Chapter 22 - Lily

I climb into bed as a discontented sigh escapes my lips. I’ve never been as disheartened as I feel today. And not because I haven’t been trying to get back into the routine of my ordinary life.

But no matter what I do, I just can’t seem to forget him.

He, whose name shall not be mentioned, plagues my thoughts and haunts my restless nights. When I finally do fall asleep, it always ends with me falling into the clutches of those godforsaken dreams and fantasies again.

I hate it!

Blowing a breath through puckered lips, I lift the quilt over my head as if that will help me fall asleep without him on my mind. Though I’ve sworn never to say or think his name, his face still pops up unexpectedly.

He just won’t leave me alone. Which is why I’m so reluctant to fall asleep. I’ll only end up waking with tears in my eyes. Tears he doesn’t deserve me to shed. After all, he’s the one who threw me back into the real world.

And I’d been having fun in his. Like the fantasies in my imagination and those I often wrote or journaled about, I’d experienced it in a matter of two weeks.

Two measly weeks, and now I have to face the world again. It’s an adjustment I’ve struggled to make, even with Violet’s help. I notice the way she stares at me or frowns when I’m forgetful. It’s like my sister can tell that something has changed in me.

There’s no one to talk to about it. Visiting college yesterday, Samantha hadn’t been in the dorm. It’s not like my expectations were high, but a part of me hoped that I’d get to see her. Even for a brief chat, to tell her that the man from the bar was as real as they come.

“Good night, Lils!” Violet calls from the small gap in my door.

“Good night, Violet,” I greet back tersely, hesitantly keeping my mouth open and deliberating how to say what I need to.

I throw the quilt off my face, eyes flitting to the door. But when I don’t find Violet standing there, I press my lips into a firm line.

I probably wouldn’t have said a word, anyway. Closing my eyes and turning my cheek onto the pillow, I sigh to release my stress for the day. When sleep washes over me, I don’t resist like I have been for the past three nights. Instead, I allow it to claim me.

***

I’m flying through the air, the wind blowing through my hair and tangling it in knots. Something doesn’t feel right at all.

I know I’m not dreaming. Neither does this feel like the time Draco had me in his arms, whisking me back home while I remained asleep.

Now, an unfamiliar figures cold, coarse scales keep me in its clutches. My eyes snap open just as my heart drops, and a scream lodges in my throat.

“Let. Go. Of. Me!” I yell, writhing and wrestling against the gray dragon with onyx crystals guarding its shoulders. It growls back at me, the heat of its fire-breath hazing my vision.

No… No…

Trying to hang onto my awareness, my fists knock into the rubberized chest of the foreign dragon. But resistance proves futile as the looming effects of its vile breath knock me out.

***

As scaly and unwelcoming as the arms of the dragon that carried me had been, I wake up to harsh coldness under me.

Groaning as I open my eyes, I’m met with almost the same cloud of darkness that had been behind my eyelids.

Palms feeling around me, I realize that I’m lying on a concrete floor. It’s no wonder my bones ache, tormented by the cold slab beneath me. I blink my eyes rapidly in an attempt to adjust them to the darkness. I can spot a semblance of light flickering in the distance toward my right.

But I can’t quite make out where it’s coming from. Perhaps a window, which could only mean my surroundings are vast, the walls far from me.

“Hello?” I call out, my voice echoing faintly between the large expanse of whatever this place is. Lifting my head, a crack of my neck has a similar sound effect, bouncing off the faraway walls.

My aching bones croak as I lift myself into a seated position. Using the slight adjustment to the darkness, I’m able to strain my eyes as I feel around me. More stone concrete beds on the ground under me. So I begin crawling forward until I feel the smoothness of cold metal.

It’s a bar across the floor. One that holds up more bars in front of my face. I can only catch the dull shine of the metal as I wrap my hands around them and lift myself onto my feet.

“Hello?” I call out louder this time, my voice knocking around the space like a marble in an empty can.

