Page 74 of Enchanted Crown
Rarely had I heard Esta take that tone, one of an absolute command.
Of course, it was that exact moment I heard Whit grunt out in pain as my wings shifted out and one smacked him in the back of the head.
Was it from excitement? Protection? Needing to stretch because I hadn’t been able to use them since we arrived? Who knew. I wanted to feel bad for not succeeding in suppressing them, but I was also so damn sick of hiding them.
“Ha!” Nana smacked the table with a hand. “He has wings!”
Zaccai’s eyes went wide. “That mea?—”
“We are soul bound,” Esta explained. “Thus the reason he has wings.”
Silence blanketed the war room. No one knew what to say, but everyone felt the need to stare at me, or rather my wings. I spent the entire time analyzing the bond, searching for Esta’s regret with her admission to her advisors, but I found none. Only love with that fear tucked in around it so thickly it was hard to grasp anything else.
“Apologies, Prince Keiran,” Zaccai stated. “It appears you may have been busier in Wylan than I originally thought.”
“They are lovely wings though,” Amory complimented while shooting me a grin.
Esta let out a huff of breath that reminded me of the sound shemade before she growled in her dragon form. And was that jealousy I was feeling coming from her?
I sent Amory the same glare she had given me. One telling her to behave.
“I would like this kept quiet for now,” Esta again commanded. “Morana does not know that Keir can fly. Nor does she know that I have his power.” She opened up her palm and sent the tea kettle in the middle of the table sliding to herself. She gently caught it and poured herself more tea.
I knew she had been practicing, but the confidence and grace in which she had just displayed my own Enchantment stunned me.
She continued, “So as you can clearly see, the issue is not the absence of feeling between Keir and me. I love him with everything that I am, the dragon in me, the queen in me, and justme, but I am terrified to know what she would plan if she knew about this. That we are soulmates.”
I felt down the bond how true all of that was to her. How terrified she felt, her need to protect me louder than anything else. Driving that fear I felt so often.
Which made me feel about an inch tall for thinking I could quickly ease that fear from her by using the bond. By annoying her.
“You got bonded in Wylan?” Zaire asked. I expected him to look defeated, and though he maybe did, there was a curiosity there I hadn’t been expecting.
“Mad I’m not a small dragon?” I asked.
His lips twitched. “A little.”
“We did get bonded in Wylan,” Esta confirmed. “It was safer for us to do so there than here.”
Zaire shook his head. “I am disgusted on your behalf that you had to go to the land of your enemies to do so instead of right here at home.”
“My enemy is not there,” Esta argued as she glanced at thecarving in the center of the table, the one honoring all the shifter types. “It’s been right here all along. Right under all of our noses it seems. Using the information in this very room and twisting it, using it against all of us while she befriended us all.”
“We will find her,” Zaire promised as he pounded a fist twice over his chest. “I will find her.”
The rest of the remaining advisors followed suit, Nana using her cane on the floor for hers.
Otis raised his hand while half wincing. “Since it has already happened, whispers of you even considering a bonding might still help draw her out?”
“She would know that you would be weakened for a while after,” Zaire added. “He has a point.”
I am not going to sit here and have them discuss our bond like it is mere strategy,I sent to Esta before moving to stand.I am going healing. Let me know what you all decide.
“Please be careful today,” Esta told me.
Realizing the rest of the room needed to be filled in, I explained, “I am going healing with my men today. Also evidently needed to stretch my wings.”
Malachi stood and the rest of the advisors followed until only Esta remained sitting.
