Chapter 16

16

Ow, ow, ow. The pain is not fun. Holy shit, what the fuck? What the actual fuck? They ripped—oh fuck me, they better not have broken the implant those motherfuckers!

I open my eyes, peering around the dimly lit prison cell I’ve been shoved into. It’s stone, underground, lit by a magma pool in the corner. Ok, the cell is round and there are no corners, but I’m designating that the corner. It’s a tiny little magma pool, bubbling as it releases toxic chemicals into the air. Fuck me. It smells like sulfur.

“I’m going to suffocate and die.”

At least I’m not cold. The stone under me is warm, and as I force myself to carefully sit up, I turn to take stock of my injury.

My leg hurts to move, and a few whimpers escape me as I bend my knee to get a grip on what those fuckers did to my leg. The prosthetic is supposed to breakaway if enough torque is applied to the leg, but it felt like they ripped it straight off, and I don’t know if that would trigger the breakaway mechanism.

“No, no, no, no—” I hiss as I get a look at the hole where the implant used to be. They tore the whole thing out. That rod was screwed into my bone all the way to my knee. I—I’m not going to be able to replace it. It’s ruined. They won’t be able to do that for me again.

I blink as tears blind me and suck in a wet breath, choking on a sob. Grief grips me at the loss of my limb. You don’t know how attached you are to something until it’s gone. I haven't even had my implant that long. I had to finish growing before they would implant the rod.

“Fuck!” I scream, suddenly filled with fiery fury. “ KARMA IS COMING FOR YOU! ” I scream at the fuckers who did this to me. I don’t know where they are or if they can hear me, but Darcy’s coming, I know he is, and he’s going to make them pay for this.

“Karma’s a bitch, and he’s not going to let me rot in here.”

My eyes swing to the metal door locking me in here. Well, I assume it’s locked. It’d be stupid if it’s not. But… I should probably check.

I crawl from my spot on the ground over to the door. It hurts to move my wounded limb, but I keep going until I reach the door. There isn’t a handle, but I push on it, and the damn thing creaks open. It’s hot to the touch, but my surprise at the open swing of it stops me from registering the heat. I poke my head out of the opening. A long dark corridor greets me with a series of shut and locked metal doors. They all have bars across them, demarcated with sigils that mean nothing to me. Seems like a numbering system of some kind—that’s just my best guess.

Crawling on the stone floor is going to tear my knees up, but I’m not sure hopping along is a good solution either. Bare foot and stone floor will probably lead to some bruises, cuts, and other things I don’t want happening. Plus, as much as it hurts to crawl on a leg with a broken bone, it would hurt more to jar it with hopping.

“Fuck you guys so much for this,” I hiss at the fuck faces that did this to me.

Rage ignites inside me, a thing bigger than myself. It’s its own being, a wholeass person vibrating with violence in my chest. It’s been a long time since I felt this person made of wrath inside me. The last time was the day my sister came home with a busted lip and a black eye and a report that a classmate had attacked her on the way home. I don’t remember that day well, but I do remember that the classmate spent a few weeks in the hospital after he put bruises on my sister because on the way home he was attacked by a bear or something.

I take a deep breath to calm the anger, but the oxygen just feeds the flames. Every breath fans them higher, making them hotter, brighter—a roar of fury builds in my throat, and I pull myself upright, standing on my foot, balancing with a hand on the wall.

An itch under my skin starts from the middle of my back, spreading outward, and I release the roar, screaming as my entire body is engulfed in the flames of my rage. My vision blurs, the darkness becomes brighter, less colorful, and I fall onto my hands as my entire body jerks and twists, bones reform, reshape, break and heal. My face changes shape as fire ignites all over my body.

At the end of the transformation, I shake out a body lit from within by the fires of the magma spires, shedding excess flame all over the floor.

I remember now. I beat the shit out of that kid who hurt my sister because I’m a motherfucking dragon. I forgot in my human skin, but my dragon remembers everything. I remember who I am, who I’ve been, and everything important that has ever happened to every ancestor dragon of mine. Genetic memory, and mine goes back into ancient history when the spires of obsidian were new and dragons hadn’t stopped dancing with each other in their glittering lights.

