Series: Charmaine Pauls
Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
In the afternoon light that streams through the window, her hair shines like ruddy moonbeams. Her smell drifts to me on the breeze, the faint womanly scent of her arousal still teasing my nostrils. They flare as I inhale deeply.
Dragons.
It’s best that I don’t hang around her when her body is ripe but her mind and heart are unwilling. Especially not when the killing rage in my veins hasn’t completely abated. I’d never harm my mate, but I’m too explosive to face her, too close to ripping that dress off her body and finishing what we started.
Choosing wisdom in lieu of desire, I only linger long enough to grab a clean set of clothes from the trunk. I don’t look at Elsie as I shove my legs into the pants, pull the tunic over my head, and fasten my boots.
As I walk from the room, an uncomfortable ache settles in my chest, almost like a persistent hiccup under my breastbone. I rub a fist over the spot in a futile attempt to ease the pain.
My father waits in my mother’s quarters. He hovers next to the daybed on which she’s reclined, poised like a big, brooding shadow over her. Suno is there, pressing a cool cloth to her forehead.
Concern eradicates most of the volatile anger and bitter disappointment that, together with frustration, war inside me. My mother isn’t faking her weakness. She’s truly ill, and despite what she may have done, what I know she did, I hate to see her like this.
“How is she?” I ask my father, taking in her half-mast eyelids and laborious breathing.
“Exhausted,” he replies tightly. “She should’ve been focusing on healing, not on waging a war.”
“Without the queen, it would’ve been a hopeless situation,” Suno says.
“Never hopeless.” I take my mother’s limp, clammy hand. “I had it under control.”
My father’s voice is grim. “Tarix told me what happened.” He dips his head and holds my gaze. “You know what that means.”
My jaw tightens. “We have a traitor in our midst.”
“The attack was too well timed.” My father lifts a cup of water from the side table. “The Phaelix knew when our guards would be away and our defenses weakened, which means someone told them.” He dips a finger in the water and drags it over my mother’s cracked lips. “I personally sealed the window archways giving access to the exterior, yet one was open, and it just so happened to be in the kitchen, well away from where we were occupied in the fight.”
My father looks between Suno and me, leaving the rest unsaid, namely that someone opened the archway deliberately.
Someone on the inside of the palace is working with the Phaelix, but why the dragon would anyone do that? The only thing I can think of is that they must be power hungry, enough so to risk everything in order to overthrow our reign.
“Let’s hope Kian finds the traitor,” Suno says with a sigh, pushing to his feet. His smile is condescending. “I’d like to know what reward the Phaelix offered for such an act of treachery. It must’ve been of very high value. Why else would anyone betray their own people?”
“You’d be surprised what motivations and ambitions drive some individuals,” my father says, his face twisted into a wry expression.
I study my mother’s washed-out features. “Will she be all right?”
“Vitai thinks so,” my father replies.
I carefully lay her hand back on the covers. “How long does he think her recovery will take?”
“It’s difficult to tell.” My father inhales deeply. “Depleting what little energy she had left in the battle didn’t help.”
“What matters is that she rests,” Suno says, fixing us with a pointed look.
My father puts the cup aside and tells Suno, “Stay with her and don’t let anyone in the room. I’m going to see if Kian has managed to track down any information that will lead us to the traitor.”
I still want my answers as to how Elsie ended up on Earth, and I’ll get them, but now I also have other questions. Too many questions.
After what Elsie told me about her illnesses, I want to know how and why that happened to her. I want to know everything she’s been through and everything she’s felt. I want to understand all of it, not only because she’s my mate and it’s natural that I want to live every beat of her life as if it were my own, but also because I want to prevent it from ever happening again.
Yet for now, I follow my father into the hallway, accepting that getting my answers will have to wait.
“First the poison and then an attack,” the king says, walking briskly down the hallway and taking the stairs that lead to the inner court.
I easily keep up with his quick, urgent stride. “Do you think they’re related?”