The Rise of Deragon (The Deragon Duology #2)

5

Pandora

B y the time I come to, I hear the faint rippling of seawater at the base of Honeycomb Harbor, which remains empty save for one, ominous ship.

The Hive never docks all at once, and with how many precarious whispers spoke of a targeted attack on the king and queen, the fleet is likely spread out across every territory Venus and Jericho have accumulated. Close enough to strike by water, cornering any escapees, but leaving the bulk of protection to the ground forces. Forces that this masked stranger—who I discover carrying me in his arms towards the lone vessel—seemed to evade with ease.

“You didn’t need to knock me out, you know,” I say under my breath when my vision fully restores.

He must’ve felt me stir awake because my words don’t jolt him. “You might’ve screamed,” he mutters gruffly.

But I’m not so sure that’s his true answer, because he looks at me with a bizarre sort of confusion. He’s literally taking me hostage right now, and yet, the first thing I dared to ask him about is why he felt the need to render me unconscious through tunnels I could’ve helped him navigate.

Then again, we’re out of the castle, aren’t we? He must know a great deal without my help.

His steps falter, and he sets me on my feet with a tenderness that makes my stomach lurch. “Alright, angel. We’ll try it your way. But the second you cry out, I will have no choice but to make you suffer. Understand?”

I nod my acceptance, and even though my captor has given me the independence to walk my way towards his boat, he still feels it necessary to set a gloved hand over the small of my back and guide me in his desired direction. It takes strength not to resist his touch just as much as it does not to lean into it. Saints damn me, but something about him feels eerily comforting. He’s a fugitive that feels almost like a kindred spirit somehow—and were it not for the leather covering his bare hand, I think I might have shivered beneath him.

“What’s your name?” I whisper into the wind.

The only sound between us is the tide, and when I clear my throat in an effort to get his attention, he merely shakes his head. “I heard you, angel.”

I’m rattled by the fact that my prisoner nickname is so . . . endearing—but I stay focused. “Who am I going to tell? The moon?”

He smirks at that. “Most people call me Madman.”

“ Madman —”

My captor pulls me close, one hand glued to my back as he hauls me towards him, the other covering my open mouth. Being this close to him . . . he smells like lumber and flames, and he sets my senses on fire in a way that deeply alarms me.

“What did I say about being loud?” he reminds me, his voice surprisingly gentle.

I find enough common sense to wrench his hand away. “I cannot possibly call you that.”

“Why not?” His eyes are still assessing our surroundings as we approach the gangway. “I traded Venus’s certain death for your capture. Seems mad to me.”

I don’t care to rehash the critical detail about why that is . . . because I fascinated him.

“I . . . I don’t wish to call you that.”

“But you will.”

“It seems unkind.”

“Careful, angel,” he taunts. “You may find that naming me something other than my worst intentions might have you forming an attachment to me.”

I narrow my eyes at him, holding my ground. “I’ll run the risk. You’re keeping me alive, after all. I see no point in being rude.”

“And what if I preferred that you call me by this name?” he challenges, crossing his arms to where they part his midnight cloak.

“You want me to call you Madman?”

He doesn’t answer, gesturing me to quickly and silently walk up the gangway, which can only mean one thing.

Someone has discovered my absence.

I scramble towards Madman with my head tucked down, but even hiding my face cannot prevent the whisper of a cry I hear coast through the air. I pretend not to notice, but Madman’s eyes narrow, assessing the source of the sound and how it could’ve crept up on him. I reach for him, hoping to draw him away from whoever it is, but he relents, and I dare to cast a passing glance over the docks.

“Pandora?” the figure calls out.

Oh Saints .

When my eyes see Ardian struggling to catch up to us, hands extended towards the distance between us as if he could pry me away from this fate, my heart plummets into my stomach.

“PANDORA!”

Ardian stumbles on uneven ground. I almost think I hear his kneecap crack on the stony path. He’s a harmless old man, and yet, I can feel rage rippling through Madman’s build.

“No!” I find myself gasping for air, knowing that his unexplainable leniency surely won’t extend to anyone beyond me, let alone towards someone attempting to liberate me from him. “ No , don’t hurt him—”

“It doesn’t work like that, angel,” he whispers sternly.

Even amidst what should be a sizeable injury, Ardian persists, calling after me again. “Pandora, who is that? Where are you going?”

Scrambling for a way to stall time, to distract Madman from Ardian’s discovery, I ransack my brain for anything of use. My nails are manicured and not sharp enough to do damage. Even if my solution was to attack him, the mask on his face looks thick enough to give me trouble if I tried to gouge his eyes out. But I’m not a fighter, I’m a nurturer, a lover—

That’s it .

I throw caution to the wind and crash against Madman’s sturdy frame, playing the part of a silly girl fawning over a handsome stranger she met at the Feast. Because maybe, if I pretend to be sneaking off to a lover’s affair, Ardian will leave us be. After all, everyone always turns a blind eye when Flora does it. I fling my arms around his neck and pull myself closer to him, hoping to capture his attention away from any violence. For good measure, I plaster an easy smile across my lips, and Madman responds in turn by caressing a hand over the middle of my exposed back.

But it happens before I think to ward off the inevitable.

I make the traitorous mistake of inhaling the air between Madman and I, and his scent hits me like a load of cinder blocks—like I’ve just caught wind of an imaginative, undiscovered world far away. A soft, surprised sound escapes me at the discovery, and Madman’s other gloved hand drifts lower in order to steady the sudden weakness in my knees.

The touch is so sensual it distracts us both.

It feels real .

For a single, suspended moment in time, I think I see the fury in his stormy eyes slacken.

And then, Ardian is screaming.

“Don’t touch the Princess!” he growls with more bravado and deep-seated rage than I’ve ever heard out of him, his voice closer now.

Despite whatever fascination he has with me and how entranced he was all of two seconds ago, it vanishes at the sound of Ardian’s insistent voice. Madman heaves a disappointed sigh. “You’ll understand later.”

Next thing I know, Madman shoves me, hard , and I go scrambling onto the main deck of his boat. I try to grapple for balance along the center mast, but I tumble onto the ground. I hit my head on the way down, but not even the force of the blow can keep me from desperately careening upward, making one last attempt to settle him.

But in a single, fluid motion, I see Madman reach for something in his cloak, brandishing the item like one would a sword, and—

A petrifying, loud noise rips through the serene night, ringing through my ears in a malicious echo. It seems to rattle the constellations overhead, too, and faint dots line my vision from the shock of its ferocity. Then, there’s the faint presence of leftover smoke.

And when it dissipates, it gives way to Ardian Asticova’s body laid to waste on the floor, blood pooling from the cavity of his chest.