Page 19 of Dragon Revealed (Dragon Kings 1)
Over the past several days, he had come to realize that Jeyra liked schedules. She came around the same time—about the time he heard the guards moving down the corridor—stayed the same amount, and always had food to share. As the time wore on, and the hour when she should’ve been there passed, he grew concerned that something might have happened to her while digging into the past. If someone had gone to such lengths to remove pages from the archive, it was because they wanted to keep something hidden. He hadn’t needed to tell her that. Jeyra had said so herself.
But Varek had watched humans for centuries. He knew how devious they could be. That was true for any species. He didn’t know if one person or a group had taken the pages. And if the accounts were missing, what else had been hidden? And when? More importantly, was Jeyra being used now?
Varek couldn’t shake that thought. It made sense. She had seen the dragon who killed her family. For years, she had held hatred in her heart for dragons and especially the Dragon Kings. Not that he blamed her. She had been one of those who had brought him to the dungeons, and then she had been the only one to question him before going to the council with information. Now, she was looking into the past.
Either Jeyra was deceitful in a big way, or she was being used. Or set up. All three possibilities were feasible. Varek could make an argument for—and against—each one. Which made it nearly impossible for him to figure out which one it was.
The fact that his chains had been removed didn’t sit well with him. Were they trying to get him to escape? To force him to show how untrustworthy Dragon Kings were? Or were they attempting to prove something else?
“Fuck,” Varek said as he ran a hand down his face.
He smiled now that the chains didn’t rattle and clank every time he moved his arms. It felt good to have the manacles gone, even if it meant he needed to be more wary of everyone and their motives.
Varek lay back on the ground and laced his hands behind his head. He thought of the dragons on the realm Jeyra had told him about as he opened the mental link. Then, he said, “I’m Varek, King of Lichens. I was pulled from Earth to this realm without my knowledge. I’m being held prisoner, unable to use magic or shift to get free. Can anyone hear me?”
He held his breath as he waited for a dragon to answer him. But as the seconds ticked by with nothing but silence, he had his answer. Whether that meant his message hadn’t reached the dragons, or that none were on this realm, he couldn’t be sure.
Yet.
Varek dragged in a ragged breath as another option was removed from the table. With his chains gone, at least that was one obstacle out of his way. A time would come when they took him out of the dungeon. And when they did, he would attack anyone who stood in his way to freedom. He didn’t need a weapon. He had millions of years of training to call on. The humans holding him could do nothing to stop him.
He’d let them continue believing that he had given up and accepted his Fate. That only played to his advantage.
