“Y-you said—”
“And you opened your legs, just like I wanted. Now, open your eyes, Bren. There’s nothing here for you. No one.”
“But you said youlovedme—”
“You’re a fucking lowborn farm girl and I’m aFuryknight.”His face turned red, the veins on his forehead popping as he grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Go home and hang yourself in the barn for all I care, just don’tevercome back here!”
“You bastard!”The words hissed through my clenched teeth without my permission, but it broke the spell I’d been under.
“Better than being a little whore.” Then Ruin’s eyes widened and helaughed.My jaw went slack and my insides shriveled as he chuckled, “No, wait. You’ve been fuckingRuined.”
He howled as my heart tore. Heedless of anything but the churning pain he’d caused, I lashed out, slapping his face so hard the crack echoed through the trees.
He grunted and froze. No longer laughing, he glared at me, his face turning red again.
“You littlebitch!”
Fast as a whip-crack his hands shot straight for my throat. I screamed and shrank, tried to turn, stumbled one step, and fell on my ass in the dirt. My stomach sparkled with pain and my teeth closed on my tongue. With a small cry, I looked up at him, pleading. I only needed—
“Go!”Ruin roared. His beautiful, full lips peeled back from his teeth and his hands balled to fists at his sides as he towered over me. My eyes widened as I looked at those fists, shaking. I knew under those leathers his forearms popped with veins, the lines I’d so admired as a testament to his strength—and my pleasure—now heralds of my death.
Ruin could snap me in two and leave me here and no one would be the wiser. I was too weak to stop him.
“I said, GO!”
I panicked, scrambling off the forest floor and pushing myself into a stumbling run as his voice echoed in the trees behind me.
If he took hold of me here in the dark, with the noise of the crowd and the dragons below…
If he chose, he could crush my body as easily as his contempt crushed my heart.
Those hands, so much larger than mine—big enough to hold my head like a fruit. Those arms and thighs, strengthened and trained by hours on dragonback, that had lifted and carried me against that broad chest—hot steel under warm, soft skin… But the steel that had once been my protection now turned against me as a weapon.
I ran faster.
“Get the hell out of here and don’t come back!” he snarled, his feet pounding on the dirt behind me. “Nobody wants you here. Get the fuck out!”
I tripped on a tree root, arms pinwheeling, sobbing as my body screamed in pain, but I caught my weight on my fingertips and ran on.
“Keep running!” he snarled from behind me, his footsteps finally slowing. “Don’t ever show your face near me again. Do you hear me, Bren?” He fell further and further behind, his voice echoing in the trees around me, haunting me.
“I don’t want you, Bren. I don’t want you. I don’t love you. AndI never did!”
2. Salvation
SOUNDTRACK:Without Youby Audiomachine
~ BREN ~
Twenty minutes later, lurching, panting, sweating, my belly burning with pain, I stumbled upon the dirt road that linked the city to the Palace grounds and the Dragon Keep. I’d been mindless, running in fear and pain and unable to think beyond putting as much space between myself and Ruin’s hands as possible. But when I saw those two, rutted lines in the clear strip of land between the forest and the rise on the other side, I staggered to a halt, chest heaving and my sight blurred with tears.
Where could I go?
I couldn’t go home. I pushed away the echoing memories of my father’s fury—even darker than Ruin’s had been—and looked for an alternative.
The intersection before me was suddenly a symbol of the rest of my life. My blood ran cold.
I could be a servant.
