Page 91 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
“Thank you,” he murmured, our breaths fusing just like our voices had. “It makes leaving tomorrow easier.”
I swallowed deeply. What exactly did I say to my former enemy who now had his hands all over me? We were so close, I felt each of his words vibrating from his chest into mine.
“Don’t die.” The words spilled past my lips before I could stop them.
Ironic that only a few weeks ago, I would’ve wished one of those poisoned arrows upon him.
“I promise I’ll do my best,” he said. “You be careful too, menace.”
Then he did something that shocked me to my core.
The Dragon, the dangerous, deadly crown prince of the Blood Brotherhood Clan, the one who’d killed my groom at my own wedding and whisked me off away to his bloody Capital, kissed my forehead.
It was only a simple touch, as if to seal his promise.
Lips to skin, for less than a moment.
My entire body ignited and I sucked in a breath.
Before all the air had filled my lungs, he was already gone.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
EVIE
“You’re distracted,” Adara drawled as I pummeled another wooden mannequin to splinters.
I knocked it to the ground with a hard punch and nodded at my other lumber victims, upturned in a line. “I’ve done better than in all of our other training sessions.”
“Keep some of your energy, Your Grace,” Leesa said from the veranda. “We have longer lessons coming up.”
Adara’s head whipped toward her. “It’s more important for her to learn how to properly hold a sword than a fancy spoon. Why longer?”
Leesa shrugged. “Because I was instructed to.”
“I know how to hold a damn spoon,” I grumbled. It was holding the pearl crown upright on my head that I’d been having difficulties with. It kept slipping forward on my forehead whenever I moved an inch, the pearl strands catching my hair, as if it had been designed to make the wearer stand as straight and imposing as humanly possible. Perhaps to weed out weakness.The russet crown might’ve been unsightly and a meager thing, but at least it had looked easier to wear.
Adara tightened her gaze on Leesa before turning her almighty stare back to me. “Mindless violence doesn’t mean you’re a good fighter and more bodies on the ground don’t make you a victor.”
“Isn’t this what training is for?” The next mannequin collapsed with one punch. “Testing my limits?”
My limits had been pushed a lot lately.
I’d been living a lie for sixteen long, obedient years. For what?
To keep me from the dreaded Blood Brotherhood Clan? Where I trained in combat and magic and all of the things I’d been denied and chastised for wanting almost all of my life? The place where I could open whatever book I wanted and absorb every scrap of knowledge I came across?
This was the dreaded future my parents had wanted to keep me from?
The longer I thought about it, the angrier I became. And so disappointed. In them. In the great Mara and Falor who’d treated me like an inconvenience they never wanted to be shackled to.
Then there was Zandyr.
Who did he think he was, getting my blood pumping, giving me an enchanted uniform withhis blood, thenkissingmy forehead of all things, and vanishing?
Who was he to give me attention and affection I had no clue how to interpret? Now he was gone, for gods-knew how long, and I was supposed to just stew over that ghost of a kiss until he came back?
