Page 65 of Fate of Draga

Sozav stiffened.

“Get him out of here,” she snarled to no one in particular. “I’ll take the cast here so everyone can see and hear.”

Her heart started pounding so hard she felt it in her throat, her hands shaking as the adrenaline shot into her system.

Two from her Queen’s Guard escorted Sozav out. She didn’t have the time to explain it was nothing she planned to keep secret from him – the Neprijat king simply couldn’t see him if they were going to keep this part of their plan from their enemies.

For some reason she cared what their Neprijat ally thought.

But this…nothing could be risked even if she was terrified the king already knew.

Once Sozav was out, she nodded to the tech and where her mother’s holo was just a moment before – the Neprijat king stood, smiling wide with dark pleasure. He looked a lot like Sozav but his hair was longer with many braids to keep it back. The king seemed larger as well – his shoulders wider and chest broader. Even his eyes were a slightly different shape.

“Congratulations are in order it appears, Queen Adelina,” the king drawled. Every hair on her body stood up straight at the sound of his voice. That voice still haunted her nightmares. “Long may you reign.”

It may be a jest, as the king bowed his head ever so slightly, but Adelina was not prepared to play this game. She would take the safest route and feign innocence and ignorance. “Thank you,” she murmured, not bothering to return the bow from one monarch to another. “To what do I owe this call?”

That terrible smile grew even wider, the sharp teeth glinting in the light – even in the holo. “One of my patrols came back with some interesting information and a present.”

Adelina’s heart stopped in her chest. No one else even moved as the scent of their fear nearly choked her. “Did they?” she asked, praying to Katsia that the intel he’d received wouldn’t ruin them all.

Asher took a step closer to her, as did her mates. Even though the king was nowhere near her in reality…everything about him put the males on edge.

A flick of the king’s wrist and a body was thrust into him. A wriggling, screaming,familiarbody.

The king gripped her neck so tight all she could do was snarl at him with her hands bound. “Someone wasn’t paying attention and my patrol managed to capture this one. Did you believe her dead? Perhaps that is why you so quickly took the Crown? Or did you make sure your dear sister would be captured? I don’t particularly care either way, I’m simply curious.”

Adelina had never felt anything close to what poured through her in her life. It demanded attention.

She couldn’t move, she couldn’t evenbreatheas she stared at Giselle in the holo – captured by the Neprijat king.

So much could go wrong – so much could change at this point in time, altering what might have been irreparably…

“Does it matter?” Adelina finally asked, trying to feel out the king and his agenda. She clasped her hands behind her back and gave Varan a quick hand signal.Make this transmission public.

Whatever happened here, everyone needed to know the truth.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter which it is,” the Neprijat king told her, eyeing Giselle up and down like she was some sort of prize. “But she is still the rightful Queen of Draga since she is still alive. Marrying her would give me the power to rule your system as well. Isn’t that much simpler than trying to fight me? You will lose and everyone you love will die. Every single person you’ve ever known or cared about will perish under my forces.”

Each word that fell from the king’s mouth was poison and it lanced Adelina’s internal armor – strengthening every fear she’d had since beginning this journey.

She didn’t have to ask Asher to know he felt guilty. He had been her superior and somehow she’d been captured…a patrol had made it through their shield with a royal born female – what the king had desired from the very beginning.

Adelina didn’t blame anyone. She didn’t know if the patrol had snuck by her when she’d opened the hole in the shield for Asher, before they’d set up the de-cloaking for the Neprijat, or if they’d blasted through one of the gates. Either way it didn’t matter now.

Her only living sister was in the hands of her enemy and she had no way to save her.

Despair and regret infused her soul – her very bones. There was nothing she could do and she knew it. Whatever happened next would decide their fates one way or another, but Adelina knew that there was only one way Giselle would make it through alive.

Would her sister take what the king offered?

“I abdicated,” Giselle spat. “Your rule would not be recognized in Draga.”

A tiny flare of hope hit Adelina, but it only made her sister’s fate that much worse.

For the first time the Neprijat king’s smile slipped and he growled at Giselle, shaking her like a doll. “Yes, I saw that, but the young Queen Adelina has not been officially crowned. You are still the official queen.”

Adelina glanced to Asher and by the way he clenched his jaw, she knew the situation was murky enough that the Neprijat king could make a case if he forced his way and demolished their armies.

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