Page 38 of The Crimson Princess
Bellar stares at me, his eyes dark as the night, and as unreadable as the Book of Life is to everyone but my father. Seconds tick by and I can feel the crackle of his magic in the air. One of the frostburns to Bellar’s left snarls and the wind whips again. It also tells me Bellar was about to do something stupid like blink and grab me. Bellar grimaces at the offending frostburn and several others snarl and crowd him. He blinks several feet away and calls out, “Can you get rid of the frostburns?”
“I no more control them than my father does me.”
He grits his teeth again. “You need to come home.”
“You say that as if my home is yours. It isnot.”
“Let me take you toyourhome. Your father’s worried.”
“I’m headed to the castle. If you want to attempt to travel with me, feel free. And good luck.” I start walking, and the frostburns create a path for me to travel, but they stay close to me, sheltering me. Animals sense character and they dislike Bellar for a reason.
The fact that my father is willing to take a dramatic step and marry his daughter off to an enemy says there is something he’s not telling me. What does he know that I do not? What has the book told him about the sorceress and how does his betrayal of Toren play into how he deals with it now?
Eager to talk some sense into him, I start running, the frostburns keeping pace, but Bellar is not or I’d sense his magic. It’s thirty minutes later when I step out of the woods, and the frostburns hang back inside the forest. My father’s guards are waiting there for me, and I hold up a finger, daring any of them to try to touch me.
No one is that foolish.
I walk toward the castle and a guard greets me with an apologetic expression that warns me I will not like what awaits me inside. With my barely-there nod of appreciation, he opens the door for me. Once I’ve crossed the threshold and entered the foyer another guard shuts the door behind me. My father is waiting on me a foot forward, and I’m not even a little surprised to find Bellar with him, a smug look on his face.
He thinks he’s won. I haven’t even started to fight.
“Where have you been?” my father demands.
“As I’m sure Bellar here told you,” I say, “the forest. Hunting. The details of which you need to know, but not in present company.”
My father’s expression pinches with irritation. “He’s to be your husband. Speak in front of him.” His brows dip. “Why is there blood on your face?”
Some say the truth will set you free and that’s exactly what I plan to give my father. The truth of what is in the forest, that could have easily caused the blood on my face. “King Killian,” I say tightly, an address I never use with my father. “I request consult with the crown. This is not personal, nor is it about me or the prince.”
My father’s green eyes cut into mine, colder than the ice of an Earthly arctic winter. His stare daring me to hold my path if I do not have a matter outside my proposed marriage to discuss. I am not intimidated, my gaze as fiercely firm as his is dominant.
Seconds tick by and he glances at Bellar, a lift to his hand as he dismisses the druid prince, “Leave us.”
Bellar tilts his chin in respect and says, “As you wish, King Killian.” The druid prince then turns to me. “At your service should you need me, princess.” He smartly doesn’t wait for the reply he would not like. He walks to the door, and the guard opens the door for him.
My father motions me out of the foyer. “The throne room.”
With him heavy on my heels I trek the path and once I’m inside the room, he joins me and shuts the door, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “I’m listening.”
“I went to visit mom’s old village.”
“I told you—”
“I needed to say goodbye. I needed to go somewhere that felt like her.”
His lips press together. “That would be here.”
“Of course it is, but at times she would take me to a bakery she loved in the village. It was our special place.”
“And you went there knowing I would not approve,” he replies, when some part of me hoped to stir a familiar memory in him, and at least a flicker of emotional response.
“The point of this conversation is not my travels. It’s what I discoveredduringmy travels. The forest is infested with werewolves. Translation,our villagesare infested with werewolves.”
He waves a dismissive hand. “Impossible.”
“Every Challenge we open the portal. We got them all the time in San Francisco.”
“Because that portal has a crack and it’s right above the Third World,” he argues. “Ravengale’s sealed by my magic and that of the book.”
