Page 43 of An Empress of Fire & Steel

“It’s time for you to go, big boy,” she said, yanking him by the shirt.

“Big boy?” His laugh bounced off the walls of her room. “That’s the first compliment you have given me all night.”

“And now it’s day, and that will be the last.” She dragged him through the hall. “Get out!”

He laughed again, a deep rumbling in his chest, a laugh that made her feel both sides of her mouth turn up slightly in awe and in rage.

She spun to face him, and Breighly had to look up at him as she glowered. “What is it exactly that you find so funny?”

“You,” he said, clamping his lovely lips together. “You make me laugh.” He held her stare with his beautiful eyes and his shoulders squared.

He didn't back down.

She swallowed down any feeling of adoration for that and pushed her face into a scowl. “I do have a great personality, one that almost everyone finds charming.” She pushed him out the threshold of the door to her cottage. “Too bad you won’t see it again.” She cocked her head to the side. With a passive aggressive smile, she said, “Have a nice life.”

“Wait,” he yelled, flinging out a hand. She stood, holding the door open. “My knives, my weapons. I need them for today. And I am guessing that you don’t since you have those sharp claws that you liked to dig into my back.”

Narrowing her eyes, she dragged herself to her room to find his weapons. Looking around, she noticed them gathered in a heap on her floor, next to a weapon belt. She scooped them up, ran down the corridor, and threw them onto the grass outside. She held onto one, the biggest weapon on the belt: a fighting axe.

He ran his tongue over his lips. “Was that so hard?”

“Fuck you,” she sneered.

He laughed and pointed at the axe in her hand. “I am going to need that one too. She’s my favourite.”

A shiver ran down Breighly’s spine as his smile taunted her. She brought her arm back and launched the axe. As it flew past the hunter’s head, he ducked, and then his eyes were on her once more.

He flashed her a smile as his eyes filled with lust. “Can I see you again?”

This time she was the one to let out a laugh, a little louder than she should have, and said, “Absolutely not.”

Slamming the door behind her, she trailed back into her bedroom, dumping her body onto the mattress. Dawn looked like it was already light in the sky, but she wasn’t ready to get up. She wasn’t ready to face the world. She had just had sex with a hunter in her own home. All she could smell was his scent. It was all over her bed.

If her pack caught wind of this…She groaned.

That’s the last thing she needed. There would be murders. The princess of the wolves was not allowed relations with a hunter.

The alpha forbade it.

Gentle snowflakes cascaded down her bedroom window, making it hard to see the city against the white backdrop of the sky. A few had pressed themselves against the glass, sparkling subtly. Emara ran one finger over them, feeling the chill of the window countering the heat of her hands. She had awoken before dawn, finding the nerves of leaving for the ascension building in her gut, and had decided to practise some magic. She had only started to settle into this room and now she would have to leave it for Gods only know how long. She was about to journey through parts of the kingdom she had never been to before, and both excitement and apprehension swelled in her heart at the thought.

Today marked a change for her, even more change than she had already gone through.

She had lived a very sheltered life before finding this new world. It was clear to Emara that her grandmother had constructed her old life in a way that hid her magic. It had hidden the fact that the magic world existed all together.

Why had she done that?

She could feel her magic now. She could feel it like she could feel her chest rise and fall with every breath she took. It was thriving and it was alive.

A knock at the door had her on her feet. As she opened the big double doors at the entrance to her room, Magin Oxhound stood before her. He bowed his head once, and she tried not to look at the healing scar that pulled across his face.

This was it.

This was the beginning of being a guarded member of magical society. With everything that had been going on against the witches, part of her was grateful to have the protection. The other half of her, the darker half, wanted to rebel against it, rejecting the idea that she wasn’t enough to keep herself safe. But she wouldn’t make a spectacle of herself, not when so many people would have their eyes on her. Would her coven be scrutinising her every move, wishing Maradia hadn't crossed over to the Otherside?

“It’s time to leave,” Magin announced, dressed in full guard regalia. It was something she had witnessed hunters wear at the Uplift, but she had never expected her guards to be wearing it to escort her to the Amethyst Palace. He wore his family crest on his chest. It had an array of weapons with the initial O, but above that was a pin the symbol of House Air.

The triangle was formed in a silver metal with a line of gold through the point. It was the symbol of her house, her blood, a symbol that her grandmother would have had marked on her skin.

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