Page 29 of The Gold Dragon Prince
“I’m going right through those bastards,” Freddy growled. “They destroyed my house, and I feel like stomping on some ogre toes.”
He charged right for the door just as one of the ogres smashed his cudgel into it again and pulled the whole thing off its hinges when he tried to free his club.
“Come on,” Selle said, taking the lead and tugging me for the door as Freddy and a few of the others burst into the courtyard.
We went from the darkness of the secret passage into the bright sunlight of the kitchen courtyard so fast it hurt my eyes. Selle didn’t stop, even though he had to raise a hand to shield his eyes.
“Head for the house,” Freddy shouted as he dodged the ogre who still had the stable door stuck on the end of his cudgel. “We’ll distract them so you can get in.”
Again, my heart swelled with gratitude for the men and women who were risking their lives for me, my mate, and our egg. If there was any way I could repay them, I would and more. But in that moment, I had only one thought as Selle and I raced for the kitchen door. I had to find and rescue our egg.
Chapter
Nine
Selle
Leo would have loved the ogre melee that Gildur and I dashed out into. Despite being an omega, he loved a good fight. He would have been disappointed that Gildur and I didn’t stop to find weapons and join the fray.
I wasn’t as brave as Leo. At least, I wasn’t as combative. I ducked and dodged as Gildur and I rushed across the kitchen courtyard as fast as we could. The only reason I would have wanted to pick up a weapon would have been to defend myself or Gildur and to get to the kitchen door, which stood open invitingly, as quickly as possible.
“Look out!” one of the serfs called out.
I glanced over my shoulder in time to see that one of the ogres had broken free and was charging at us. He had his club raised, and both Gildur and I had to duck as it came swinging at us.
“Are you certain your magic isn’t working again?” Iasked breathlessly as we hunkered down to avoid the ogre’s second swing.
“I wish it was,” Gildur replied, squeezing my hand.
I was ready to roll to the side, but as soon as the ogre raised its cudgel above its head, one of the serfs attacked it from behind, leaping onto its back and beating it around the head with a brick that might have been from her house. It would serve the ogre right if it was.
The diversion gave Gildur and I enough time to rush on across the remaining, chaotic bit of the yard and into the kitchen.
The contrast between the roiling, noisy courtyard where the battle continued without us and the empty kitchen was jarring. The kitchen itself was large, with multiple counters, a huge hearth, and a sink with a pump in it. It was also strangely dusty and devoid of any sort of food, fresh or rotting.
“Didn’t Lady Saoirse just have a garden party?” I asked, uneasiness pooling in my stomach.
I could feel Gildur’s wariness of the kitchen as well. “She must have conjured the food with magic,” he said. “No one has cooked in this kitchen for ages.”
I didn’t like the feeling of the place, and I was suddenly glad I hadn’t eaten any of the food that I’d been serving. Instinct told me that consuming food that had been created solely with magic couldn’t be good for you.
We took the largest of the corridors that led out of the kitchen, rushing deeper into the house. A second, glaring oddity struck me as our footsteps echoed off the cold stone floor and the faded, dirty paint of the walls.
“There aren’t any servants,” I said, my heart beating in my throat as we turned a corner into what should have been a bustling, busy servants’ hall. “I mean, there werepeople at the garden party serving with me, but there are none here now. It doesn’t look as though there have been servants here in a long time.” I wondered if the people I had interacted with at the garden party had, in fact, been conjured by magic.
Gildur hummed low, frowning. I could feel his caution as we found a set of stairs that led up into the main part of the house.
My nerves continued to prickle as we hurried through abandoned corridor after abandoned corridor, searching for Saoirse and our egg. I could feel our baby, but the sensation was indistinct. It wasn’t close to what I felt through my bond with Gildur. It was enough to keep me feeling like we were heading in the right direction as we crept down one corridor and up another, trying to stay silent as we searched room after room.
“The house is abandoned,” I whispered after we’d been searching for what felt like hours, but was probably only a matter of minutes. “I thought Lady Saoirse lived here?”
“She does,” Gildur said gravely as we looked into a conservatory filled with dust and cobwebs over ancient musical instruments. “My guess is she spends most of her time in just one part of the manor house.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” I said, even though, in a way, it did. “She has all this space, all this grandeur, and she isn’t making use of it? She should at least offer the bounty she has to people who need shelter and food. I know of a nobleman in my father’s realm who invites his tenants to his house once a week to listen to their concerns and provide them with food or clothing or tools if they’ve met with misfortune.”
“That is a good man indeed,” Gildur said, tightening his grip on my hand and pulling me along a wide hallway thatmust have run through the center of the house. “Even I think that wealth should be shared where needed, and I’m a gold.”
I grinned and was about to say something when a snapping sound from a room we were only a few feet away from stopped me in my tracks.
