Bozin had lived a good life. As a young warrior in Champion Tantix’s swarm, he had triumphed over the beasts of northern Volqor, seen the phoenix’s death and rebirth, and shared nights with women far prettier than him. Bozin had watched Saevah grow from Tantix’s hatchling into the pride of the Fire Tribe, listened to Zalyx and Matyxal sing, and shared pipes with little Sygavax. He had drunk the bitter coffees of Kavova and tasted the sweet wines of Leveria, preferring the former’s bitterness. Perhaps, he was a bitter man despite the good life behind him? Perhaps anyone would be bitter, dying hundreds of miles from the warmth of home, serving the man who killed Tantix, and being tortured by men determined to kill the last few people you cared about?

Bozin had lived a good life. Now, all he wanted was to die a good death.

His scream echoed through the frozen woods. The dagger sliced off his nipple, and he wished Qoryxa would just let the ice take him, or at least numb the pain.

Two men tormented him. The younger one, somehow shirtless in this frigid hell, was the type Bozin once enjoyed taunting. Strong, but stupid, they were the perfect marks to boost your status in the eyes of the women in your swarm. How he missed his prime, back when he made the polearm an artform. There was no art to this brute’s technique—only fists that swung like dragonbone hammers. A blow cracked Bozin’s ribs, another dazed him.

His vision blurred and everything felt out of place. The older man held the bloodied dagger in one hand and Bozin’s severed nipple in the other. He shouted at him, but all Bozin heard was the ringing in his ears as the bald son-of-a-bitch shoved Bozin’s own nipple in his mouth and forced his jaw shut.

The taste of nipple wasn’t as enjoyable when it was your own. For a moment, the pain made him wish he’d taken his turn with the man’s wives last night. No, that was going too far. Surely, his sweet dreams of old flames would be tarnished by such undignified mating. He’d have nightmares!

The only thing worse than having the shit kicked out of you and your own divinedamned nipple fed to you was having an audience of beautiful women. The woman who severed his drake’s head watched him with cold interest while her drake lapped up Redhead’s blood. Her bloody axe lay at her feet, beside the rest of Bozin’s left leg. He wished he could have seen her under different circumstances. Her face, sharp and symmetrical, reminded him of Saevah, but her silver-streaked hair and intricate braids set her apart. He glanced at her muscular legs and wished the rest of her weren’t so well covered. If Qoryxa were going to judge him, the least the Divine bitch could do was let him admire something beautiful before the end.

The second girl had a cute face and an especially nice set of bouncers. The real torture was the suffocation her furs did to those twin peaks. Back in his prime, this is the one he’d have gone for, not the proud killer that took his knee. But here he was, drooling blood, wishing that if he was going to die, he could at least do so with one of her big tits in his mouth.

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“Please stop this,” she pleaded. Bozin felt no pity for her discomfort—he expected he was at least a bit more uncomfortable than she was.

“Then get him to tell us what we need to know!” the older man snapped.

The tits retreated, her big blue eyes going down to the snow. She was soft and softness didn’t last long in Volqor. The Ice Tribe had taken his when he was a little boy, barely old enough to wipe his own ass when an ice dragon destroyed his homestead. He slept great last night, on account of he didn’t do anything but pay those Qoryxa lovers back in their own coin.

Bozin always did like to mess with girls like her. Why stop now when the party was almost over? “I’ll tell her everything she wants to know,” he said, managing a toothless smirk.

“You will?” the big dipshit asked. Seraxa’s freezing eyes! It pained him that this brick shithouse was getting the better of him.

Bozin managed a nod. “As soon as she puts a big soft titty in my mouth.” He puckered his lips.

His head collided with the ice. He lost count after three but a few more and he could die without betraying his honor. What better end could he hope for?

“Pelzyq! Stop!”

So close, Bozin thought, his head feeling like it had been hammered against rock solid ice and was one collision away from losing the competition to see who would crack first.

“Break his skull and we lose whatever value lies within his fetid mind,” the proud woman said, stalking toward him with a shiny blue handaxe.

“I suppose you will get him to talk,” the ogre barked, his voice as deep as Tantix’s but lacking all its authority.

“If I must,” said the woman. She, on the other hand, exuded command. Bozin found himself suddenly afraid of her blue-eyed glare, his thoughts of grim acceptance and dark humor no longer as easy to summon.

“Take off his pants,” she commanded, colder than any ice.

Bozin tried to grin, but for the first time he didn’t like a beautiful woman making such a request. Worse, if he was being honest—which he expected he was about to make a dying habit of—he’d never managed to remove his pants for a woman this beautiful. The divinedamned irony didn’t provide the relief it was supposed to.

He wanted to recover his black humor, to make a defiant jest about her granting his last request. All that squeaked out of him when the big guy ripped his furs off was a whiny, “No!” Then he shrieked as his testicles met the snow.

“I’ll tell you what you need to know!” he shouted as the handaxe was aimed at his cock. He spurted it out, at least enough that they’d trust him, not so much that they wouldn’t venture into a trap. Once he finished, he begged for death.

The woman sighed and shook her head. “Did you really think you could lie to me?

He sputtered objections, begged, squealed. The humor was gone, the defiance snuffed out. She was no brute; she was cold, methodical, and kept him painfully aware of every moment.

Bozin had lived a good life, but he did not die a good death. Alone in the snow, far from home, he betrayed the only family he had left. There were no flames to welcome him into Seraxa’s embrace, only the cold ice of a death in disgrace.