His chest rose on a slow breath, the smallest shift of weight leaning into her touch for a moment. Then his focus snapped forward again.
Ash summoned her obsidian dagger and slipped the weapon in her boot, just in case.
Koal grunted, heaving the fallen queen’s throne upright. “Where the hell is the bastard hiding?”
“There are many hidden passages off this room,” Attor muttered, from the far wall, his expression grim. “He could be in any of them.”
“He can hide. But I have his scent. I will find him.” His features carved in granite, Race leaped onto the dais, bypassed the thrones, and began working his way along the rear wall, fingertips gliding over the stone with slow, deliberate care.
Ash’s tension returned in spades, every nerve alert, every shadow threatening, as she waited. The silence hung heavy, broken only by the scrape of measured steps as Attor and Koal paced the perimeter, keeping watch. Rhaedra waited just behind Ash, motionless.
Footsteps sounded beyond the room, heavy and uneven, drawing closer.
Ash’s head snapped toward the archway, shadows shifting beyond the threshold.
From the dust-choked corridor, Skaldr emerged, his face blood-splattered, his sword sheathed at his back, and his clothes stained with blood. He had his arm wrapped around a tall, slender woman with long, bright red hair. Her pale blue gown hung in filthy tatters, as if she’d been dragged through wreckage.
She clung to Skaldr, her cheek pressed to his chest, her sobs tearing through the silence. Even tear-drenched, her profile was chiseled perfection.
But her sheer terror wrenched Ash’s heart.
“I found her,” Skaldr rasped, his voice raw, almost breaking. He held her as though she were something precious he’d almost lost forever.
Ash’s gaze rushed to Race. He stared at the woman, his face pale, expression unreadable. At the sudden quiet in their bond, her chest tightened.
But she steadied herself and waited.
The woman turned her head, her eyes brimming with desperation. Her gaze darted around the room—and stopped on Race.
“My prince, Eracier,” she gasped, a sob breaking loose. “You live.”
She tore out of Skaldr’s arms and ran, her matching silken slippers scattering rubble as she sprinted to where Race stood like an unmoving pillar amid the wreckage near the thrones.
Ash’s wariness spiked as the she-dragon stumbled up the steps to the dais and collapsed against Race’s chest, clinging to him like he was her only salvation.
Her tangled red hair spilled across his leather jacket, her words breaking into raspy breaths. “He-he said that once the spell lifted from you, you ran off and that I didn’t matter,” Vaesarra choked out. “Then he trapped me here. Please, don’t hate me. I’ve waited for you through all these anguished millennia.”
A growl rumbled free. Not Race’s. Skaldr’s. His face was carved from stone, fury blazing in his eyes. “Vae. Don’t.”
A tic pulsed on Race’s jaw before he gently, deliberately removed her arms from him, his voice low, controlled. “You are free now. Skaldr?”
The male bounded up the steps and gathered his sister close, his face softening in a way Ash had never seen, grief and anger entwined together.
Race’s expression gave nothing away as he turned to the wall behind the ruined thrones. No, nothing would get in his way of finding and obliterating Malcarion.
Quiet sobs drew Ash’s attention back to the woman. For a she-dragon, she seemed too fragile, too docile. But her eyes—those luminous amber eyes—clung to Race with desperate worship.
Something hot and fierce twisted through Ash’s chest.
Lightning pricked her palms, begging to spark.
Oh, no, you don’t. You had him once, and you lost him. Don’t you dare look at him like that now.
She forced her fists to unclench while the storm burned in her veins.
But unease stirred low in her gut. So much anguish, so much to unravel.
All of it, dangerous to Ash.
