Page 15 of A Book of Royals and Deities

Ipace up and down in front of the dungeon doors while I wait for Ziven and Ruelle to come out. Ziven was furious when he turned up five minutes after Kyrell attacked Mazzis, but he calmed when he saw I was okay. Mazzis is recovering in his own apartment with his own healers, and he will be fine, but Kyrell…he didn’t look good. Calix had knocked him out instead of killing him, and I’m thankful he did that. I know he did that for me, because if any other vampyre had attacked Mazzis, they’d be dead.

It’s been an hour since Ziven went in there with Ruelle and told me to get the bloody clothes off while she worked. I showered quickly and scoffed a sandwich and cake on my bed before getting changed in black leggings and a dark crop top with my boots.

Ziven finally comes out the doors, and I frown at the hard line on his lips. I just know he is going to say something I don’t want to hear. “Don’t ask me to let him out, Storm. He is dangerous.”

Kyrell is not dangerous. Whatever happened to him back in that library was. I haven’t told anyone how Kyrell smirked like the prince did before he’d hurt me. Before he punished me for any reason he could make up. Somehow, the prince controlled Kyrell, and this is all to hurt me. I know it is. I ran from him, and any hope that he had forgotten about me just disappeared.

“You don’t get to make that choice for me, Ziven,” I snap, trying to walk around him, but he stops me.

His eyes darken until they remind me of a night sky. “You’re mine,” he growls, leaning in. “So yes, I fucking do make the choice on this. You’re thinking with your heart and not with common sense. Kyrell doesn’t want to hurt you. Even if you don’t want to listen to me, listen to him. Think about what he must feel like, knowing he nearly killed you!”

We glare at each other, both of us as stubborn as each other. I know he is right, but this is Kyrell. Kyrell, my best friend, and I can’t watch him live in a dungeon. My shoulders drop and Ziven steps closer, tilting my chin up with a finger. “Storm, I’m not giving up on him. He kept you alive and got you to me. I owe the vampyre, and I don’t intend to keep him in there forever.”

“He saved me,” I whisper.

Ziven runs his hand around to the back of my neck. “Trust me, Storm. I know I’ve done nothing to earn it yet, but I will.”

Trusting Ziven has always been the problem between us. He is hundreds of years old and far more experienced in life than I am, but it makes him stubborn and resistant to change.

Ruelle comes out the doors, shutting them behind her. She rests on her stick in front of her, watching me as I step away from Ziven. “Is he well?”

“He has a bed, and he’s safe with two guards. We’ve put blood in there, goat, for his comfort, but I’m sure he’s already well fed.” She sighs. “I am not an expert at healing or reading vampyres, but that poor boy has been through much. His heart is missing, and in its place is a shard of wood that my magic reeled from.”

Ziven crosses his arms. “Reeled from?”

“Yes. I’ve never felt magic like it. There’s a darkness wrapped around his soul from that wooden shard that is easily controlling him. Something’s very wrong and I’m sorry to say I sense he will not have long in this world. What he is…it is not normal even for vampyres. I wish I had better news for you, but he is not in pain.”

Ruelle touches my shoulder as I walk past her to the door and place my head against it. My voice breaks. “He’s going to die?”

“Yes,” Ruelle plainly answers. “We won’t give up on your vampyre friend, and I do like a challenge. I will send people to look in the libraries with Mazzis. We don’t have much history on the vampyres, but maybe on dark magic, resurrection and that wooden shard. There might be something to be found and an answer to keep him alive longer.”

A desperate thought fills my mind. “He said the prince turned him. That means there could be clues in the castle where I was before…”

“My old castle.” Ziven’s voice is bitter. “Where I was born.”

I didn’t know he was born there, and something about the years I spent being used in that horrible place doesn’t make me feel any better about Ziven’s connection to it. “We should go there for answers. I can fly Maeve to it.”

“It’s not been cleared yet, but yes, we can go together.” He makes the point of the wordtogether, and I nod once. I feel like I can’t breathe for a second. Trapped in this mansion, forced to watch Kyrell die. Another trap, another place I won’t be able to leave. The prince turned him to punish me because he knew he would die again, and this time it might be more painful than the last. All of this…it is to get to me, and it’s working. Ziven’s arm wraps around my waist, and he’s leading me out before the panic can truly set in. I don’t have the energy to ask Ziven where he is taking me, but when we get outside, past the endless faces of fae who bow, smile or wave at us, I suck in a deep breath.

The air, the freedom of being outside, does make everything feel a little better. “Where are we going?”

Ziven leans down to my ear. “I want time alone with you. I want you distracted from this shit world we are in.” He rubs his thumb on the small of my back. “You are a rider now, Storm. A powerful dragon rider that will be remembered in our history. We haven’t spoken about what that means for you, and we have so much to discuss. I want to remind you what it means to be on a dragon and have only the skies to look down on us.”

Ziven leads me to a long-forgotten pathway into the forest. There are hundreds of tents with campfires in the forest in every direction, but none are near here. The dragon roar and the rattling of the trees that follows, it lets me know why. We go past the stream where people are gathering water into buckets, and they watch us with wary eyes, but Ziven almost pretends they don’t exist. “Are we going on dragons, then?”

“Mine, yes,” he leans into me. “I’ve never taken another on my dragon. It is seen as a ritual for entwined mates. Ride with me, Story.”

The chilly breeze blows down my spine, cooling my blood when it feels like it’s on fire. A ritual? Something about riding a dragon together feels very personal. “I will, but you need to answer something first.”

“Anything.” He lifts me over a broken log, his hands purposely sliding down my ass before he lets go. I would complain, but I like it. “I’m not lying to you, Storm. You want answers, then you ask and I will give them to you, even if it fucking kills me.”

“Why didn’t you say anything after you knew I was your entwined mate? Why weren’t you still on my side afterwards?”

“Because you were with him.” He pauses right at the entrance to the dragon pit. The moonlight streams through the trees into his eyes, casting a glow around his body that is beautiful. The look in his eyes is the opposite to that. The jealous, fierce look sends shivers through my body. “You were with Daegan, and fuck, I hated him more, but I understood. He is the Sun king, all light and fucking sunshine. Easy to love.” He wraps his hand around my waist, tugging me against him. “And I’m the one you called your enemy. The Moon king in the darkness, who is fucked up and complicated. I can’t give you what he could. I thought hehad chosen you over his need for war and you’d chosen him.” He gulps as my heart races. “And as much as I hated it, I wondered whether you had fallen in love with him. Whether… Even when I’d been inside you, even when I had you, I felt like I hadn’t gotten close. I was too fucked up for someone as beautiful and pure as you to love.”

The dragons roar around us, shaking the very ground under our feet, but we don’t look away. Even as we stand literally in the mouths of the dragons, it doesn’t matter when I have to tell him the truth. “I never loved him. I only ever saw you.”

He grips me tighter. “You kissed him back.” Fury marks every word. Every breath between us. “And deities above, I’ve never wanted to murder anyone as much as I did him.”

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