A deep growl rumbles through me. I don’t belong beneath the surface; my home is above with the lava floes that carve out canyons, among the spires of hardened obsidian created by the eruptions of magma from the underground lakes where my brethren are spawned.

I step forward on my forelimb, digging my diamond claws into the stone with a flex of my hand. My tail swishes, a sign of my pleasure at watching the stone crumble under the force of a simple flex of my hand. My tail thumps on the door of the cell where I’d been put, the door slams into the frame, and the noise causes me to swivel my head to see. I hit it again and the door shudders, falling through into the cell.

Eager to see that again, I thump my tail against the door opposite mine, hard enough that it collapses inward with one strike. A grunt from within draws my attention, and I swivel my head to look inside the cell, finding an emaciated demonspawn sitting in the middle of a room filled with filth. As I eye him, more filth falls onto him from above, fanning the flames of my fury into a white-hot inferno.

Using my tail for balance, I rise onto my back foot, clawing at the ceiling above me. My digging claws turn stone to pebbles and dust. Easily, with the strength of a million years of evolution, I tunnel through the ground toward the surface where my enemies wander, unaware of the coming firestorm.

It takes me little time to break through a tiled floor into a courtyard filled with demons stomping in formations with melee weapons in their hands. They freeze at the sight of me, and I bark a laugh, crawling out of the hole.

“ DRAGON!! ”

I bark more laughter, spitting fire over the demons who dared put me below the surface.

“ WHO THE FUCK PUT A DRAGON IN THE DUNGEON? ”

I recognize that voice. That’s the demon that ordered me imprisoned.

I swivel my neck to find the owner of that voice, a human form demon with horns that have been filed down to nubs, black hair, and dark brown skin. He looks up at me with blue eyes and open fear. I know him. He rode on the back of one of my ancestors before we freed ourselves from slavery.

Adam, the first husband of Lilith, the former queen of Hell.

Hanging on the gallows behind him are all of Lilith’s sons… except one. The youngest is missing from the line up. Good for him.

A blast of fire erupts from me, turning the courtyard into a fireball of flames hot enough to melt the skin off of a demon. I run at Adam, reaching him in a blink, and bite both his legs off. He screams, and I chew them up right in front of him while he watches with abject terror in his eyes. Don’t want him reattaching these limbs. Maybe next time he steals someone’s prosthetic he’ll be a little more careful about it.

“Oh Peach, look at you.”

Another voice I recognize.

I spit the pulp of flesh out of my mouth, turning to the tiny man standing on an array covered in blood. It’s not one that he would have made. It’s carved into the stone of the courtyard. He’s naked, displaying a body covered in the gashes left behind after a cruel whipping. I recognize the pattern of those strikes, and without remorse, I stomp on Adam, crushing him like I would so much stone. He hurt my… I’m not sure what the possessiveness running through me is.

Darcy laughs, reaching out a hand, and I lower my head to it, basking in the touch of a djinn. Oh, he’s more precious than that—fire-dancer, hedge witch, and djinn. He smells like the wet leaves on a forest floor of Fae and the lava floes of Hell mixed with the aromatic scent of incense burning in the campfires on the frozen mountains of Purgory, the realm that stands between Hell and Fae. This man was born of the three realms.

His touch ignites the hope of eternity in me. I sense the twisting of our fates, how our lives which had once been separate are now twining together. We were born for each other, and the warmth of that assurance spreads out from where his hand touches to me every extremity.

Ah, that explains the possessiveness. He’s mine.

“Yer beautiful, Peach. I had no idea you’d be able to shift, but you did. Pretty one, ain’tcha. These stupid fucks shoulda listened to me; I’m fuckin’ giddy that they din’t. Let’s git outta here, baby. You’re gon’ burn up if we don’t git ya fed. C’mon, lemme up. Let’s go dancing in the spires.”

His praise heats me further, but with pleasure rather than fury. I grind Adam’s soft belly into the dust for good measure before lowering my neck for Darcy to climb on. He swings up, sitting between my neck and the shoulders, and I run, hobbled only slightly by the missing foot of my back leg. I jump over the wall of the courtyard, pointing my snout toward the spires that birthed my kind, and lope along the surface, carrying the most important man alive with me.