Page 129 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
“Baytian.”
Kein let out a faint growl, pressed its snout against her shoulder briefly, and then lay down in a stretch before it flappedits humongous wings and joined its sibling in a couple of flaps that scattered all the snow around.
Alezya was just speechless. She could order the dragon to take off and fly just like that. Lorey had no idea how much she had just done.
“More,” she asked Lorey, trying not to sound too excited. “Tell me more words for dragons.”
Lorey gave her a little surprised look, but she must have trusted Alezya because she did, although she didn’t teach her anything that could be dangerous, like telling the dragon to attack.
Instead, she taught her words such as lie down, wait, growl, go down, take, and let go. Alezya had never been so determined to carve those words into her memory, and she tried every single one on the orange dragon, who, to her shock and delight, obeyed every single one of them, leaving her astonished. She could command a dragon. Not only that, but the largest dragon of all obeyedher. An indescribable feeling of power fired her gut, and this time, she knew her plan had better chances than ever to work.
By the time they found Kiera and Kassein, who were sparring outside for once with quite an audience, Lorey was done teaching her words, and Alezya didn’t ask for more.
The dragons stuck in the vicinity, and that was enough to clear everyone else from the area; the Dragon Clan warriors suddenly scattered in different directions. Only Tievin remained, giving the women a brief, bored glance but staying at a safe distance as the dragons came to settle next to them.
Alezya didn’t care for the scrawny man; her eyes were already on Kassein’s sweaty, naked torso, her stomach doing a little jump in appreciation. It was hard not to look at his slightlypanting mouth and not remember the things he could do with it...
“Alezya?”
Lorey was staring at her with an amused smirk.
Alezya blushed and remembered to close her mouth. Her companion chuckled while Alezya, eager to do anything to justify hiding her face, went to Kein to sit on its paw as usual, the dragon curving its neck toward her in the snow so she could pet it.
Luckily, Tievin began to speak, and although it was much too fast for Alezya to follow, it distracted Lorey, and they all turned their eyes back to the duel, the three of them watching the siblings spar for a while.
This time, Keira and Kassein had chosen a rather deserted area to spar, and coincidentally, it was close to that large wooden door leading into her clan’s territory.
The wooden wall they had built between the mountains and them was massive, but Alezya was curious why they’d put such a large door when they rarely bothered to attack the clans and didn’t fear them much.
In her opinion, a dragon felt like a good enough defense, but maybe the Dragon Clan had no idea of their own superiority.
She shivered, thinking back to the despicable technique one of the clans used to attack last. She hadn’t heard anything about it but hoped they prevented the disease from spreading. She understood fights were part of clan traditions, but such schemes were downright disgusting and evil.
Her eyes lifted to the mountains behind the wall. She hadn’t seen or ever interacted with many other clans, but she was glad hers was a bit farther away from the Dragon Clan; the closest ones ought to be struggling. She wondered where her mother’s birth clan was. She hadn’t heard or seen anything about them in years, and her father had prohibited any talk of the LumiataClan. Some clans were also non-sedentary, moving from one inhabited mountain to another, and she wondered if that could be the case for her mother. That would lessen the chances of them ever meeting again...
The sounds of the fight stopped, and she turned her head back to it; Kassein and Keira must have reached an agreement to stop because both of them were walking toward the trio watching, Kiera parting ways with her brother to get the water Tievin offered while Kassein walked to Alezya first.
His dragon let out a faint growl, but Kassein replied with one of his tongue clicks, and then reached her, grabbing her hand first.
“You cold?” he asked.
Alezya shook her head. A few minutes earlier, she had been cold and wet, but she was back to dry and warm after sitting on the dragon and being in the sun for a few minutes.
“Fight with Kiera again?” she teased him.
He nodded. She guessed that was the sibling’s favorite way of interacting; when they weren’t sparring, they were hunting, and she hadn’t seen them exchange many words aside from their grunts and tongue clicks.
She used the sleeve of her coat to wipe the sweat from his chin, but he grabbed her wrist and put her fingers to his lips instead. It was hard for Alezya not to blush and be aware of the three pairs of eyes on them.
She couldn’t remember how they had acted in front of the others before, but a part of her also felt a bit proud Kassein didn’t care at all for them to see. He was so unapologetic about displaying affection toward her in the open, and that was something she’d never experienced or witnessed before.
Most warriors hardly interacted with their wives in public, let alone caressed or kissed them. There were no other women in the area besides Lorey and Kiera, so she couldn’t know ifthis was normal in the clan or if Kassein was indeed just a different species altogether... but she certainly didn’t hate it. On the contrary, Alezya barely stopped herself from diving into his arms, knowing how little time she had left with him. Instead, she forced herself to remain seated on the dragon, trying to reign in her feelings. She just took any sign of affection he showed like a breadcrumb, cherishing every moment, trying to act calmly and think about Lumie, her clan, and everything that awaited.
It was just a matter of days,Alezya kept repeating to herself.
She only had days until everything would go down, until she would have to leave Kassein and put her mad plan to work to save her daughter.
Kassein had to know she’d been with child now, but they hadn’t talked about it. Either he chose to ignore the subject, was waiting for her to speak, or didn’t want to hear it at all.
