Page 35 of Caress of Fire
Fedryc smiled softly, and Marielle stared at him. He was a puzzle she could never solve, he’d gone from the cold-hearted High Lord to the raging Draekon and now this man looking at her with a tenderness that made her heart swell and her mind want nothing more than to live in a daydream. He was impossible, yet here he was. And she was his.
“You snored again.” His lips lifted higher when she scoffed and punched him playfully on the shoulder. “I swear. Like an old drover.”
Marielle laughed, then sat up in bed. His eyes trailed over her body, and a now familiar hunger painted his features. Arousal immediately rose inside Marielle and she lay back on the bed, lifting her arms above her head as she bit her lower lip. “I’m not ready to get up yet.”
“I’m sorry, little firebrand,” Fedryc’s eyes raked down her body with regret. “But I have much to do. I shouldn’t have stayed in bed this late as it is. I just couldn’t escape your snoring.”
Marielle laughed, shaking her head as she went to forage in the drawers, now filled with an assortment of garments the likes of which she’d never owned before. Her fingers slid over the cream fabric of a long nightgown and she slipped it over her head as she turned to look at Fedryc. He was already pulling his shirt over his torso, his eyes remote, full of the troubles of a kingdom she knew little about except for the low streets of its heartless capital.
A knock at the door had them both turning around.
“Not now,” Fedryc growled at whoever had disturbed them.
The door opened anyway and a tall Draekon man made his way inside. He looked at Marielle, then Fedryc, blushing slightly before looking away. Marielle had the distinct impression this man knew Fedryc well or he would never have entered the private apartments like that. She pulled a dressing gown over her shoulders to ease the Draekon man’s discomfort and came to stand next to Fedryc.
“Henron, what is it?” Fedryc spoke with the familiarity of one who knew the other man well. “You’re making my Draekarra uncomfortable.”
“We found him.” Henron looked at her for a brief moment, and from the reserved look of pity on his features, Marielle understood he was talking about Devan. And that the news wasn’t good. “Our informant confirms he’s at Ignio Marula’s tavern in the lower capital district.”
“He’s at the Watering Hole?” Marielle’s voice was shaky as she suddenly wanted nothing more than to sit. “What else do you know?”
Fedryc sent her a sharp glance and helped her sit on one of the embroidered chairs. Then he turned back to Henron, who stood with a closed expression. “You can talk in front of Marielle.” He nodded to Henron. “She has a right to know.”
Henron looked at Marielle for a long moment, then nodded, his face grim. “Ignio Marula has been using him in his fight rings.” Henron waited, and Marielle knew he was waiting to see if she would lose it. Start screaming and crying. She wasn’t, but she bent forward as if punched in the stomach.
“He put Devan in the Pits?” Marielle shook her head as hatred invaded her entire being for the man who was hurting her brother. “He’s barely seventeen. He can’t possibly hope to win. He’ll die.”
“It’s a pressure tactic to make sure you pay the debt,” Henron answered her, his voice soft, full of the kind of pity that scorched her broken, raw heart.
Marielle lifted her eyes to the Draekon man she didn’t know, not bothering to appear meek and submissive. She was done playing games. “Of course it is!” Her voice was full to the brim with anger and hurt. “He’s a monster.”
Henron straightened as she spoke to him. His inscrutable silver eyes showed little of what he thought, but he turned to Fedryc with a familiar ease. “The streets can’t be secured at night.” Henron spoke without looking at Marielle. “We will have to move at daybreak.”
“You have to get him out of there.” Marielle turned to Fedryc as pain ripped through her stomach and tears came to her eyes. “No one who’s been sent to the Pits lives long. I won’t survive if he dies.”
Fedryc looked at her with silver eyes that gleamed with a tenderness that ripped at the fabric of her soul, then brushed the tears from her cheeks.
“I will bring your brother back to you. You have my word.”
Chapter 12
He could feel Nyra’s foul temper coming off of her in fumes of anger and violence as she landed in a clean swoop at the edge of the slums. Fedryc cast a long look around the hovels where the poorer citizens of his kingdom lived in conditions that made his blood boil.
Faces peered out of glassless windows, haggard expressions and fearful eyes set on him and Nyra. The dirty faces of human children peeked through open doors, only to be pulled back inside and the doors slammed shut.
This was where Marielle and her brother Devan grew up. This was where Ignio Marula reigned supreme over the poorest of the human populace. Fedryc leaned in and brushed Nyra’s scales with his open palm. The dragoness’ fury came up at him but he tempered it with his own purpose. All Nyra thought about was to keep Marielle content and happy by rescuing her younger brother. She would scorch these people without a second thought if she thought it was necessary to make Marielle happy. This was one of the many differences between Draekons and dragons. The beasts were ruthless, governed by their own moral compasses—savagery and violence nothing more than tools in their minds. Fedryc knew better than to hurt those under his care.
How could his father have let this happen? How could Lord Aymond have let the human population live in such despair and deprivation when the Delradon quarters of the capital were ripe with riches?
It mattered not. He wasn’t going to allow these injustices to go on any longer, regardless of the push back from the rich Delradon populace.
“Stay here,” Fedryc instructed Nyra. “I will go see what Henron has found.”
Nyra’s nostrils bloomed with thick, black smoke and her blue eyes blazed with a cold fire as Fedryc admonished her to be patient one last time.
“These are our people,” he said with impatience. “They’re afraid of us. We need to show them we’re not going to hurt them. We need their trust to rule.”
Fedryc left out his own anger and guilt at the state of the two races in his father’s kingdom. Humans and Delradon should be integrated as one people, equal on both economic and social levels, but it wasn’t so in Aalstad. Fedryc began to suspect it wasn’t so anywhere on Earth, despite the Emperor’s directives.
