Page 30 of The Gold Dragon Prince
“Hide,” Gildur whispered, pushing me into the parlor we’d just come to.
I leapt with him into the room, but as soon as we were safe, we pivoted to press our backs against the wall on either side of the doorway so that we could still see a bit of the hall.
Footsteps rang out from the hallway, coming closer. I pushed my back even harder against the wall, so hard that I could feel my heart beating against the paper. I held my breath as someone walked right past the room where Gildur and I were concealed. Then, because I couldn’t resist an adventure and I had to know, I turned slightly and poked my head out into the hallway.
I was greeted with the sight of Lord Manfred’s retreating back. He had just lifted his hands to place some sort of necklace with a large amulet around his neck.
I had my suspicions of what the necklace was. I couldn’t resist the urge to find out if I was right, so I tip-toed silently into the hall, praying Lord Manfred wouldn’t turn around and see me, then dashed up to the room he’d just come out of.
Sure enough, I was treated to the fading sight of a door standing in the middle of the room. It was made of some sort of dark, oily wood that seemed laced with decay. It faded completely as I watched it.
“The amulet,” I whispered to myself. “Lord Manfredmust be using that to create a door between this world and my father’s world.”
“Selle!” I felt rather than heard Gildur call my name.
With a quick gasp, I dashed back into the hall to find my furious mate standing in the doorway of the room we’d hidden in. He gestured to me to come back, then threw out his arms like I’d disobeyed him once I did.
“You cannot go wandering off like that, my darling,” he whispered, grasping my face in both hands. I felt relief, exasperation, and the deepest love radiating from him. “Now that I have found you, I do not know what I would do without you.”
I melted into a smile, warming from the inside at the genuine affection my beautiful dragon showed me. He was strong enough and brave enough to take on an army all on his own, but he wanted me with him, I could feel it.
“I would never go far without you,” I murmured in return. “I don’t know how these things happen, although Tovey did warn me, but we’re two halves of the same whole now. You are my dragon, and I am your mate.”
“You are more than just that,” Gildur said, leaning closer to me, until his lips were just a breath away from mine. “You are my soul and the light in my heart.”
My smile was taken by his kiss. It was probably foolish to stop our quest to rescue our egg with a kiss in the hallway of an eerie, abandoned manor house, but we both needed that moment of contact and affirmation. We needed to fan the flames of the fire that consumed us both so that we could forge ahead.
I kissed Gildur back, grasping onto his now smudged and filthy jacket, but I only let the kiss linger for a moment. When I pulled back, I said, “Let’s go find our baby.”
Gildur smiled, and with our energyrenewed, we hurried off through the house in the direction Lord Manfred had gone.
It was easier to follow the horrible man than I’d thought it would be. His steps were so heavy and the soles of his boots so hard that we could follow the noise he made as he stomped across the wooden and stone floors of the house. We caught up to him as he reached a half-concealed staircase at the back of the house then descended.
The danger of following Lady Saoirse’s accomplice into what very well could be a dungeon trap was not lost on me, but I could feel in my core that my baby was at the bottom of those stairs.
It turned out that I was right. The stairs ended in a short hallway, and at the end of that hallway was a vast, cavernous crypt, not unlike what I would imagine a dragon’s lair would look like. Lord Manfred marched right into it, but Gildur and I hung back.
“They haven’t returned to King Freslik’s castle,” Lord Manfred said by way of announcing himself as he marched into the room.
Gildur and I slowed to a crawl, slipping into the room and hiding behind a counter while both Lord Manfred and Lady Saoirse were looking the other way.
“The ogres are battling with the serfs in the kitchen courtyard,” Lady Saoirse said as she hunched over a table, her back to us. “Gildur and his pitiful omega are probably with them.”
Gildur’s back went up, likely because of the way Lady Saoirse had insulted me.
I didn’t care what she called me. I’d been called much worse in my life by my own father. I was far more interested in what she was doing so intently at the table that shecouldn’t be bothered with a battle raging just outside the house where she was now.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
“Still trying to crack that egg?” Lord Manfred asked, moving to the other side of the table.
My heart jumped to my throat as Lady Saoirse straightened just enough for me to catch a flash of gold. My egg sat on the table, and to me, it felt like it was cowering and whimpering in fear.
I nearly whimpered myself and wanted desperately to go to it, hold it in my arms, and tell it everything would be alright. Gildur had to put a hand on my arm to restrain me, though I could feel that he wanted to go as well.
“If I can hatch the goose inside, it will lay more golden eggs for me,” Lady Saoirse said. I couldn’t see her face, but I could hear the manic excitement in her voice. “I will want for nothing. I’ll have more gold than anyone else in this world or any other. I will be the richest person in every kingdom.”
I sucked in a breath as the deeper significance of her words struck me. I looked around. The crypt-like lair was the only place in the entire manor house that we’d seen that looked inhabited. It wasn’t furnished with comfortable chairs and tables or even a bed, though. It was packed floor to ceiling with bits of gold, most of which looked false, and everything from cauldrons to pentacles and scrying glasses, not to mention a few stacks of books. My vision was still magically improved enough that I could see the word “Alchemy” on the spines and fronts of several of those books.
