Sahira wiggled her fingers as she grinned. “But full-on bitch.”
Cole snorted with laughter, and Lexi rolled her eyes. “Bitchiness isn’t going to stop him,” she said.
“You can come with us,” Cole offered.
“No,” Sahira said as Lexi said, “Yes!”
“We can’t leave George here completely unprotected if Malakai does return. But youcango,” Sahira said when Lexi started to protest. She clasped Lexi’s good hand in hers and squeezed. “Go, Lexi. I’ll be fine, but most importantly, you’ll be safe.”
She couldn’t believe her aunt was arguing for her to gowithCole. Apparently, her concern for Lexi’s safety outweighed her dislike and distrust of the dark fae. It figured such a thing would happen now.
“I can’t be gone long,” she said to Cole.
“You won’t be,” Cole promised.
* * *
When they steppedthrough the portal Cole created, Lexi stopped dead in her tracks as she gazed at the fence spikes. The first time she came here, it was night and the moons hanging over the palace cast a silver radiance over the land.
Now, the night sky was overcast and none of those moons were visible. The peaks and turrets of the palace stretched so high it was almost impossible to discern where they ended and the sky began.
Wings stretched out to the side of the building, and the structure went so far back the end of it vanished into the night. The golden light shining out of the towering palace’s numerous windows spilled across the grounds to illuminate the fence.
They also illuminated the remains stuck to the spikes on that fence. Remains Cole created.
He’d told her about the dragon, but hearing it andseeingit were two completely different things. The head was monstrous and enormous. It had to be at least eight feet long, and the thick sinew hanging from its severed neck revealed how heavily muscled the beast was.
It was a gruesome spectacle, and this thing had killed Cole’s father, but she couldn’t help feeling a little bad for it. It had only followed orders and died because of it.
Had it wanted to follow those orders?
Everyone saw dragons as merciless monsters now. But though they were known as dangerous and protective of those who ruled them, they’d never destroyed lands until the Lord commanded them to.
A part of her really hoped they were cruel creatures who enjoyed killing and not beasts enslaved by a vindictive master who made them do things they wouldn’t normally do.
That possibility caused her chest to tighten. No matter what they wanted to do, this dragon was huge and lethal, and Cole had destroyed it.
“How?” she whispered.
He didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about. “It killed my father.”
That didn’t entirely explain the how, but she understood. Grief and wrath could compel someone to feats they never dreamed possible.
Beside the dragon head were the remains of the helot Cole killed. She hadn’t known his name then, but she briefly met Sindri when he introduced her to the king and his sons at the party the king threw to celebrate the end of the war. And now he and the king were dead.
It was a turn of events she never could have seen coming then.It’s all so short and fast,she realized as she gazed at the remains.
She’d always known that, but standing there, with a small breeze tickling her hair and the song of the night creatures filling her ears, it had never been more precarious or precious.
“Cole….”
He turned to look at her, but she had no idea what to say to him. Instead, she held out her hand to him. It was the hand Malakai broke, but it was fully healed.
When Cole took it, his fingers fit perfectly as they entwined with hers. As she gazed at his hand, she wondered how many more times she would get the chance to hold it.
She shook off her melancholy musings as Cole opened the gate and stepped back to let her enter the palace’s outer courtyard. The stables to her left were quiet, but a single lantern burned in one of the windows. She suspected it was the room of the stable boy who most likely resided there.
A couple of greenhouses and some gardens were to the right of the stone pathway they trod toward the stairs leading to the looming palace doors. Beyond those gardens were more buildings. Plates of armor hung on fences and posts outside some of those buildings.
