AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I can’t help but laugh at Esmeral’s antics and delight in the fact that she’s annoying this Alpha. “Good work, Esmeral. Keep it up.”
Without thinking, I reach out to pat Esmeral’s head. It’s only as I’m doing it that I realize I’m reaching for something with dozens of dozens of razor-sharp teeth as if it were a house cat. When Esmeral’s turquoise and golden eyes flash, panic slams through me, and I’m certain she’s about to tear my arm off.
Esmeral knocks her head into my hand so hard that it hurts, and she trills happily. With both eyes closed, she goes on rubbing and butting her head against my palm while Stesha and I gaze on in shock.
“Is this normal?” I ask the dragonmaster.
“Not really,” he mutters, frowning at the dragon.
Whatever that means.
“Well. Someone likes praise,” I mutter, drawing my sore hand away from Esmeral and shaking it.
“It seems that way.”
“Why don’t you just let her take the letter? We should all be allowed to do our part for Maledin if we wish.”
Esmeral seems to realize I’m on her side and whips around to look at Stesha hopefully.Please? Please, please, please?
Stesha narrows his eyes at me. “I’m the dragonmaster, not you. Watch your rank, your tongue, and your tone, Lady Isavelle.”
My mouth falls open. Watch my tongue? I’m only making a suggestion.
Esmeral hisses at Stesha. I wish I could do the same.
“Aren’t you fun,” I mutter, suppressing the urge to snap,I’m the king’s mate, soyoushould watch your tongue withme.
Stesha holds out his hand for the Temple Crone’s scroll, but I pretend not to notice yet again, and he growls in frustration.
“You were raised human all your life, weren’t you?” he asks.
“Of course I was. Like everyone in Maledin.”
“I see,” he seethes, in a way that tells me he’d like to say a lot more.
I lift my chin and gaze at him. “Speak your mind, please.”
He watches me for a long time, his pale blue eyes flickering critically. “You were spoiled and indulged all your life. Always given the finest things and told you were special.”
I burst out laughing. “Spoiled and indulged? By the Brethren?”
My amusement only makes his anger deepen. “You talk to me like a hatchling who has never met an Alpha before. If you were my Omega, I’d do something about you being such a brat.” He bites off the wordbratas if he’s snapping it with his teeth. “Someone should teach you how the lower designations are meant to address Alphas.”
The lower designations. The Temple Crone made being an Omega sound special, but Stesha the dragonmaster clearly wants to walk all over me. “Oh, please tell me.”
“Please tell medragonmaster,” he snarls, completely missing my sarcasm. “First of all, proper terms of address. The king isMa’len, not Zabriel. Secondly, stand demurely, not slouching like a tavern wench. Finally, you should be thrown into freezing water and scrubbed red raw to punish you for going before another Alpha reeking ofHratha’lenOmega oils.” Stesha’s eyes blaze. “But you have your own Alpha, so that’s none of my business. Now give me that scroll and get out of my sight.”
Cheeks flooding with furious heat, I slap the scroll into his hand. He turns around and strides away with a scroll in each hand, and a moment later he disappears among the large, scaly bodies of the flare.
“Throw me into freezing water?” I splutter, heading back across the stone bridge. “And I donotslouch like a tavern wench. If I call Zabriel by his name then that’s my business, not the dragonmaster’s.”
I’m still muttering to myself as I stalk through the castle in search of Zabriel. I find him in the War Room speaking with Godric and several other soldiers, who fall silent when I march in.
Zabriel looks around in surprise. “Isavelle? Is something wrong?”
My chest is heaving. I must look flushed, and there’s flyaway hair all around my face. “I met another Alpha just now.”
Jealousy flashes across his handsome face and he takes a step toward me. “Another Alpha?”
