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“Thank you, but no, we’re going straight to the room, I can carry it,” I assured them. One of them shot me a look of annoyance, but I pressed on with Lerin.
If someone else accompanied us, we’d be more likely to get caught.
His bedroom was larger than the bakery I worked in. It had everything: a beautiful couch, a humongous bed, and a bathroom with a clawfoot tub and separate shower.
I didn’t have any of these things for more than a couple of days, but I was going to miss them, nonetheless.
It was worth it to know he would be happier.
None of this was worth Lerin hurting.
He grabbed a duffle and we started shoving in clothes before he turned to a small low panel on the wall. When he opened it, the space inside looked full to the brim with money. There were stacks of hundred-dollar bills, easily a few million, stashed away like an overly abundant piggy bank.
“Why do you have all this cash?” I asked in surprise.
His face turned red hot, and he looked at the floor.
“When the seer first arrived, I tried to pay her off into leaving,” he admitted. “She said no, and I didn’t know what to do with it after…”
He closed the safe, and I hugged him, speaking into his shoulder, “I’m glad she stayed so I could get to know you.”
“This money should get us through for a while.”
I laughed, not sure if he was joking or not. “Lerin, that’s enough money to get us through a lifetime or two.” We didn’t need a ton. His lifestyle would have to change a little, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t be happy.
As we rushed out, careful not to look like we were rushing, he kept his bag at his hip, and I kept mine on my back. I considered for a moment that we should have left in the middle of the night, but that might have caught more attention.
I was, admittedly, a little sad I was going to miss out on the garden.
“Lerin! Hey! I heard you got here, what are you—?” I recognized his younger brother Rhaef’s voice and spun round to see him approaching. His steps faltered when he saw our bags. “Wait, are you leaving?”
“Yeah, just for the weekend,” Lerin lied.
Rhaef stopped short of us, his eyes thin with confusion. “You left this morning, and you just arrived back right now. Why would you leave again?”
Lerin frowned. “You wouldn’t get it—you don’t have your fated mate yet.” He was trying to hurt him to make him leave us alone.
It didn’t work.
“You’re leaving the kingdom for good?”
The words, whether or not he meant them to, changed the entire atmosphere of the castle.
Heads turned, fast, and my heart stopped with panic.
“Rhaef, no—”
“Prince Lerin,” a voice echoed from a nearby room. Through the open door came a man dressed in unfamiliar military garb. “Let me see in your bag, please.”
That bag was filled with enough cash to last a lifetime and enough vital documents to make it clear what we were doing.
Shit.
“You have no command over me,” Lerin cut back.
The man shifted.
He was a scarlet dragon with long skeletal wings. It suddenly made sense why the halls here were so big.