An abrupt and harsh clinking of keys in the distance rings out. My heart begins to race with nervous anticipation as hinges squeak to open a door. Light from the doorway floods a gray stone flight of stairs. Just stairs without rails.

I see a booted footstep over the threshold before a ring of keys gets waved in the air. With a flick of a switch on the wall behind the door, my surroundings are shrouded with blinding light.

I shield my eyes and blink into my arm to readjust them to the light. When I remove my arm from my face, my belly churns from the sight of the icky yellow light. I’m also aware that I’m being held in a dungeon of some kind. Where other empty prison cells line the wall, the floor is made of chipped concrete.

“Ah…” comes a gravelly male voice from the stairs.

My attention is drawn there just as the man’s menacing footsteps resound in the dungeon.

“You’re awake!” He sounds delighted—something that has my tummy churning with nausea. When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he turns to me with a huge grin. Yellowing teeth cause bile to rise in my throat.

I’m so close to throwing up when his murky stench surrounds the air I’m forced to breathe.

“Who are you?” I blurt instead.

The man cups his chin as he regards me intently, drawing attention to the graying stubble on his face. Though I’d been carried here by a dragon—of which I’m certain—the man in front of me doesn’t appear to be a dragon shifter.

After all, the dragon shifters are immortal. They don’t age in human form. Not the way this burly man has seemed to age. Still, the gut-wrenching scent permeating from his presence indicates that he isn’t human.

“Who I am doesn’t really matter around here,” he chuckles, stepping closer to the cell.

I take a step back, dropping my arms on either side of me. Lifting my chin defiantly, I feel not fear but rather disgust.

“But if it matters to you, then I suppose we can make an exception.”

I gulp down the bile that rises when he wiggles his unkempt brows at me. Shivering on the disgust that rakes down my spine, I fight the urge to roll my eyes.

It’s more important that I find out where I am. Why I’m here.

“Where am I?” I ask straightforwardly, taking the man by surprise as he loses the ghastly grin on his face.

“You’re in a dungeon.”

“Where?” I ask more firmly this time, narrowing my eyes at him.

The vile man scoffs. “You’re on an island off the east coast of Asia.”

“A dragon island?” I ask, remembering that a total of four dragon clans exist across the world. One in each corner of the map.

“So you really are the dragon’s human slut, aren’t you?” He raises a brow; one corner of his mouth tilting with sadistic humor. “It’s a good thing they have me watching you, then.”

“You should watch your back, then,” I counter, my lips curling in a cynical smile. “My dragon master doesn’t like me speaking to other men.”

The man’s sudden intake of breath betrays him. Even though he glares at me, I can feel the fear pulsing off him when he realizes the magnitude of my words. Perhaps he doesn’t know much, but he knows enough.

Like the fact that I’m Draco’s human.

I can work with that, even if I’m surprised at myself for being courageous enough to bite back.

The man steps forward, dropping his head and glaring at me through hooded eyes. “Watch how you speak to me, slut…” he spits venomously. “I’m the only thing standing between you and what’s out there.” He points over his shoulder. “And if you have any chance of surviving in here, you’re gonna be respectful.”

He takes a step back, snarling as he removes a snack bar from his pocket. He throws it on the ground inside my cell before turning and marching off.

I flinch only from the sound of the door slamming when he’s out of the dungeon. Staring down at the snack bar he’d thrown on the floor, I snicker. It’s a control tactic; I know that much. I can recognize it as if my defenses have suddenly kicked in.

An innate ability to discern danger when I see it. It wasn’t present when Draco kidnapped me to Aurora Island. I frowned as I reached for the only food offered to me, realizing the stark difference between what I felt when I was on the Aurora Dragons island.

And as I settle my rear on the cold, harsh floor, I wonder if I’ll ever see Draco again. I don’t know why I’m here, and I doubt Draco even knows I’m here at all.