“The key! Use the key!” He cried out. I couldn’t; my hands were tangled in the chains and pressed flush against my body. His eyes widened when he saw Severn dangling over the edge, then his face hardened with resolve. Thad grunted and pulled back, pulling the chain taut again. We stayed there for several minutes, until Severn’s struggling ceased from the other end. Thad cautiously hauled the chain back until the body appeared, bruised and bloody. Severn didn’t die easily; I would see his grotesque face in my nightmares for years to come.

Then Severn groaned, and I realized the nightmare wasn’t over.

“Thad get the key. It’s down my breast band.”

Thad’s eyes widened, and it would have been funny if the situation hadn’t been so horrific.

“Thad!”

He shut his eyes and stuck his hand down my breasts, his body trembling. White magick shot from Severn’s hand, hitting me in my calf. I screamed as the white-hot pain hit me, and Severn gathered it, healing his neck tendon by tendon. His bloodshot gaze turned to Thad.

“I can’t get it, I can’t—”

Thad was shaking too hard, his body trembling uncontrollably. I resisted the urge to cry in frustration. A seizure now? Severn giggled deliriously, blood dripping from his mouth. He pointed at Thad, taking in his seizure with insane chuckles. The chain went slack enough he was able to laugh, though the sound was so rough and damaged you could barely call it that. Thad’s chest shook behind me, his hands balled tightly into fists in a vain attempt to control his body. He stubbornly held onto me and the chains, refusing to let go. Refusing to let Severn pull me down.

“What are you sacrificing these children to? Why?”

A rough cough escaped Severn, but his throat was too mauled to speak. With a lurch he threw himself back into the pit, and the chains were yanked out of Thad’s hands. I screamed as I tumbled towards the hole, trapped by the chains as I desperately clawed back towards Thad’s hands. His fingertips just grazed mine, missing as he roared in despair. I fell towards the white light, towards the raging hunger that reached out to embrace me. My wings were pinned down, and I was falling, falling.

I screeched out a second distress call, expecting to fall to my death or be consumed by whatever was waiting at the bottom. I didn’t expect to hear an answering roar, shaking the cavern’s walls as the sound was altogether foreign yet familiar. I certainly didn’t expect to see obsidian scales flash before me, with matching wings as dark as the night. The draken dove into the hole after me, black limbs wrapping around me slicing through the chains with razor sharp claws. He shifted, and I howled in agony as every nerve in my body lit on fire. We reappeared back in the cavern, on the opposite end from the pit.

The massive draken standing over me would give Benedict a run for his money, his shoulders wide and muscles quivering. The madness of an unmated draken was in his eyes, and instinctually my body screamed at me to run. But I was hurt and the babies needed attention. Severn was dead. Thoughts came and went through my head, but only one thing would stick, playing on repeat over and over again as it was the only thing that made sense; the only thought I could think.