Page 14 of Blood of Two Crowns

Chapter

Five

NAKOA

Not that the temptation wasn’t there, but I wouldn’t take the only person she trusted from her. This was on top of the fact that my numerous and irrepressible visions had shown me exactly what would happen if I tried to steal Mareina away from him. She would hate me, and it would earn me no fate that I desired for either of us.

Dominating her, forcing her hand as I had was one thing, but taking away the one person in this world she loved….

My cock ached with need as images of Mareina so beautifully bared, bound, and gagged beneath me rose to memory. My mind even went as far as to conjure the taste of her upon my tongue as I’d devoured her. Even my tail coiled around my leg, squeezing tight with desperation.

Somehow, as many hours as I’d spent around Malekai, I’d been able to discern very little about him. My Knowingness had only further enflamed my insecurities and reminded me of all my shortcomings.And his strengths.

Just when I began to doubt Zurie’s spell, the stone around us shuddered as though it was about to cave in on us. A corner of Zurie’s mouth slowly tilted up, and blood began to trickle from her nose and into her mouth as a grin split her face. Despitehow crazed she looked, I could see a fraction of our resemblance, even if it was only by the crazed gleam and determination in her eyes.

The center of the stone dais cracked and splintered before aboomof impact caused an explosion of stone and soil that sent me reeling backwards. Dust clouded the air and when I right myself, it was to find a hulking winged, horned, and tailed male hunched over Zurie’s form. Her neck bent at an unnatural angle, and if it weren’t for the way her fingers dug into his back, I’d think she was dead.

My heart stalled in my chest.This is my father.

As if I’d spoken the words aloud, his head lifted from Zurie’s bloody, shredded throat and turned his head to meet my gaze. It was almost like looking in a mirror, though he looked like a wild beast released from its cage. He evenappearedto be my age. Black eyes roved over me, and for a moment, the rage contorting his features softened before he looked back down at Zurie. Her eyes glistened as she stared into the rictus of his fury. “There wasn’t a day that passed where I didn’t long for you.”

With a snarl, my father dropped her as if she were a venomous snake and turned to face me. Blood dripped down his bare neck and chest, century-old anguish contorting his features. His accented voice sounded like gravel scraping stone from its disuse. “Did she harm you?”

“I… No.”

Not directly.

He tugged at the palladium collar around his throat in futility, and I promptly willed it away. He dipped his head in gratitude as long, blade-like claws curled into fists, blood trickling into pools on either side of him.“I need to feed. I’ll be back.”

He hesitated for a moment, stepping closer toward me; his gaze scanned me with an intensity that made my muscles tense.

Too fucking surreal.

For all my years of wishing I’d had a father, the sudden need to escape this bizarre reunion was overwhelming.

Without another word and a powerful beat of his wings, he launched himself out of the dungeon through the skylight and disappeared.

Chapter

Six

MAREINA

Lathrimos had proven to be a man prone to emotional outbursts. It was both endearing and, personally, a little unsettling. The two of us had been in flight for only an hour as he gave me a partial tour of my father’s realm, and already he’d been driven to tears.Twice.Not that I could blame him. If something happened to Malekai, I certainly wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation. Lathrimos promised he’d find someone to teach me how tofoldbut insisted that I strengthen and get used to my wings.

Easy for him to say when he only had two of them to lug around, where as I had four.

“Stop trying to flyagainstthe current. You have to let it carry you.”

My heart gave a painful squeeze as Nakoa’s words returned to me.

“I’ve got you.I can carry us both - I only need you to let me.”

You are such a hypocrite,I hissed at myself internally.

Emotion burned my eyes, and no matter how I tried to blame it on our tether, deep down in the darkest parts of my soul that I never allowed to see the light of day, I knew my longing for him was so much more. Nakoa had basically taken a cleaver tomy chest and inspected each dark and twisted part of me with a fucking magnifying glass. The parts of myself that I had always hidden from Malekai. Or at least tried to.

As if to punctuate these thoughts, another air current slammed into us, sweeping us 30 feet higher before it abruptly disappeared, and I suddenly found myself plummeting towards sickle-sharp, icy mountain peaks intent on skewering me. Tumbling through the air, I flailed, screaming as I begged my wings to catch on to the constantly shifting currents of air.

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