Page 8 of Fated Flames: Volume Two
“Is she well?”
I come to a dead stop. Slowly, I glance back over my shoulder. “What?”
“The princess,” Lyken says. He looks genuinely concerned, as if any part of her is his to be concerned about. “Is she well?”
My eye narrows on him. “Indeed.”
Scales brew beneath the surface of my skin.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he says.
There’s nothing more, and I walk on before I rip him to pieces.
Rally is waiting for me when I arrive at the palace keep. He doesn’t ask why I’m growling under my breath, and I don’t offer. We pass the entry guards in silence.
“I was about to come find you before Ty came,” he says as we head for the stairs leading down to the dungeons. “Word has it your first challenger is on his way to The Pit.”
A smile cuts across my face. “Who?”
“Some upstart from the northern province.”
I click my tongue. “I was hoping for better.”
Rally grunts. He’d prefer the quiet my rule has brought. There have been no challengers since I took the throne myself, an occurrence nearly unheard of in a kingdom where kingship is won, not inherited. But word of an unplanned transformation travels fast.
They think I’m slipping. They think a female has weakened my hold. A silent laugh rumbles through my chest.
They have no idea what lengths I’d go to for her.
Or the lengths I’ve already gone.
Nothing could please me more right now than a challenger to sink my teeth into. I’ll stop by the kitchens, then make my way to The Pit. I smile to myself in the torchlight.
Yes, I’ll do that right after I speak with my Sileshian guest.
3
“Soren, wait!”
I mark a trace of hesitation in the king’s step, and then he’s gone, leaving me to stare at the door he left through in a speechless stupor.
What just happened?
Perhaps I’m simply unaccustomed to madness, but I can’t seem to reconcile the person I danced with last night with the creature who stood here and threatened to burn Vasna for the crime ofleaving my room. Head reeling, I turn to Tilly.
“He’s mad,” I say in a kind of horrified wonder.
As soon as the words are said, I regret them. Mad or not, he’s her brother, and I am the stranger here. But Tilly doesn’t look offended. No, sheshrugsand begins picking at her nails.
“He’s a dragon,” she says as if that explains all.
“He just threatened to burn my homeland!”
She rolls her eyes. “He’s not going to burn your homeland.” She pauses and glances up as if a thought suddenly occurred to her. “You don’t have any old lovers there, do you?”
“What? No.”
“Then it should be fine.”
