Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
“I’m not quite that—”
Leala cut me off. “Well, if that comes to pass, we’ll get drunk and reminisce about the good old times, of which we’ll hopefully have many by then.” She gave me an encouraging smile.
“Hear, hear.” Hadriel raised his hand before looking at it. “Damn it, that would’ve been better if I’d had a drink. Aurelia, my darling, Leala will take great care of you. Tomorrow morning I’ll pick you up early and we’ll head to the library, okay? I’m going to go order you dinner and find myself a big bottle of wine.” He sighed contentedly. “It’s good to be home.”
Later that night, after I was cleaned and fed and lay in the most comfortable bed I’d ever felt, I stared out the window and thought of my mom. She would never have imagined I’d be in a room so fine. She would be ecstatic that a queen’s maid—a dragon queen’s maid, no less—had attended me. She’d also be thrilled that I was trapped in a tower in a big castle. Her imagination would be running wild.
My mind didn’t, though. I didn’t conjure up any stories of princes fighting the dragons and climbing up to save me. The man on my mind had ripped me from my home and put me here. He was the hero in his story, but the villain in mine.
And yet my bed felt empty without him. My body craved his touch. I needed to break this hold he had on me before he broke me. His duty was done. Mine had just begun.
Chapter 10
Weston
As I entered the throne room, Nyfain, the king—a dragon with an intense aura and golden-eyed stare—said, “Good to have you back. I hear you brought us Granny’s prized drugmaker.”
Finley, the queen and his mate, sat in the throne next to him on a dais at the head of a long, grand room, smiling in welcome. “How was the journey? Did you have any trouble?”
Where to start . . .
“Hello, Your Highnesses. We were met with a few complications,” I said before telling them about the clues we were able to follow, the break we’d gotten from Hadriel sussing out intel via gossip, and the village we had found.
“Wow.” Finley sat back, her long brown hair draped around her face, and crossed an ankle over her knee. “The village was way out in the middle of nowhere, huh? Smart. It’s not like someone would just wander into it.”
I gritted my teeth at how blasé she was in speaking about that horror village. What did I expect, though? They hadn’t seen the beating Granny had given her gardener or walked through that hopeless and run-down place. They hadn’t looked into the haunted eyes of those villagers and been confused about why no one had bothered to protect their home. They hadn’t heard firsthand accounts from Aurelia’s life or read about the hard times in her journals.
Fighting off the need to tell them about my status with Aurelia, wanting to wait until they understood the situation a little more, I painted a picture of what I’d seen and what we’d learned. Detail by gritty detail, I made them feel the environment Aurelia and the villagers had survived.
“They weren’t just a production village, they were trapped there. They were forced to make the product or risk severe punishments.”
“So . . . wait.” Finley leaned forward, confusion knitting her brow. “First, sit down, will you? You’ve got to be tired, and I can see how tense it’s made you.”
The tension wasn’t from fatigue, but yes, I was fucking exhausted. I had hardly slept last night, instead passing the hours holding my mate, listening to her breathe. I’d worried about this meeting, about what would happen when we arrived here.
About what I’d be forced to do to this kingdom to protect her.
I pulled a chair over and sat in front of their thrones, just the three of us in this great room. I’d asked for that specifically and they hadn’t questioned it, having always trusted my judgment. I hoped, after this, they still would.
“So . . .” Finley scratched her nose. “I don’t understand this. You’re saying one person made all the product coming out of that . . . production village, you called it? That’s what you said, right? Just one person, not several?”
Nervousness rippled through me at how she focused solely on the drugs and seemed to discount the environment Aurelia and the others had lived in. They needed to be viewed hand in hand, or Aurelia would be regarded as an accomplice and not a victim.
“One person made the base of the drugs, yes.”
I explained the difference between the villagers versus Granny’s workers and patrol. I also mentioned about the village not getting paid, instead getting just enough food and goods brought in. Nyfain leaned back in his throne when I told them how Granny kept them from leaving by essentially holding a child hostage to ensure the parents returned.