be afraid. Afraid of what he could do to her, afraid of how he could hurt her. She drew her magic in sharp and tight to her chest. She knew she had power, but against this many?

“We don’t want money from a leatha,” he growled, running a finger down her cheek.

The people behind him laughed and cheered and egged him on. She couldn’t hear what they were saying. She could only smell the rank breath of the man and see his dark eyes, almost black, and the abject anger in them. As if she were an affront to him for simply having been born.