Azar turns and looks at the dragons, watching. "Nothing," he says after a moment. "It's not her. Take her back to her rooms." His gaze focuses on me. "You. Come forward."
"Azar," Melina complains, moving to his side. "You can't do this—"
"Can't I?" He ignores her when she reaches for his arm. "They are willing participants in my program. They eat my food and sleep under my roof. They belong to me." He glares at her. "Just as you belong to me."
"Fuck you," she says, giving him a shove of indignation. "And fuck all of this. You're being ridiculous."
Azar continues to glare in my direction. "Well, girl? I'm waiting."
I really, really don't want to be slapped. I take a hesitant step forward, though, because the guards are eyeing me. It feels as if I'm going to my own execution. Trembling, I take another step forward. The lord of Fort Dallas lifts his hand, as if waiting to strike me—
My head suddenly swims with pain. A hot, bright light flares behind my eyes and I press a hand to my forehead, fighting at the ice pick stabbing through my skull.
Bent over, I vaguely hear Azar crying out. Wind rips at the air and people scream. I look up to see a dragon—the scarred one, I knew it was the scarred one—taking to the air. He bellows in anger, and I realize he wants to kill everyone in the street.
Everyone.
I sink to my knees in the mud and people scatter, screaming. The guards and girls race for shelter, even as the dragon beats its wings, a trapped bird in a cage. Nearby, Azar flings a hand in the air, his entire body taut, as if wrestling with an unknown force.
The dragon twists in the air, bellows once, and then flings himself onto the nearest building. It collapses in a crash of rusted metal. More people scream in horror.
"That's the one," Azar says in a triumphant voice. "Grab her."
Guards move close by. No one touches me.
"My lord," one of the men says. "I thought our instructions were—"
"Grab her," Azar shouts.
Rough hands grab me by the arms even as my head feels as if it's cracking open. I'm hauled away, spots swimming before my eyes.
7
JENNY
I fade in and out. Pain lances through my brain, sending shockwaves of agony rippling through my mind. It's like my skull has been cleaved open and I squeeze my eyes shut so it doesn't leak out of my eye sockets. I'm barely aware of where I am, only that tight, pinching hands have me by the arms and are dragging me through a building. There's a smell of candles and then something hard and heavy and metal clasps around my ankle.
I'm dropped to the hard, concrete floor and left alone.
I groan, flopping onto my back, and press the heel of my palm against my throbbing head.
"That's his fault, you know."
"Mmm, what?" I squint, trying to focus, to make out my surroundings. Mostly I just want to go to sleep and not wake up until my head stops hurting.
I see a vague, pale figure in candlelight. Lord Azar. He's sitting in a plush red velvet chair with wooden legs—an absurd antique-looking monstrosity that seems out of place in the building we're in. It's an empty warehouse of sorts, with a concrete floor that smells vaguely of old gasoline and dust. There’s an enormous hole at the far end of the ceiling, showing the stars. Other than that, the place is empty. The only things here are me, Azar, and the candelabra next to his chair.
"Your head," Azar explains in a chatty, casual voice, as if we're buddies now. "He's trying to reach out to you. I can feel it. He's fighting my control and trying to connect to you at the same time. Most humans don't feel anything at all when drakoni reach out to them. The fact that you do makes you special. It's interesting."
Special. Great. I curl up on my side, my mouth filling with saliva as my head pounds. "Can you…tell him to stop? He's killing me."
"Actually, he's not." Azar's voice is matter-of-fact. "And he won't stop. After all, he's been doing it on the sly, hasn't he? And you didn't tell me a thing. That makes me rather angry." He still sounds personable. Pleasant. "I thought the rules of my program were very clear, and yet all of you aren't happy. That one fool wishes to steal away a perfectly good female and marry her, and now here you are, stealing a dragon that's already under control. Why do I even bother? I should let the abyss take all of you, but I do not envision myself as a king of scraps."
My head throbs again, and something wet trickles out of my nose. I touch it and glance at my fingers. I'm not surprised to see it's dark. Of course it's blood. The splitting headache makes sense now—my head's melting out of my nose. "I didn't know he was a dragon."