Page 46 of Claimed By Prince Daddy

I clenched my jaw. “Fine,” I snarled. “Where is this person?”

“The throne room.”

Incisors bared, I stalked past them. My advisor hurried to keep up, his shorter legs working twice as hard to keep up with my lengthy strides.

“Wait,” he stammered, pushing his round spectacles up his nose. He blinked gray eyes at me in astonishment. “You’re going to listen to what they say? You? The king who bends his will to no one and nothing?”

“Shut the hell up,” I growled, irritation lashing through my insides.

Bristell fought down a laugh, trying to disguise it with a cough.

“I hope you choke,” I said as I descended the stairs.

“I don’t think you do, Sire. Then what would become of all your plans so carefully considered by me?”

“They’d survive,” I said.

Then I caught a faint whiff of a familiar scent. One I had not smelled in forever.

The scent of honeysuckle and vanilla.

I paused mid-stride. “It can’t be,” I breathed. My muscles coiling. I picked up my pace, then broke into a flat-out run.

“Your Majesty,” Bristell called after me, racing to catch up. “Where are you going at such a pace?” I reached the throne room doors, guarded by two soldiers in battle armor, swords sheathed at their hips. At sighting me racing toward them, they placed their hands on their weapons, their eyes roving about the corridor for signs of danger.

“Open the doors!”

Their eyes popped wide, but they obeyed my word and pulled back the doors to allow me entrance. I burst inside the throne room. My gaze flitted about before locking on the sole person in the room, standing by the thrones atop the dais.

It was a feminine figure. Her back was turned to me as she faced the thrones. But I would never fail to recognize the flare of those hips nor the brilliant shade of auburn hair that cascaded down her shoulders to her waist.

Bristell trotted up to my side, panting. “Your Majesty,” he gasped out. “Who…is this?”

But I paid him no mind; my attention was only on the female standing before me.

At hearing my entrance, the figure turned and faced me. Dazzling sapphire eyes collided with mine.

My chest heaved with ragged breaths. “Ember…”

“Ember?” My advisor echoed, shock coloring his voice. He had heard of my long-lost fated mate when he’d first taken the job four years prior.

Ember was even more breathtaking than the last time I saw her. Her body had matured, her breasts more full, her thighs more shapely beneath the strange blue pants that she wore. Her cheekbones had sharpened, and the girlish youth of her face faded to reveal the feminine elegance that belonged solely to her.

The tendons in her neck grew distended as she swallowed, then said, “Hello, Drake.”

A myriad of emotions roiled inside me. Joy clashing with anger—hurt warring with confusion. She had been gone for five years and suddenly sprang back into my life with a simple ‘Hello’?

She must have seen the emotions that played out on my face, for Ember licked her lips, her gaze skating away. She rubbed at her arm before squaring her shoulders and striding toward me.

Pausing just before me, she shot a furtive glance at Bristell, then turned to me. “May we talk somewhere, in private?”

My first instinctual reaction was to tell her no. To tear into her verbally, make her hurt as she had made me all these years. Yet, the bleak despair that shadowed her gaze gave me pause.

She must have a dire need to come into my life again after all these years…I should hear her out.

Setting my jaw, I nodded. “Follow me.” Then I pivoted and strode out of the throne room.

Ember followed after me, leaving Bristell sputtering, “S-sire, you’re just going to let her come into the palace?”

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