Gideon winced and I took that like a stake to the heart. I forced a smile anyway. “No matter. I’m sure by the time I’m able to visit next, he’ll be up and about ordering everyone around again.” But I’d been saying that for years. The illness had given us only a brief time with him. I’d been but a young girl when he took to bed and never got up… unless it was to babble.
“Elena,” Gideon began, a spiel I’d heard more times than I could count, “I don’t want you to be disappointed.”
His fierce expression, so different from the composed mask I’d grown used to him wearing during our travels, reminded me so much of Father that I almost gasped aloud. They had always resembled one another. Both had broad angular jaws and deep-set eyes the color of a mountain bear’s pelt.
“Then don’t disappoint me,” I interrupted. “There has to be something we can do to save him. Anything.”
“I find it difficult to believe any magick would bring Father back from this. It would only work if Fatherwantedto live. Which I don’t think you’ve ever really understood. He could have found another mate, continued on, but he chose not to. An Immortal without a mate is as good as having a death sentence.”
Gideon’s own union with a crow-shifter, from what I could recall, had been little more than a business transaction. Their binding was cold, calculated. They were together long enough to tumble in the sheets, then kept to separate parts of the castle. I shuddered, chilled to the bone thinking about it. They’d never had children, but he’d never expressed anydesire to be a father.
“We can’t just let him die like this, Gideon.”
But Gideon had enough; he waved a dismissive hand like I was one of the servants he ordered around. And maybe I was. For most of my life he’d been the one who raised me, gave me guidance. In some ways, he had been more a father figure than the man lying unconscious in the bed. “You’re acting like a child. You cannot expect to ignore the facts in front of us. He’s not getting any better. This illness has even the most skilled healers stumped. Ever since Mother died—”
I found myself on my feet, teeth bared like a lioness protecting her cub. “You act like he’s already dead.”
The pitying expression on Gideon’s face made me wish I had tooth or claw to rip him to shreds. Shifting into a griffin would have been beneficial, or even a loon with its pointed bill would come in handy to spear Gideon until he could talk sense. “Maybe it’s a good thingthe Dragon is taking you to the Northlands,” he said. “Evidently, the time at the temple wasn’t enough to get you thinking clearly.”
“Won’t you consider letting him come with us?” It was an argument we’d had years before when I’d left for Caerleon, but his responding sigh of impatience still birthed the first thread of dismay in my heart.
The thought of leaving Father was one that had kept me up at night while I was traveling back. It had been hard enough leaving him to live at the temple. Doing so now would be more permanent than I could handle. I was certain a man such asthe Dragon would never entertain the thought of bringing a sickly old man all the way to the North. The cost of magick alone would be exorbitant. Our family was rich in power…but little else. The crown we wore was superficial at best, and now in my case, nonexistent.
The Dragon, however, was rumored to keep a vast horde of treasures deep within his mountains. Enough gold and riches to finance the whole of Acasia. If he had any interest in ruling our kind, he could buy and sell us out ten times over.
But no one in the capital wanted a murderer for a king. Sure, we’d bartered for his wrath to protect our borders for a time, but the ladies on the Council would rather die than have a monster like him on the throne. I bet they were certain he would be even worse than me.
“You know he isn’t well enough to travel,” Gideon said, interrupting my desperate thoughts. “Don’t fret, sister, we have the best healers in Acasia at our disposal. They will take good care of him until it is his time.” Finally, he came to my side, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Don’t dawdle here. The Dragon is due to arrive any moment and he’ll be wanting to meet you.”
I managed to keep my knees locked until the door to the study clicked behind him; then I collapsed on the chair beside the bed with my face in my hands. I didn’t want to leave his side, but if I didn’t Gideon would be disappointed. The grief was overwhelming, but I would steal away what few moments I had left with him, Gideon—and the damned Dragon I was to mate—notwithstanding.
I swallowed down my own feelings like a bitter spoonful of medicine and leaned over my father’s weakened form and whispered, “I love you,” into his ear. I kissed his brow, lingering for a second to inhale his familiar scent beneath the stench of death. “I promise I’ll do whatever it takes to heal you. Even mate the wretched Dragon.”
4
Rhysander
We buried the bodies…or what remained of them.
There was nothing left of Braedon but cinders, smoke, and the ghosts of its inhabitants. It wasn’t the first shifter village to be attacked of late, and I was afraid it wouldn’t be the last.
My mouth tasted like ash and copper for days afterward. Death clung to my skin like an oily shadow, no matter how many times I bathed in the river that ran along the main road to Aurelia. I considered finding a caster to magick away the remains, but dismissed the idea. Like the Fae, casters were a tricky folk. Part human, part Immortal, they drew upon the magic from the land to impart simple enchantments.
But they almost always had a price.
That I knew all too well.
I tossed and turned inside my tent in an attempt to blot out the memories with sleep. But the scent of death was too strong, and my mind too weary from the days of travel. In the twilight of half-sleep, they taunted me with miseries long since gone.
Miseries that made me reconsider if mating this princess was wise after all.
I pushed up from my pallet on the frozen ground and stalked into the forest, the snow crunching underfoot. The sharp, icy bite filled my nose, erasing the scent of burnt flesh, at least momentarily. Following the sound of water trickling over rocks, I wound my way back to the river. Part of me hoped the sound could drown out my thoughts.
The conversation with Alaric had been on my mind since we left the Northlands. I didn’t want another mate. If it weren’t for the bargain I’d made with King Baron to protect the southern borders of Aurelia, I’d still be in my mountains, far away from these new threats against my people. Threats that were growing too close to the Northlands for my peace of mind.
I reached the river and knelt down to splash my face with the frigid water. If I couldn’t sleep, then I’d keep watch over my men. The refreshing icy stream washed away the last vestiges of grogginess.
It wasn’t until I was halfway through the forest to our camp when I caught the sound over the splashing water. Feet connecting with earth. Hushed voices. The whisper of metal being drawn from a sheath.
