“Shut up.” My bones ached with the desire to shift. To do battle. Something that would prove deadly for us both.
“Tell me.”
Inhale. Exhale. He would not provoke me. “Tell you what?”
“This sudden desire to protect her. Is it feigned? Is that it?You’re faking concern for her, using it as an excuse to spirit her away? To keep me from breaking my curse?”
“Now you’ve really gone off the deep end.”
“Maybe it isyouwho’s held me back all these years,”he dared to sneer.“Youwho keeps me from regaining all I lost.”
There was so much to unpack in that one statement that it was impossible to know where to start. “Whatyou’velost?” I snarled. “Look around you. Travel the hallways of Pyrrhus. Count the corpses and tell me again how muchyouhave lost.”
He lowered his head, voice raw.“I did love them, you know.”
I stiffened at the lie. What a load of nerf dung. Alaric was never an affectionate king. A generous king. A forgiving king.
“I never should have brought you here.” I twirled a finger over my head. “It’s addling your mind. Filling you with ideas of grandeur.”
“Remember.”He leveled his dark gaze at me.“Once I’m a man again, you’ll be free of the vow you made. I’d think you, of all people, would do anything to make that happen. Even if it meant endangering one insignificant woman.”
“Is that all she is to you?” I asked, failing to hide my disbelief. He forgot I knew him too well. This was all posturing. If she were insignificant, he wouldn’t be snarling like a starving wolf at the idea of losing her.
This argument was part of some ploy to throw me off the scent. He downplayed her importance because his need for her made him vulnerable. The thought that I held some sway with Serafina interfered with his control of the situation.
“Of course,”he said with false indifference.“Why? What is she to you?”
Ah, and there it was. He feared I’d grown attached.
“I honestly don’t know,” I admitted. And that was the truth.
But I intended to find out.
Irony was, during Alaric’s tirade, he’d given me permission.
Chapter Twenty
SERAFINA
“Stupid dragons and their scaley man-trums?”
While Thorne and his brother bellowed at each other, I headed for the bathing chamber, cooling my bare feet in the shallow end of the pool. I didn’t dare submerge my body and risk drowning, but the water still felt good on my legs.
The timing of their argument couldn’t be worse. Alaric needed mending, and Speck was prisoner to some dark force. Now that I knew what had happened to him and the others, I wanted to act, not sit around waiting for the stubborn shifters to finish their pissing contest.
Speck had survived the attack only to be captured. If we didn’t rescue him soon, would he end up like Cookie? My stomach twisted at the thought.
Next, there were Yaga’s revelations about my past as well as my future. What did the goddess want from me? If I really was her handmaiden and sent here for some purpose, then once again my life wasn’t my own. Would I ever truly be free?
“Sera?” Thorne’s deep voice drew me from my thoughts. Iturned to find him approaching with his usual lumbering gait—shirtless and barefoot. Something warm flickered within my chest at the sight.
I tipped my chin in greeting. “I take it Alaric didn’t incinerate you?”
His lips tugged into a smirk. “Were you worried about me, Princess?”
“Hardly,” I scoffed.
“Mind if I join you?”
