Throat exposed by his bellow of pain, Titus didn’t stand a chance as the bait beast pounced and closed its jaws around that mighty neck.
Titus had one last thrash, one final attempt to pry himself free. The bait beast held firm, as though he’d been waiting for weeks or months or years. He clamped down and wrenched his head away, taking Titus’s throat with him.
Silence fell. As if the world itself stopped when Titus’s body crashed to the ground, black blood spilling everywhere.
Manon stood absolutely still. Slowly, the bait beast lifted its head from the carcass, Titus’s blood dripping from his maw. Their eyes met.
People were shouting at her to run, and the gate groaned open, but Manon stared into those black eyes, one of them horribly scarred but intact. He took a step, then another toward her.
Manon held her ground. It was impossible. Impossible. Titus was twice his size, twice his weight, and had years of training.
The bait beast had trounced him—not because he was bigger or stronger, but because he wanted it more. Titus had been a brute and a killer, yet this wyvern before her . . . he was a warrior.
Men were rushing in with spears and swords and whips, and the bait beast growled.
Manon held up a hand. And again, the world stopped.
Manon, eyes still upon the beast, said, “He’s mine.”
He had saved her life. Not by coincidence, but by choice. He’d felt the current running between them, too. “What?” her grandmother barked from above.
Manon found herself walking toward the wyvern, and stopped with not five feet between them. “He’s mine,” Manon said, taking in the scars, the limp, the burning life in those eyes.
The witch and the wyvern looked at each other for a moment that lasted for a heartbeat, that lasted for eternity. “You’re mine,” Manon said to him.
The wyvern blinked at her, Titus’s blood still dripping from his cracked and broken teeth, and Manon had the feeling that he had come to the same decision. Perhaps he had known long before tonight, and his fight with Titus hadn’t been so much about survival as it had been a challenge to claim her.
As his rider. As his mistress. As his.
•
Manon named her wyvern Abraxos, after the ancient serpent who held the world between his coils at the behest of the Three-Faced Goddess. And that was about the only pleasant thing that happened that night.
When she’d returned to the others, Abraxos taken away for cleaning and mending and Titus’s carcass hauled off by thirty men, Manon had stared down each and every witch who dared meet her eyes.
The Yellowlegs heir was being held by Asterin in front of the Matrons. Manon gazed at Iskra for a long moment before she simply said, “Looks like I lost my footing.”
Iskra steamed at the ears, but Manon shrugged, wiping the dirt and blood from her face before limping back to the Omega. She wouldn’t give Iskra the satisfaction of claiming she’d almost killed her. And Manon was in no shape to settle this in a proper fight.
Attack or clumsiness, Asterin was punished by Mother Blackbeak that night for letting the heir fall into the pit. Manon had asked to be the one to dispense the whipping, but her grandmother ignored her. Instead, she had the Yellowlegs heir do it. As Asterin’s failure had occurred in plain sight of the other Matrons and their heirs, so would her punishment.
Standing in the mess hall, Manon watched each brutal lash, all ten of them at full strength, as Iskra sported a bruise on her jaw courtesy of Asterin.
To her everlasting credit, Asterin didn’t scream. Not once. It still took all of Manon’s self-restraint to keep from grabbing the whip and using it to strangle Iskra.
Then came the conversation with her grandmother. It wasn’t so much a conversation as it was a slap in the face, then a verbal beating that—a day later—still made Manon’s ears ring.
She’d humiliated her grandmother and every Blackbeak in history by picking that “runty scrap of meat,” regardless of his victory. It was a fluke that he’d killed Titus, her grandmother ranted. Abraxos was the smallest of any of the mounts, and on top of that, because of his size, he had never flown a day in his life. They had never let him out of the warrens.
They didn’t even know if he could fly after his wings had taken a beating for so long, and the handlers were of the opinion that should Abraxos attempt the Crossing, he’d splatter himself and Manon on the Gap floor. They claimed no other wyverns would ever accept his dominance, not as a Wing Leader. Manon had ruined all of her grandmother’s plans.
All these facts were shouted at her again and again. She knew that if she even wanted to change mounts, her grandmother would force her to keep Abraxos, just to humiliate her when she failed. Even if it got her killed in the process.
Her grandmother hadn’t been in the pit, though. She hadn’t looked into Abraxos’s eyes and seen the warrior’s heart beating in him. She hadn’t noticed that he’d fought with more cunning and ferocity than any of the others. So Manon held firm and took the slap to the face, and the lecture, and then the second slap that left her cheek throbbing.
Manon’s face was still aching when she reached the pen in which Abraxos now made his home. He was curled by the far wall, silent and still when so many of the creatures were pacing or shrieking or growling.
Her escort, the overseer, peered through the bars. Asterin lurked in the shadows. After the whipping last night, her Second wasn’t going to let her out of her sight anytime soon.
Manon hadn’t apologized for the whipping. The rules were the rules, and her cousin had failed. Asterin deserved the lashing, just as Manon deserved the bruise on her cheek.
“Why’s he curled up like that?” Manon asked the man.
“Suspect it’s ’cause he’s never had a pen to himself. Not this big, anyway.”
Manon studied the penned-in cavern. “Where did they keep him before?”
The man pointed at the floor. “With the other baiters in the sty. He’s the oldest of the baiters, you know. Survived the pits and the stys. But that doesn’t mean he’s suitable for you.”
“If I wanted your opinion on his suitability, I’d ask for it,” Manon said, eyes still on Abraxos as she approached the bars. “How long to get him in the skies?”
The man rubbed his head. “Could be days or weeks or months. Could be never.”
“We begin training with our mounts this afternoon.”
“Not going to happen.” Manon raised her brows. “This one needs to be trained alone first. I’ll get our best trainers on it, and you can use another wyvern in the meantime to—”
“First of all, human,” Manon interrupted, “don’t give me orders.” Her iron teeth snapped out, and he flinched. “Second, I won’t be training with another wyvern. I’ll train with him.”
The man was pale as death as he said, “All your sentinels’ mounts will attack him. And the first flight will spook him so bad that he’ll fight back. So unless you want your soldiers and their mounts to tear each other apart, I suggest you train alone.” He trembled and added, “Milady.”
The wyvern was watching them. Waiting. “Can they understand us?”
“No. Some spoken commands and whistles, but no more than a dog.”
Manon didn’t believe that for one moment. It wasn’t that he was lying to her. He just didn’t know any better. Or maybe Abraxos was different.
She’d use every moment until the War Games to train him. When she and her Thirteen were crowned victors, she’d make each and every one of the witches who doubted her, her grandmother included, curse themselves for fools. Because she was Manon Blackbeak, and she’d never failed at anything. And there would be nothing better than watching Abraxos bite off Iskra’s head on the battlefield.