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A pronunciation guide for this world can be located from the Contents page.
“Elora. You have been summoned.”
Still laughing at her lopsided lumps of clay, Elora turned from the table of girls she was chuckling with and looked behind her. It was Dayatha, one of the main stewards. “By who?”
Dayatha’s expression was strange. “Master.”
Elora sobered and her friends around the table quickly quietened. Master Nyro hadn’t summoned any servants like her in months—he hadn’t needed to. “What does he want with me?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Dayatha said, beckoning her to follow as she turned to leave the room.
Elora didn’t move.
Her friends glanced at each other, their expressions echoing her confusion. Even though most of them entered the lair to be Master Nyro’s bed companion, Elora hadn’t met him yet. Apart from seeing him around the lair a few times, Elora had never been in the same vicinity as him.
“Let’s go, Elora,” Dayatha called.
Elora slowly got up, her confusion morphing into concern. What did he want her for? “Is he…?” She swallowed and started again. “Am I…?”
Dayatha stepped toward her. “Elora,” she said, her voice softer. “It is unlikely to be anything terrible, but we cannot keep him waiting.”
Elora nodded and forced herself to follow Dayatha out of the crafting room.
They made their way through the corridors of the lair to the nearest washroom so she could wash the clay from her hands, before continuing down the corridors. The lair had been forged inside an enormous mountain, and it had many corridors and rooms to house Master Nyro’s staff, even a beautiful garden area and a temple for the Seven Goddesses.
They passed the sleeping lounge that served as the communal sleeping area for the multiple women who had entered the lair to be one of Nyro’s kon’aya, the old language name for those who served as bed companions to the dragorai. The sleeping lounge was where Elora felt most safe and relaxed. Maybe it was because she had her own little private nook carved into the wall, or maybe it was because everyone treated the sleeping lounge with respect; there were no excited noises or loud sounds or even frantic sex, which took place frequently all over the lair. Everyone respected the sleeping lounge, and made sure it was quiet and… peaceful. A word she never thought she would experience after being raised among the merciless streets of the North Cities.
As they walked Elora’s nerves calmed. Dayatha was right. Whatever Master wanted, it wouldn’t be terrible—he was too scarily obsessed with his mate I’mya to want Elora—at least for the service she’d come to the lair for. It had to be something else.
Several sloped corridors took them higher up the mountain than she’d been before. Dayatha slowed outside a wide door and turned to Elora. “Ready?”
Elora smiled and nodded before Dayatha turned and led her inside.
It was Master Nyro’s private chambers she entered. Furnished more intricately than any other room, the wealth of the dragorai was displayed without reservation. The thick woven rugs, striking paintings, and beautifully made shelves and chests that occupied the room were a display of wealth that Elora had never seen, and of course, the wall that should have spanned the length of the room was missing, similar to the sleeping lounge. It offered a view of Master’s white and grey mountain range far into the distance. It was hard to believe that beyond such a peaceful scene were the brutal war-torn lands of the realm where she’d lived all her life until only a few months ago.
Master stood by the side of the room open to the wide expanse of the mountains. Tall, thick, and broad, his size was typical of a dragorai male. They were bigger and more ferocious than other alphas, and their counterpart dragons with whom they’d been bonded to at birth were also wilder than other dragons. When Elora first arrived, she’d been deathly afraid of meeting Master Nyro, and even more nervous of bedding him, and looking at him now, she knew she may not have survived it. I’mya, one of the girls she met on her first day, had taken that burden, though it turned out so differently than anyone expected. Elora was relieved to see I’mya sitting over by the bed, her eyes squinted in a frown at a Dao board, staring at the pieces and trying to decide her next move. But when Dayatha and Elora entered, I’mya glanced up and then stood slowly, surprise on her face.
Master turned to Elora and Dayatha, addressing them in his native tongue, a powerful language so old it was no longer understood by the common person.
“Master appreciates that we came quickly to his summons,” Dayatha translated.
Elora nodded and smiled, glancing at I’mya as she did.
It wasn’t a good sign that I’mya looked confused. “Did you summon them here, Nyro?” she asked.
Master nodded.
“Why?”
Master responded to her in his language and I’mya frowned but said nothing as he directed another question at Elora.
“Master asks,” Dayatha said turning to her, “if you know why the Forbidden Mountains have that name?”
Elora nodded. The Forbidden Mountains was the region that Master and his brothers, the last remaining clan of the dragorai, now resided. They had each claimed a mountain range of their own. “Umm… yes,” she said.
“Why?” Dayatha translated.
Elora took a breath before she spoke, wondering if this was some kind of test. “To prevent people from trespassing on your territories. And also to protect yourselves.”
The dragorai’s mountain ranges sat in between two continents called the Twin Realms which was also separated by the sea. But each dragorai was very protective of his territory.
“Good,” Dayatha said, translating for Master. “It means that if someone is found on our territories, their fate belongs to us. We can induct them into our lair, we can hunt them, we can do whatever we wish to them. They belong to us.”
Elora nodded. “It helps keep people away when they know they could suffer that fate.”
Master smiled. “I’m glad you are familiar with it. My trackers tell me that when you arrived to the meeting point to be brought here, you crossed through another dragorai’s territory.”
Elora froze, her face turning cold. No.
Dayatha continued before she even had time to digest what had been said. “He is demanding that you be returned to him since you were on his territory first.”
Elora opened her mouth to defend herself but there was nothing she could say. It was true. She’d made the decision to hike across another dragorai’s range, and she’d just explained that she knew the rules.
“Does that mean she has to leave our lair?” I’mya’s breath was halted.
Master responded in his language and Dayatha did not translate, but he must have said yes because I’mya asked. “Whose lair?”
“Zendyor’s.”
Terror slammed into Elora at the name. No. Not him… Any brother but him. I’mya looked as though she might try to argue against it, but Elora knew there was no possibility of escaping the decision. She had trespassed and she couldn’t deny it. Elora didn’t want I’mya to be at odds with her mate about something that she should take responsibility for.