Page 88 of The Forsaken Heir
“Are you okay?” Aurelius asked.
“I’m fine.” I pointed out the window. “That was my school.” I gasped. “I went there with the other shifters until I transitioned to the human school. We’re entering the town. We’re really close now.”
He, Rasp, and Vince all craned their necks to look out the windows. None of them shared the faint, wistful smile I had. The school satexactlywhere I remembered it, on the outskirts of the town of Laurent’s Crossing, named for my family, who founded it nearly two hundred years ago. It had been one of the very first villages in the pacific northwest territories. And here it still stood, after all this time.
“It’s kinda small, isn’t it?” Rasp said.
“It is.” As a child it had seemed massive, but seeing it again as an adult, I saw the truth of it. “It only had ten classrooms. It was considered a private school. Only shifters went there—the children of the kids who worked at the estate and my relatives. The humans who lived in town sent their kids to the next closest school. It’s about a twenty-minute drive from here. Mom and Dad did pay for transport, though. All to keep up appearances.”
“Interesting,” Aurelius said in a low growl.
We drove past, leaving behind the small school and the playground, the chains of the swings glinting in the fall sunlight. Tearing my eyes away from it, I looked into Aurelius’s eyes and saw anger there—anger at my family for what they’d done to me. It worried me. If he let the rage take hold, he wouldn’t be able to think as quickly as he needed to. God only knew what might happen when we got to the estate. Deep at the back of my mind, fears of a trap or ambush played like a horror movie.
All I could do was hope that my brother wasn’t so rash as to try something with the crown prince here. Especially not with the Hikshil tribe in attendance. Even the Laurents didn’t want those kinds of enemies. They might not be afraid of the dwindling power of the dragons, but the fae were another matter altogether. At worst, they might try to be assholes toward Aurelius and goad him into acting first. I had to hope he could control his emotions and not let that happen.
The Laurent estate came into view once we’d passed through the town. Surrounded by old forests and rolling hills, the manor house sat over two miles away, a distant speck on the horizon visible at the end of the massive driveway. Even from the car, I could make out the stables, vineyard, and clay-shooting course at the edge of the property.
“Fancy,” Vincent said.
“It is,” I said. “Personally, I don’t think it’s as nice as Decimus grounds, though. It’s…stale.”
It was the only word I could come up with, but it fit somehow. Where Aurelius’s home was vibrant and alive and had been built up in what appeared—to the eyes of a visitor at least—an organic way, my family’s estate looked like it had been planned from the ground up to look as manicured and perfect as possible. It had a corporate look to it, like a resort or hotel. That was just like my family, though.
The first car pulled up to the wrought-iron gates and guard shack at the head of the driveway. Two security guards stepped forward to greet us. After a quick exchange with the front driver, the men walked to our SUV and rapped on the window.
“Stay back,” Aurelius said. “I want you to stay out of sight in case they have something planned.”
Doing as he said, I tucked myself between Rasp and Vincent, trying to make myself as small as possible, which was fairly difficult given my size.
Aurelius rolled the window down. “Yes?”
The guard glanced inside with a bored expression on his face. When he locked eyes with Aurelius, his jaw dropped, and all the color drained from his face. The men here had obviously been prepared to greet me, not the dragon prince himself.
“Uh… my lord?” he asked dumbly, as if unsure how to address the royalty of his sworn enemies.
“Aurelius is fine. No need for honorifics. We’re here with Lady Brielle Laurent for the ceremony. Are you going to let us in?”
The guard blinked rapidly to bring himself under control again. “Uh, yes. Yes, that’s right. Uhm, is the woman in the car with you?” he asked, and craned his neck to peer into the vehicle.
Aurelius moved his head, to block the man’s view.
“She’s inoneof the cars, yes. And she’s notthe woman, she’s Lady Brielle Laurent. You should have some respect when you speak her name,” Aurelius growled.
The guard, obviously on better footing now, narrowed his eyes. “Yeah. Soyousay. More likely, therealLady Laurent is in a shallow grave somewhere in dragon territory.” He sneered in disgust. “Whateverthingyou brought that looks like her is an abomination.” He waved at the gate. “Go on. Get out of here. They’ll be waiting for you.”
Aurelius bared his teeth, but said no more as he rolled up the window. “Insolentbastard,” he hissed.
“He’s a servant.” I shook my head. “All they know is what my family tells them. As far as he’s concerned, Bastien and my parents are infallible. You can’t fault him for it. It’s all he knows.”
“Icanfault him for his disrespect, though,” Aurelius said, then took a deep breath to calm himself. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit stressed. I need to get my head straight.”
“It’s fine.” I took his hand between both of mine and squeezed. “I think we’re all stressed out.”
Nothing had been more accurate. As we drove up to the house, my heart rattled in my chest, and my stomach twisted uncomfortably. I had to swallow down the urge to vomit. With each second that went by, the manor house of my youth grew larger in the windshield, and I got closer to stepping back into my past.
By the time we pulled up to the front door, my heart was pounding, and my ears were ringing with theswooshof blood coursing through my body. The only thing I wasslightlylooking forward to was seeing the few people who’d been kind to me as a child. My younger brother Freddy, my little sister Sophia, and perhaps my aunt Colette. She, of all the members of my family, had treated me with respect and kindness even after I failed to shift. Theremightbe a few friendly faces in the crowd. Unless the rest of the family had turned them against me over the years.
Our convoy pulled up outside the manor, and the other cars emptied first. A dozen of House Decimus’s security forces stepped out, led by the walking tank of a man named Octavian. It was impressive, if you didn’t know how few dragons therewere. In the northwest, where Aurelius’s family held their estate, there were thirty or forty dragon families. Across the whole of the country there were, perhaps, three hundred dragon families. Across the rest of the world, there might have been that many again. A miniscule number compared to the wolf shifters. In Laurent’s Crossing alone, there were nearly fifty wolf families. The dragon race truly was on the verge of extinction. No wonder Aurelius was bent on making peace rather than the war people like Benedictus wanted to engage in.
