Page 38 of Dragon Blood

Many faces she knew, few she didn’t.

But there, on the edge of the crowd, she spotted one woman, a dragon shifter, like herself, next to her human companion.

One that worked in the citadel. Kolina recalled seeing her often carrying arm loads of linens between guest rooms.

A woman who’d born two sons and no daughters. Sons she’d had no choice but to give away in order to guard her place of freedom here.

Kolina suspected the woman’s true seat of anger lie in festering loss. Her jealousy challenged Kolina for daring to bring her son back to the very place they’d all been banished from.

Yes. How dare I?

She drew a deep breath, turning her back on the woman.

How dare I not?

It was time.

The queen was amenable.

Division was no longer the answer.

Perhaps if all went well, then this woman would also dare, as Kolina had.

Then she would know the terror of rejection that Kolina had faced and conquered. Not unscathed. But conquered, none the less.

And now she would pay the price so that it would not be in vain.

Chapter 14

Fewwordswereexchangedbetween Kai and Astred the entire journey.

Even now, as Astred drove their rental along winding roads through the mountains leading north and west from the coastline, crossing rivers, streams and borders. His gaze lingered on her profile, the desire to touch her pressed on his restraint. So many times, he wanted to saysomething, but there were no words that were right. Kai knew she’d loved him once, otherwise he’d have never uttered words of commitment.

Acid flared through his chest, eating away any words of what might have been.

It wasn’t meant to be.

He was wrong to have thought that fate had brought them together. More than once, as Kai followed Astred out of Aeleftherian territory, he considered simply leaving and heading home, but each time, he’d been compelled to stay with Astred, following wherever she was leading him.

I should get back to work. Kolina meant for me to return home.

None of this is my business.

Bayn’s words floated back to him from the night before the wedding.‘This affects all of us.’

The need to protect her hadn’t dimmed the further from Aeleftheria they went, it had only grown more persistent. He wouldn’t abandon her in whatever it was she needed to do. She was alone now. No crew, no royal guardians.

Especially not since she had him smuggled out of her mother’s citadel, and out of their people’s territory, sending her crew off on a diversion mission.

Then she’d pointed out the odd scratch marks on the bureau that hit him right in the pit of his stomach. Yes, the marks had meant something. They looked far too much like the eastern clan’s shared territory boundary, the dots resembling key locations. But he wouldn’t tell her that until she was ready to tell him what she was up to. Until then, he had her back, while shit was hitting the fan back in Aeleftheria.

He had to know why those scratches pointed to both the Dùn Zhao - Shield Claw location, his father’s tiger clan, and the Shouwàng Zhe–Watchmen’s palace, Bayn’s clan. The fostering clan that had seen him through his own dragon growing pains and beyond when no one else would. He knew the rumblings of power dynamics when he saw them, and he had no doubt Astred did, too. But in dragon society, there was nothing higher than the position of the monarch.

She couldn’t be displaced, no matter that her mother was removed from the board at the moment. And there’d been no indication there was another heir.

No, those grasping to hold on to the power they had, or wanted, would jockey to curry Astred’s favor.

To guide Astred.

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