Page 35 of King of Pride and Talons

When Breya was finally alone, she started to pack her bags. She felt heavy with gloom, not only her own, but Thorne’s grief too. She was usually more apt at compartmentalizing the emotions of others to keep from bleeding into her own. But Thorne was different. He had infiltrated her finely tuned barriers and left an indelible mark.

Her cheeks became blotted with tears as she penned a good-bye letter. It wasn’t the way she wanted to go, but she felt she really didn’t have a choice. Thorne was attached to her in a way that he couldn’t really ever see her side of things. It was the shifter blindness she had come to know intimately.

Breya was midway through the letter, dabbing her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse when the energy of the room changed. Then came that smell of something in a state of decay.

The witch spun around and was greeted by Nyfain once again, surrounded by a mass of ugly, oily smoke. He was showing off those peg-like teeth and came toward her with terrifying speed.

His outstretched bony hand clapped around Breya's throat. She dropped the quill as the sorcerer tightened his grip.

"So glad that you decided to leave a note.” He sneered, eyes wide and the color of bone. “Now no one is going to know that I have you. How very thoughtful.”

Breya tried to scrape at the skin of his arms with her nails, but it was like scraping along leather. Her throat was closing up, but not because he was trying to choke or strangle her. No—Nyfain was siphoning her of her energy so she could not retaliate.

She felt it like the draining of a bowl through a hole in the bottom. She was a powerful witch, but he had caught her off guard during a vulnerable moment. She was already somewhat emptied by her confession to the king, so there was little to salvage.

But Breya kicked at his shins and continued trying to dig her nails into him. The last of her vitality was taken from her, sucked away through a narrow tube.

She could hear him cackling as the drapes behind him began to blur. She tried to visualize her mother, her sister, her father, Thorne.

But it didn’t work. Breya dropped into the blackness of unconsciousness.

NINETEEN

THORNE

The king was dumbfounded by Breya’s desire to leave. After everything they'd been through, she wanted to go back to her little human village. It made no sense to him. He left the bedroom feeling more irritable than sad, but he knew in the back of his mind that the hurt would set in later.

He mumbled to himself as he paced the castle, unable to sit long enough to distract himself from the potential heartbreak. He eventually ended up in his office, wearing only his casual robe and underwear that he generally never left the king's quarters in.

Thorne told himself that he had to give her time. In the same way that he had asked her to give his people time and warm to her presence. He wanted to grovel to her in a way that was unspeakably pitiful. He wouldn’t, of course, as he was the triumphant king of Savanna, but the mere thought made him realize just how dire the circumstances had become.

After shoveling down a plate of cream cheese bagels and a few black cups of coffee, there was a knock at the king's office door. His heart leaped for a moment.

"Come in," he grunted.

It was Sarielle. She held a piece of paper between her fingers, and her expression was ghostlike. She placed it on the desk without a word, then began to wring her hands together mournfully.

“I found this in Breya’s room,” she murmured.

Thorne snatched up the note and read it at record speed. His heart dropped like a boulder into a shallow pond.

“What is this?” he said, angrily waving out the sheet. "It's not finished.”

He was shouting at her, but she did not flinch. It was all coming from a place of distress, and she likely knew that.

“I found the note in the queen’s quarters, but her packed bags are still there. I had the guards search the castle and grounds but she is nowhere to be found."

Thorne snarled as he spoke, his fingers digging into the lip of his desk.

“Then search it again. And again!”

“There’s more, My King.”

Sarielle approached him and put something else on the desk, on top of the unfinished note. It was a feather, stark yellow with light brown inflections. Old and dead languages were etched into the quill and vane.

The king immediately knew who it belonged to. He fingered the feather, which ran the length of his thumb.

“Hannai uses this as a token,” he said brusquely, then curled the feather into the palm of his hand. “The trusted witch of the Lion Council has my damn mate.”

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