Page 32 of Prince of Blaze and Embers
“You all right?” He forced the words out, but the agitation in his stiff body showed he was trying desperately not to show the anger I saw in him.
“I think so.” Other than the pounding headache, the aching in my arms, and the scratches from the branches on my skin, I was telling the truth.
“Good,” he sighed, and the anger immediately welled in like a dam breaking under the weight of heavy floods. “What the fuck… what in the name of the Infernal Depths were you doing out there in the forest? All alone? Even after I specifically told you not to leave the house!”
“I—I…” I tried to think of a lie as quickly as I could, but with my head pounding the way it was, nothing good came. Not that he would believe that a fucking invisible, god-like tortoise told me to.
“Don’t even try to make some shit up.” He took a powerful stride forward that made me gasp. Even when he was mad, especially when he was mad, all I could think about was making him feel better and forcing his strong arms around me. “What were you doing out there? You almost got yourself killed! That was no mere bounty hunter out there. That was a hunter for the queen herself. You could’ve died or been taken.”
Taken? What does he care if I was taken to the queen? Isn’t that his plan as well? There’s more to this prince than I realize… and that only makes me want to know him more…
“Who was he? How did he have that ogre? And what were those things that came out of the forest? They looked like half-ogre men or something like that.” I noticed something on the side of the prince’s neck, then—a fresh cut, still dripping blood down to his clavicle and onto his chest. “You’re hurt. You’re cut.”
I ran to him, still holding the sheet over my nearly naked body. He put up a firm hand between us.
“It’s nothing. Only a scratch. But you… how did you survive? We heard the fight and ran to where you were, but that man and his ogre were dead before we got there. Did you…?”
“Yes. I used my magic again.” I couldn’t believe the words that came from my mouth were true. I still couldn’t believe I actually had magic. I felt the smile curve on my face. I have magic! And I used it again!
The Blaze Prince shook his head, glowering at the floor. I could feel the tension building in the room, as if squeezing the walls in, sucking all the air from the room as I gulped. I didn’t want him to be upset with me. I didn’t want to be the cause of his anger, but any attention at all from him, who mostly avoided me, grumbling to himself, was something…
“Ash, listen…” The tone in his voice was a forced calm, like sails flapping in the sea winds, a break before the storm. “I don’t know how else to say this to you to get you to understand—you’re in danger—that magic that spawned inside you; it’s going to be the end of you.”
“Well, you don’t seem to want to talk to me about it. You’re too busy running around with Hunter and brooding over whatever the hell it is that has you so wound up. How am I supposed to know anything when you won’t talk to me? Sure, you put me up on your dragon and brought me here to the middle of the forest, to do what? Think? Aren’t you taking me to your mother, the queen? What does it matter if it’s you or that man on the ogre? And then you tell me I’m in danger. Of course, I’m in fucking danger. I’m always in danger. Say the wrong thing; whipped. Run; shackled. Try to escape; tortured to near madness. My life is one big fucking mistake, and you’re going to lecture me about danger? What gives you the right to worry about my life all of a sudden, when Odiun put me on this earth to suffer? My whole purpose in life is to try to find little scraps of enjoyment and happiness. What do you care?”
The prince cleared his throat. “Stepmother…”
“What?” I was so taken aback by his random answer to my bombardment of rambling that it took far too long for his words to reach my heated brain. “The Blaze Queen isn’t… your real mother?”
“No. And I hate it when people call her that. She’s not my mother. She was my father’s wife. That’s all.”
My chest trembled under the weight of the moment. The prince… Prince Cade Phoenixfire was… bearing his pain to me. To me! Why?
“Your father… They say he was a great man but fell in battle with the Stormscales. He died a warrior’s death atop his dragon.”
“I know that’s what they say. That’s what my stepmother, Queen of the Emberveil Empire, said.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?” I didn’t know the prince, but I always considered myself a good judge of character. And I could tell his words were true. There was pain in his voice, deep pain.
“Ash. I’m trying to protect you. I’m trying to figure out what to do moving forward. But you’ve got to start fucking listening to me. We aren’t in Bramblebash. This is Allovan. The closer we get to Emberveil, the more danger you’re in. I thought we could hide out here, but Rone found you here, so others will too. I need time to think, but it appears we are out of that.”
“Why?” I wanted to press with questions because I had so many, but I figured I’d let him roll into whatever explanation he deemed appropriate. And I didn’t mind standing this close to him. His muscular stature towered over me. My arms and legs wanted to melt in the presence of such a powerful, utterly god-like man. His perfect lips, his piercing gaze, his obsidian hair flowing down the sides of his face. It all gripped me like a vice, and I wanted him. I wanted him more than I wanted anything in my life in the room that seemed to close in all around us.
“Because you’re special…”
The air in my lungs squeezed, my throat tightened, and Iclutched the sheet to my chest. Special? I’d never, ever, ever heard anyone say that about me. Ever…
“I’m not special. I’m the opposite of special.” My chin hit my chest, and my gaze dropped to my feet, seeing the scabs all around my ankles. “I’m nobody.”
The floorboards creaked, and I heard his boots walk toward me. My heart raced in my chest, the blood in my shoulders and neck heated, and when I finally lifted my head, I found him before me. Inches between us. Nearly nose to nose. His musty smell consumed me. Every part of my body screamed to touch him, to slide my finger down his chiseled jaw, but I was left holding the sheet between us, covering my body.
He didn’t speak but looked so deeply into my eyes I thought I might melt completely through the cracks in the wooden floor. Behind the closed door, both of us together in one room, my room, all I could think about was tearing those clothes off his body and feeling his bare chest pressed against mine.
“You are special. You’re special to this world, and you’re special to me…”
I was frozen. Petrified in his presence. He loomed over me like some kind of beautiful predator hunting his next meal. And I wanted that meal to be me. With his last words, he pulled me in so hard my chest felt like it was going to explode. I gushed for him to keep talking about me like that, even to say my name. How a man like that could say such a thing to me; I never could have imagined or dreamed.
It was just us—the most powerful man in Allovan, and me, a slave from a nowhere town as far away from important as possible. His lips—his perfect lips—were inches from mine, and I licked mine subconsciously.
