Dragon of Darkness

Chapter 6

Spaco's POV

The warmth didn’t leave the room when Howan stepped inside, although I was convinced it should’ve. Men like him usually dragged the cold in with them like mud on their boots. But Tara’s kitchen stayed stubbornly bright. The hearth crackled. The kettle hissed softly. The smell of porridge and bread lingered in the air, thick and comforting.

Even the cow in the little stall beside the shed had gone quiet again, as if she’d decided I wasn’t going to eat anyone today. Howan, however, kept staring at me as if I might. His eyes flicked to Mira’s hand still in mine.

Then to Tara.

Then back to me--- and that was when I decided...

I didn’t like him!

I didn’t like the way his gaze tracked me, measured me, weighed me. I didn’t like the way his jaw tightened every time Mira leaned closer, or when Tara’s voice softened when she spoke to me. And I especially didn’t like the way he stood between me and the door like he was reminding me that I was still a stranger in this house.

It was getting on my nerves!

I could feel it in my chest—the old, animal part of me that didn’t tolerate other males near what it had decided was mine.

Mine to protect...

Mine to keep safe!

It wasn’t jealousy - not exactly, anyway. It was something deeper. Something I didn’t have words for. Something that made my skin prickle and my fingers curl slightly against Mira’s smaller hand...

Howan spoke again, voice low.

“So,” he said, “you’re telling me you escaped Jasper’s cages alone.”

I didn’t answer - mostly because Tara did.

“Yes,” she said simply.

“And you brought him here?!” Howan growled between clenched teeth, but Tara didn’t flinch.

“Yes!”

The silence stretched - Howan looking ready to throttle the woman, and Tara happily ignoring the man.

I was happy with that...

Mira, sensing tension in the air the way children always did, slid closer to her mother. Tara rested a hand on her hair without looking down, like she’d done it a thousand times.

Howan’s eyes never left me.

“You don’t know what he is,” he said, switching over to a language that I didn't even know I knew. However, I kept that to myself...

The words weren’t loud, but they were heavy. I felt Tara’s posture change, just slightly—her shoulders lifting, her spine straightening. She was small compared to him, but there was something in her that didn’t bend.

“I know what he is,” she replied, and for a brief moment, her eyes met mine. Something passed between us. Something that was silent, yet impossibly loud.

Then she looked back at Howan.

“He’s someone who needed help,” she said. “And someone who didn’t hurt Mira when he could have.”

Howan’s jaw clenched as he mumbled something about being naive.

I wanted to hit him!

I could’ve told him I didn’t need his approval. That if I wanted to hurt them, the porridge and bread wouldn’t have mattered. That his thick arms wouldn’t have mattered either.

But I didn’t want to make things harder for Tara. This house was hers. She’d made it with her hands. With patience. With care. With a stubborn kind of love that refused to die even in a world full of war and kings and men like Jasper.

I didn’t want to see it wrecked...

Besides, I had patience in spades. I'd get my chance to wring his neck...

“Food… very good,” I said, and forced myself to smile a little. “Tara… you cook… best.”

Howan blinked, as if he hadn’t expected that. Tara, however, froze. Her cheeks flushed, just faintly, like heat had climbed up from her throat. Her eyes flicked down to the table and then back to me, and for a second her breath caught.

I saw it!

The way her world tilted...

She tried to hide it, but I saw it anyway. Her wariness was still there—careful and sharp, like a knife kept close. She didn’t trust easily. She couldn’t. Not with the kind of danger circling her life. Not with a war that could swallow her whole. Not with a stranger in her home—one who didn’t quite look human, who didn’t speak right, who carried the smell of blood and iron and something wild.

And yet…

Her eyes softened in a way that made my chest ache. It was as if her heart had sung a note she didn’t mean to make. And something in me had answered.

I didn’t understand it.

But I felt it...

It was the same strange pull I’d felt when Mira laughed. The same warmth that had settled in my bones when Tara had handed me bread. The same calm that came over me when she stood between me and the world and said, I know what he is.

I watched her swallow, watched her try to steady herself...

Howan noticed too. He didn’t know what it was, but he saw the shift. The softness. The way Tara looked at me like she was seeing something dangerous and beautiful at the same time. His expression darkened.

He didn’t like it...

Good!

But I kept my face calm. I kept my voice low. I kept my hands open. Tara cleared her throat and turned back to the table as if she needed something to do with her fingers.

“Well,” she said, voice slightly too bright, “if the food is that good, you should eat more before it goes cold.”

She moved around me to reach the bread basket. As she passed, her shoulder brushed mine.

It was barely anything.

A feather-touch...

But it sent a slow heat through my chest.

I stood very still. Tara returned to my side with something folded over her arm.

My wings!

They were darker than any cloth. Not fabric, not leather. Something between. They were mended as best as she could manage—stitched where they’d been torn, cleaned where they’d been crusted with blood. The holes were still there, but smaller. Less ugly.

Less broken...

“Here,” she said softly and held them out to me. I reached for them, carefully, and my fingers brushed hers.

For a heartbeat, neither of us moved.

Her eyes lifted to mine, and the room seemed to quiet around us. Even Howan stopped breathing for a second. Even Mira went still.

Something in Tara’s gaze made my throat tighten.

Like she could see the real me... and wasn’t afraid at all...

Then she blinked, as if waking from a dream, and stepped back.

