Page 46 of The Soul of the Dragon

“The answers lie beyond the falls.”

Kitra shook her head in denial.“But beyond the falls is outside of the kingdom. The seer seemed certain the amulet was here and close.”

The sprite heaved an exasperated sigh. “You aren’t listening. I didn’t say the amulet was beyond the falls. The answers are. It’s definitely not the same thing.”

“I hate riddles,” Kitra moaned. “Why can’t someone just spell it out with words like: find the map to the amulet on the back of the skull rock at the back of the falls?”

“Is that where it is?” A frisson of worry pierced through me. Was she holding out information she’d gotten from the seer?

She laughed. “No. I just made that up. I just want this to be easy.”

“If it were easy, then there would be no amulet to find.” As usual the sprite’s words were solemn and reasonable, and did nothing to make anyone feel better.

“Can I heal you now?” I asked. I was still picking up on her vibrations of pain and it was wearing on my patience.

“No, Isaac. I do not want to be healed. I want to feel every ache and pain until it’s ingrained in my mind that my stepfather, the King, did this to me. I need to be angry and feeling like this makes me angry.”

“It makes me angry too, and an angry dragon is a dangerous thing.”

“Well, then you’re just going to have to figure what else you can do with that anger. Control it. You’re not a child.”

Her insults didn’t hurt me, but the frustration behind them did. It crawled underneath my skin as a constant reminder of who and what she was.

A princess.

A little beast.

A dragon’s mate.

An omega…

And the more I thought about it the more I went out of my mind.

I definitely needed to kill something.

I turned away and let the dragon come forward on a roar. My body ripped apart and reformed into the dragon in the face of my rage. If I couldn’t help her, then I would hunt down those who’d done this.

ChapterNineteen

Kitra

“You aren’t making this easy on him,” Ensley said as she slowly approached me after we both watched Isaac fly off in an angry snit.

“It’s not my job to make anything easy for him.” Besides, I had enough to worry about. I needed my magic back before I ended up dead without it, but apparently everyone in this cursed kingdom wanted the amulet, and it was going to be a fight to find it first and then use it before anyone else.

The seer's warning sounded from the back of my mind, reminding me that the amulet was an important artifact to the fae realm. I pushed that thought as far down as I could get it. First, we had to find it.

“Isn’t it your job, though?” she asked.

I turned to her sharply. “What is that supposed to mean? And don’t give me another stupid riddle. My head already aches from everything that has happened today.”

She approached me quietly and laid her hand on my head. “I won’t take away the marks made by the King, but I can take away the headache and nausea. It's one thing to carry a reminder its another to suffer needlessly.”

I started to tell her no, but changed my mind and gave in. I'd probably been too harsh with Isaac about it too. “How do you know I’m nauseous?”

“The color of your skin. It’s a little grey. And just watching him swoop down with you lying helplessly in his claws made my stomach turn a time or two as well.”

There was something about the way she said those words that made me turn and lay my hand over hers. "Why are you so invested in what happens to me? Do you know me?"

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