Page 58 of Dark Prince's Captive

“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?”

“I doubt it.”His expression darkens.“But I won’t eliminate the possibility, not yet.”

“What a treacherous place Lona has become,” I say with loathing.

“No more treacherous than it’s always been,” he replies.“The only thing that changes are the enemies.”

We exit on the inner courtyard level where Kian as well as my uncles and aunts are gathered.They’re sitting on stone benches arranged in a circle in the middle of the lush garden.Blue bell flower creepers twist around the trunks of old yellow bark trees, their sweet, subtle perfume faint in the air.

My father stops a distance away from the others and nods at my shoulder.“How’s your mobility?”

“Fine.”I swing my arm to loosen the muscles.“It was only a flesh wound.”

“The Phaelix had a good shot at chopping off your head.”His eyes narrow with calculation.“That has never happened before.”

“He crept up on me.”

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