Drayven's POV
We landed right before a massive gate and a crowd gathered before it.
The night air hit me first, cold and sharp, the wind tussling my hair. Then the noise followed. Shouts and cries from the crowd.
The crackle of collapsing stone was loud behind us.
The cave went down fast, the ground vibrating continuously, rumbling beneath us with a force near that of an earthquake.
Where once the mountain's mouth yawned like a wound in the earth, there was now only rubble and smoke, and a huge pile of jagged stone.
The magic that had trapped me in the cave for centuries bled from the ruins, thick and unstable, zinging the air.
Even if I could get dozens of mages to chain me back, I would still need a new prison. I looked around, over her head, over the crowd. All I saw after a large stretch of open dirt road were walls of stone buildings and towers reaching into the moonlight sky and blues of lamplight twinkling in the darkness like fireflies.
She broke from my grip, and that snapped my eyes back to her. She dropped back, and she pushed a curl of her hair back, bowing her head and looking away from the crowd.
I touched my fingers, staring down at my arm that had once held her to my body. For reasons I didn't understand, it felt like something had been taken away from me.
I looked past her to the crowd now, whose gazes were beginning to dig holes through us, and shouts were growing louder.
Lowborns were pressed to the back, midliners clutching each other at the center, while the highborn guards armed with staffs and steel formed a rigid line at the front.
Over three hundred years now, and still, humanity still clutched tight to their class systems. My lips curled with disgust. Pathetic.
They always thought they were better than each other and always created stupid distinctions between themselves when they were the same puny race.
I strode forward, moving with a power and aura that would force the mortals to bow.
Some of the guards held torches, which burned high. It illuminated the dark, terrified faces around, now twisted with terror and a bit of awe.
I felt fear slam into them like a physical force. Yeah. I stared into their eyes, watching their eyes jitter, restless, and I loved it, relished it. Fear. I feed on it. I took another step, charging the air with the magic swirling around me.
A murmur rippled through the crowd now, swelling into a roar.
"Dragon," someone yelled, terror making his voice quiver.
"Monster," another reiterated. "He must be the monster locked in the cave, the one that shouldn't be released."
"He'd destroyed the cave," another screamed. "He'd broken out."
"It's the end—"
Blame came easily to humans. Always had. I sneered as I strode closer, trying to find my way into their midst.
A Highborn stepped forward. He was dressed more neatly than the others. His staff blazing with pale blue magic, his hand outstretched, finger pointing at Astra and me. "That creature is going to bring calamity on us," he shouted. "And the girl—she started this. Seize her."
Seize her. The word scraped something ugly inside me. They wanted to seize my guide, my woman—No, not my woman. I corrected myself mentally, jaw clenching so hard it felt like I was lifting a million weights on my chin. She was just my guide, my fucking guide.
I swept her with a rather condescending sweep of my eyes. This puny, magicless woman just couldn't be...
I dragged my eyes away when my eyes began to move lower to forbidden zones again as if by default, tracing what seemed like sinuous curves beneath the dreary rags she wore.
"Yes, take her!" someone screamed from somewhere again, and before long it became a chant. "Seize her. Seize her." They all began screaming.
Immediately, a couple of highborn mages surged forward, steel by the belts, glinting from the bright silvery flush of moonlight that suffused the world.
That moment, I didn't think. I just reacted. It felt like something awakened in me, something beyond me, forcing me to protect her, save her.
The ground cracked beneath my feet as I charged, moving as a blur of fury and instinct. The first man never saw me—his body flew into the crowd, crushing down some of the Highborns and Midliners, before the rest parted. He flew back until he slammed into stone with bone-crushing force. Another swung a blade at Astra.
I crawled under it, and I caught the blade. The magic curled around it like a ring snapped off at the strength of my grip, and I snapped it in half. The man swung a punch at me with his free hand. The nerve, I grunted, disgust stringing itself to my face… a mere human swinging a punch at me.
I slapped his chest, and he staggered back a foot. Another sharp slap sliced the air, and that sent him flying into space, taking a large chunk of the crowd with him.
Magic struck my shoulder, from somewhere in the crowd.
I stung more from insult than pain. I blew off the cackling patch from my shoulders, and I turned, eyes blazing, unleashing a fraction of what I was.
The Highborn mage that threw the attack locked gazes with me and instantly fell back. When my gaze tightened harder on him. He threw himself into the crowd, crawling fast into their midst.
Magic zinged like blood in my veins. I huffed a dark grin, ready to charge into the crowd to pick up the idiot when I felt it.
It struck me as a sharp, blinding spike of terror—like whiplash in my gut. But the terror wasn't mine. It was hers—my guard, my woman…
Hell! I growled aloud. Why do I keep thinking of her like that?
I spun sharply to see that one of the men had broken through. A man with wild eyes and a rusted spear, was charging straight at Astra. She froze, rooted in place, fear stealing her breath.
The tug from my belly hardened just seeing her threatened, and it asked for blood, murder.
I fantasized a million ways to rip the bastard open as I moved fast to him. I hit him like a storm.
My hand closed around his throat instantly. I lifted him off the ground. Magic screamed through my veins, ancient and murderous. The world narrowed to red—blood. His blood—I longed to rip out the fragile beat of his pulse beneath my fingers.
I smiled, relishing as he struggled, pulling unsuccessfully at my fingers suffocating him.
Kill him. The tug from my guy pushed. Kill him. He threatened your guide, your…
My mind sharpened for murder, and I moved to snap his neck. One twist was all it took, and his puny human life would be gone.
And just before I could deliver the kill, her voice cut through me like a blade. "Drayven—stop!"