Captive Dragon – Book Tour and Giveaway

Chapter One

Storm

I was dying.

The ache in my bones made me restless, but I lacked the strength to move. Pain, deep and throbbing, paralyzed my limbs. The tear in my wing stung, sharp and unrelenting, but it didn’t rival the burning in my eye.

I shivered against the growing chill in my limbs. Dragon’s bane was relentless. Only time remained before the poison quenched my internal fire. And then my heart would stop beating.

In the meantime, I endured the delusions that dragon’s bane forced on my mind, memories, nightmares. Recollections of long-dead and newly dead friends. Scenarios, both fictional and real, played out in my mind’s eye, twisting and turning so that every situation turned toxic. Hate, anger, and bitter regret churned through my being. I groaned deep in my chest and longed for the coming end. Anything to stop this torture.

As I drifted in and out of consciousness, fighting to maintain vigilance until the end, the sound of a plaintive whine cut through my tortured thoughts. I cracked my good eye open.

“Beggar.” My voice vibrated painfully in my throat.

The dark-brown dog with floppy ears sitting in my line of sight brightened up. He hopped onto all four of his paws and shook himself. A cloud of dirt and grit exploded from his coat.

I closed my eyes again, too tired to care.

The dog nudged my talons. I slit my eye open again. His thick brown tail whipped back and forth as he watched me. He was a solid creature, though surprisingly agile. He whimpered and did a strange backward shuffle as though encouraging me to follow him.

“No.” My lungs ached, irritated by the poison that I had accidentally breathed in the day before when I incinerated the foolish fae that attacked me. Or had it been mere hours ago? I found I didn’t care. My head throbbed.

With a bark, Beggar bounced on his two front paws and then glanced over his shoulder before he whined and turned in a tight circle.

My eyelid dragged downward as my ability to fight the poison ebbed. The acidic scent of dragon’s bane filled my senses in a rush, yet another sign the poison was permeating deeper into my body. “Go,” I told the dog.

At least he could escape.

“He can’t. They are guarding the door.” The sound of soft footfalls announced the invader far too late. My hearing must’ve been affected as well. I had missed her arrival. The voice sounded feminine.

I drew in a sharp breath and lifted my head. No metallic scent meant she carried no metal weapon and wore no armor. Still, that didn’t mean she was unarmed. I blinked through the film blurring my one good eye. Despite my best efforts, it refused to focus.

She was a slender, pale-faced blur carrying a lantern of some kind in the darkness of my makeshift refuge. “Have you come to kill me?”

“No.” She bent down and scratched the dog behind the ears. He leaned eagerly against her legs and then pranced around, desperate for more affection, foolish creature.

The female ignored the begging dog and approached. “I wish to heal you.”

I huffed in disbelief, producing a pathetic cloud of smoke. My fire was cooling faster than I expected.

“What happened to your eye?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Another dragon’s claw.”

“And your wing?”

I tucked both of my wings closer to my torso. My pain intensified, but I ignored it. “Are you taking inventory for the butchers out there? Making sure I have all the essential parts so they can sell them off when I am dead?”

She grimaced before resuming her perusal. “If it is a rip, I don’t think I can heal it, but—” She peered up at my head as she walked around to my right side, out of my good eye’s range. “I think I can do something for your injured eyes, though.”

“They are more valuable as a matched set?”

She glared at me. I felt it more than saw it—a disconcerting sensation. My eyelids dragged down again. I gave in to the poison’s pull and dropped my head, resting my chin on the ground.

She moved around my snout with agitation in her tread. Had I been stronger, I would’ve reared back away from her. As it was, I didn’t even try. Instead, I forced my eye open. She pressed her palm to my snout.

“What are you doing?” I rasped out.

Healing you.