by Marcy Jacks
Sorin slumped against the bars. Lucian put his hands behind his back and slowly approached.
“Are you going to kill me?”
At this point, with everything he’d seen, he kind of wished the dragons would just get it over with.
Lucian stopped just an arm’s length away from the bars before dropping down to his haunches. Sorin barely looked at him, but he could see the way the dragon stared at him from the corner of his eye.
“Why help me?”
Sorin managed a weak shrug. “I don’t know. I’m tired, and you’re too bright. Go away.”
“Too bright?” Lucian chortled. “Says the vampire who was in the sun for a good ten minutes. I’m shocked you didn’t burst into flame or bleed out.”
So was Sorin.
And being in this cage was enough to make him want to cry. He was miserable, cold, and hungry, and he didn’t want to be teased. “Go away.”
Lucian, horrible person that he was, didn’t do as Sorin begged.
“Miles keeps saying what a nice guy you were to all the slaves. I guess one of the women up there who died…I’m sorry, but I think this one was special to you.”
“I saw Beth’s body,” he explained. “Go away.”
Again, Lucian didn’t do as he was told. Sorin hated that.
He hated that he was so helpless in here.
Lucian sighed, reached forward, and Sorin didn’t see the key in his hand until he was in the middle of unlocking the cage.
Sorin’s eyes popped wide. He scrambled desperately away from the bars until he was on the other side of his cage, but even that would do him no good if Lucian really wanted to reach in and yank him out.
Holy shit, maybe he really was going to kill him.
Lucian had the cage door open, and as he stared at Sorin with nothing between them, Sorin never felt such a thrill of terror before. He’d never wondered if he was experiencing the last seconds of his life.
“All right, come on,” Lucian said, motioning with his head for Sorin to get out. “I’m going to be watching over you. Any blood you drink will come from me, and no one else. Understand?”
His brown eyes hardened like his rock scales at those words, and Sorin still didn’t understand.
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“I mean that you need to get your ass out of that cage before I drag you out. I don’t have any patience for this, and you’re lucky I’m doing this for you anyway.”
“Wait, what’s happening?”
“You’re being let out of the cage. I’m going to watch over you, very strictly,” Lucian said. “One wrong move and I’ll throw you out into the sun myself.”
Sorin laughed nervously. “Well then, all right. How did you get stuck with this job?” he asked, though his mouth watered when Lucian bit his wrist until he winced and it bled, and he used it to lure Sorin out of his cage, like a man offering fresh meat to a frightened, stray dog.
And like the little beggar that he was, Sorin went to him.
“I didn’t get stuck with it,” he grumbled as Sorin’s teeth latched on. He winced again as Sorin sucked back deep mouthfuls of a dragon’s blood for the first time. “I volunteered for it, to thank you for saving my life.”
THE END
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