with his grubby hands.
“Ever fought a dragon-kin before?” I asked.
“No,” the man said. “But we’ve killed enough guys. Haven’t we?”
The other two nodded.
My ears twitched as I heard something crash to the floor above us. For a moment my heart threatened to leap out of my chest in terror, sure that someone was on their way to kill me. Surely these idiots were not that capable.
Then I recognized the sound of scales drifting across the floorboards. I smiled.
“I think you all are going to really wish you were dead in a few seconds,” I said.
I heard someone crunch against the floorboards, and someone slowly walking down the steps toward us. The three idiots that stood around me looked at each other with eyes wide in confusion and horror.
“You really shouldn’t challenge a dragon,” I said. “That’s just stupid.”
A boot kicked the wooden door in, and Levent ducked to get through the doorway.
Without a word, Levent thrust out his hand and sent a fireball rolling into two of the idiot captors. The other was quickly punched in the jaw, and then knocked unconscious with an elbow to the back of the head.
Levent nudged one of the kidnappers with his boot, and then turned to me.
“You alright?” he said.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I just have a massive headache.”
He stepped over the unconscious thugs and worked on getting me untied. Once my arms were free, I rubbed my temples.
“I feel sick,” I muttered. Once my legs were free, I stood up and wobbled over to the stairs.
The kin hoisted two of the unconscious men over his shoulders and hauled them upstairs, where he piled them on top of another unconscious man. He returned for the last man, not treating him at all gently as he carried him up and dropped him on top of the others.
I just watched, not trusting my legs to carry me up the stairs at the moment but also wanting desperately to be rid of this place. Levent glanced down at me from the top of the stairs, and then walked down next to me.