“Thank you,” I said, swallowing hard.

The words felt too small. I wanted to say more. Wanted to tell her she’d done something no one had done for me in years. Wanted to tell her that the gentleness in her hands felt like a wound closing.

But my tongue didn’t have the language.

So I took the cloak and held it close, wrapping it around my shoulders and fusing it to my body.

Mine again...

Tara’s fingers lingered on the edge of it for a second longer than necessary. Howan’s gaze sharpened like a blade.

I ignored him!

I didn’t care what he thought.

Not when Tara was standing so close I could smell her—soap, smoke, and something softer beneath. Something that made my chest feel full. Not when Mira was watching me with bright eyes, as if I were already part of her story. Not when, for the first time in so long, I didn’t feel like an animal in a cage.

I felt… home.

I looked at Tara. She met my gaze again, and I felt it—clear as a command, clear as instinct.

She was mine to protect!

Her and Mira...

I didn’t understand why. I only knew it was true.

And then—

Pain!

It struck so suddenly I almost dropped the cloak.

A sharp throb behind my eyes.

A spike in my skull.

I froze.

For a second, I told myself it was nothing. That it was hunger. Exhaustion. Old wounds. But the pain surged again, deeper this time, like someone had driven a nail through my brain.

My vision blurred.

The warmth of the kitchen faltered. The sounds of the room—Tara’s voice, Mira’s breathing, the crackle of the fire—drew away as if the world had stepped back.

Then I heard it...

A sound so distant it could’ve been imagination.

A low, haunting note.

A horn.

My horn.

My stomach dropped so hard it felt like I was falling.

No!

No no no—!

The pain flared, and I gripped the edge of the table so hard the wood creaked. Every muscle in my body tensed. My breath turned ragged.

Tara’s face changed instantly.

“Spaco?” she asked, alarmed. Howan’s hand moved—subtle, protective—toward her. Ready to act...

The horn sounded again.

Closer.

Stronger...

And with it came fire in my nerves.

Pure agony!

It raced through me like lightning, setting every fiber of my body alight. It felt like my bones were being pulled apart. Like my blood was boiling. Like my skin was trying to tear free of itself.

My head throbbed like a bell struck again and again.

I tasted metal.

I couldn’t think.

I couldn’t breathe...

And in the middle of it, through the haze of pain, I heard a him.

Hannes!

His voice slid through me, and cold ran down my spine.

I’d heard it before.

So many times.

Every time Jasper wanted me to kill. Every time Jasper wanted me to burn villages and tear soldiers apart and leave nothing but blood and screaming behind. Hannes would lift that cursed horn to his lips, and the sound would carve through my mind until there was nothing left but obedience. Sooner or later, the pain always became unbearable.

And sooner or later---

I always did what it demanded...

I jerked upright so fast the bench toppled behind me.

Tara reached out instinctively.

“Spaco—wait—”

I stumbled back, clutching my head.

The horn blared again, and I nearly screamed.

I couldn’t stay here.

Not here!

Not in her home.

Not with Mira watching.

Not with Tara’s hands so close...

I forced the words out through clenched teeth.

“Sorry,” I rasped. “I… go.”

“Spaco!” Tara called, panic rising in her voice.

But I was already moving. I shoved the door open and ran into the cold. The air hit me like a slap. Snow stung my face. My bare feet sank into frozen earth, but I barely felt it. Pain drowned everything.

Behind me, I heard Tara call my name again.

I didn’t stop.

I couldn’t.

The horn sounded once more, and the world tilted. I staggered, nearly falling, then forced myself onward.

Run.

Run until it stops.

Run until you can’t hear it.

Run until you can think.

I ran past the little sheds, past the fences, past the sleeping village. Dogs barked in the distance. A lantern flickered somewhere, briefly, then vanished as someone shut a shutter.

I ran into the forest.

The trees swallowed me whole. Branches clawed at my skin. Snow dusted my hair. The world became dark trunks and sharp air and the endless throb in my skull.

The horn chased me between the trees like a predator.

It was inside my bones now.

Inside my teeth.

Inside my breath.

I could hear Hannes’ voice threaded through it, low and pleased, like he knew exactly what he was doing to me.

Like he was laughing.

My vision went white around the edges.

My hands shook.

My stomach churned.

Every nerve in my body felt like it had been set on fire.

I slammed a fist into a tree trunk, hard enough to make bark explode beneath my knuckles, but the pain in my hand was nothing compared to the pain in my head.

I couldn’t think.

I couldn’t shift.

I couldn’t fight.

I could only run.

And I did.

I ran until the horn began to fade.

Until the sound grew thinner.

Until it finally—

Finally—

Stopped.

Silence dropped over the forest like a blanket.

I staggered forward a few more steps, then collapsed to my knees in the snow. My breath came in broken gasps. My body trembled violently.

My head still throbbed, but the fire in my nerves began to retreat, leaving me hollow and shaking. I swallowed hard, tasting blood. For a moment, I just knelt there, hands pressed to the snow, trying to remember how to breathe.

Trying to remember that I was free.

Trying to remember that Tara’s kitchen had been real.

That Mira’s laugh had been real.

That warmth had existed.

Then—

A scream.

It cut through the trees like a knife.

High.

Sharp.

Terrified.

A child.

My blood turned to ice.

Mira!