“Then talk to me.” She slipped her hands up his hard chest. “I can’t read your mind.”
“I’m learning.” He pressed his lips over the faint claim mark he’d left on her skin, and desire unfurled low in her belly.
“Race?”
“Hmm…” His mouth trailed up to her jaw.
“Why is Skaldr so certain Vaesarra still loves you?” She drew back a fraction. “I mean, it’s been a long time? If it wasn’t serious…”
He released her and exhaled deeply, shoving back strands of loosened hair from his face. “I liked her, but there were no promises between us. I knew she wanted more, but I was youngand wasn’t about to tie myself down to anyone. After all, we live long lives.”
Ash swallowed hard at her truth.I don’t.
No, this was never going to be a till-death-do-us-part thing.
“Was Skaldr in love with her?” she asked, trying to shut off the ache building deep inside her.
“Hardly. They’re siblings.”
“Ohhhh.” No wonder Skaldr’s fury runs so deep. “So, what happened?”
Race let her go and sat heavily on the bed. “In the days before the coup, she grew increasingly upset over what she called my ‘blasé’ ways. Claimed I never took anything seriously.” He shook his head, rubbing a thumb along the scar on his knuckle. “Being the youngest, I guess I didn’t. There can only be one heir who will wear the Ember Crown when my sire steps down, and I already had two older brothers…”
Ash nodded as he wound through the memories.
“As a highborn, Vaesarra got her way far too often. I had plans to join the wing commander’s squadron. But me being acommonsoldier didn’t sit well with her. She yelled about me wasting my power, throwing everything away…”
He shook his head. “With tension already rising in the realm, when she started on the same old thing again, I snapped. I told her she could leave if she weren’t happy.”
Ash winced at the bluntness but kept silent.
He got up, moved to the basin, lifted her water mug, and drained the remaining liquid in a single swallow. Then he stared at the metal beaker.
“As Caelvyrn fell…” Each word seemed dragged from somewhere raw and dark, “Skaldr and I fought off the rebels. He ended up badly wounded. I tried to reach him, but couldn’t with the enemy surging. The guards forced us apart…”
He exhaled and scrubbed his tight jaw. “I was sprinting through the palace, searching for my parents, when the cursed, spelled arrow struck me in the back. I collapsed, unable to move a limb…”
His knuckles turned white as his grip tightened on the mug. “Malcarion appeared, dragging my sire’s lifeless body with him, trailing blood everywhere. ‘A pity your dam died so fast,’he gloated.
Race’s jaw hardened.“Thenhe laughed… ‘And you princeling, you belong to me. Your brothers traded you to me for their lives—ah, you didn’t know, did you? Poor, useless prince. They didn’t want a weakling said to be more powerful than them around?—’”
“He lied to you!” Ash blurted, remembering Attor’s revelation that they’d been killed during the coup.
“Aye, but I didn’t know that back then.” Pain tightened his face as fresh grief darkened his eyes. “Vengeance was all that kept me going in Tartarus. I hated my brothers…” His throat worked as he set the mug down and sat on the bed again, head bowed.
“Later, as a Guardian, I stopped caring. I decided they deserved the life Malcarion would hand them.”
“How did you know you’d come into power?” Ash asked quietly.
He looked up, his eyes like bloodied bruises. “My dam revealed what the Blood Singer foresaw days earlier, that I would come into formidable sway, with powers to be feared. Something dragons don’t inherently have…”
Race dragged his thumb and forefinger over his eyes as if he could wipe away the memory. “As Malcarion crowed about his victory, Vaesarra rushed into the gallery, white as death. He grabbed her. She fought him and ran to me. Her eyes…” Hisvoice tightened. “They held such terror. As if she couldn’t believe what was happening.”
Ash hugged her arms around herself, the cold crawling under her skin. “Didn’t you have personal guards to protect you all?”
“We did. But Malcarion was known, trusted, and the overlord of another, smaller county. Always so rigid at keeping order,loyal to a fault, my sire would say, but he’d been plotting this treachery all along.”
“What are you going to do?”
