Page 51 of Caress of Fire
Fedryc watched the Lord of Katanie disappear in the desert sky as Nyra flew back from where she had been sent for the meeting. He was not out of danger, but at least he had an ally.
“My Lord Fedryc!” A young servant girl whose name he did not know ran toward him, waving and screaming. “You have to come immediately. It’s Lady Marielle!”
Chapter 17
As soon as the words reached him, Fedryc’s legs moved of their own accord. He left the girl and her words behind, not caring about hearing more. All his focus was on Marielle. He ran, turning the corners sharply, leaving stunned-looking guards and servants behind in his hurry.
Not her. Please not her.
Fedryc had never been truly scared. Not when his father had ignored him, hidden under the desk in his office. Not when he was sent to the Emperor castle as a ward like a throwaway pet. Not when he’d trained thirteen hours a day with Nyra and his hands bled from holding a sword that was too heavy for him. Not even when he’d found himself the new High Lord of a kingdom he had never seen.
But he was scared now.
Marielle wasn’t the most important thing in his life. She was his life. Without her, nothing mattered. Aalstad, his aunt, his cousin, not even Henron or Nyra. Not the threat of the Knat-Kanassis. Marielle mattered like nothing else had ever mattered in his empty, lonely existence, and as his feet covered the long distance to his private apartments, where he’d left her a few hours ago, his mind was so focused on her that he shut everything else out.
All he could see was Marielle’s face, Marielle’s body, wearing the same painful stillness as Asha, the poor servant girl.
Finally, Fedryc arrived in front of the closed door to his private apartments and shoved it open, sending the wood to splinter across the space.
“Fedryc!” Marielle’s eyes were wide and glassy and her hands were covered in red as she clutched a small pouch to her chest.
Behind her stood Silva in a blood-stained golden gown, her face ashen and fearful.
“You betrayed me!” Marielle turned on Silva, her eyes accusing and her anger showing on her pale cheeks. “You told me you would help me!”
“I am sorry,” Silva pleaded, her face twisted with regret. “But you’re not seeing things clearly. I had to do something.”
Silva turned her eyes to Fedryc but he rushed past her and came to stand over Marielle, his mind in shock at the blood on her hands, her gown.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, taking Marielle’s hands away from the pouch forcefully, turning them over and around, inspecting every inch of them. “This is not your blood.”
“You have to let me leave.” Marielle clutched his hands, seemingly unaware of the growl that escaped his lips. “I need to get to the desert.”
“What are you talking about?” Fedryc snarled as Marielle jerked her hands free and made a move toward the door. With a single step he put his body between her and the door.
“I tried to reason with her!” Silva said with an exasperated opening of her arms. “She won’t listen.”
Fedryc looked down as Marielle tried to walk around him to the door, her face showing she was lost inside some nightmare he didn’t understand. He looked down to the pouch she hugged so closely.
“What’s in that bag, Marielle?” He controlled his voice, and Marielle slowly lost the glaze in her eyes to look at him with a fear that tore at the core of his being. She opened her mouth to speak but only a pitiful whimper escaped her lips. Her hands trembled as she handed the pouch to Fedryc, who took it, wary of what he would find inside.
He opened the bloodstained pouch then immediately understood. “I am so sorry.” He opened his arms and pulled Marielle in.
“No!” Marielle fought his hold, pushing him away with both hands. “I’m going to meet Ignio Marula, and you can’t stop me!”
A desperate anger flared inside him at the wild defiance in her eyes. She was serious. How could she think he would allow that?
“Yes, I can!” Fedryc spoke through clenched teeth, all too aware of Silva’s quiet presence in the room. “I forbid you to go anywhere apart from these very rooms!”
“Try and stop me.” Marielle lifted her dainty chin, her gray eyes dark and blazing with an anger that was borne of love and worry, just as his own.
He growled again, low in his throat, a sound as deep as his fear of seeing Marielle come to harm. The beast pushed inside him, straining against his control, wanting nothing more than to bend his mate in total domination.
Because he loved her. For the first time in his life, he loved a person who wasn’t Nyra, or Henron. And the thought of losing her filled him with a terror he couldn’t name.
But if he forced her hand now, if he followed the beast’s blind instinct to dominate and protect, he would hurt her deeply. Deeper than their relationship would recover from.
Fedryc stopped the growl in his throat and controlled his instincts, forcing calm back down his limbs. “Ignio Marula sent you this so you would run after Devan, unprotected.” This time when he reached for her, Marielle didn’t move, but the despair brimming in her eyes tore his guts apart. “He’s working for them, for the Knat-Kanassis, and Devan is their only leverage to get to you. And if they get to you, they get to me and all of Aalstad will fall. Thousands will die.”
