Page 244 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
“You ran away,” Kassein said. “You saved her, Alezya. Lumie is fine.”
As tears had begun streaming down her cheeks, he pressed a long kiss on her forehead, rubbing her back to help her calm down. This was the first time she’d told him the entire truth about how she’d come to be with him, about why he’d found her beaten and bruised. By her own father’s men, no less...
“That man has to die,” Kiera declared, echoing his thoughts. “I’ve decided. He’s dead. What a bastard!”
“I concur,” Tievin said with a sour expression and a nod. “What a horrible character! To sacrifice a poor child! His own blood, no less! By the almighty dragon, he’s despicable!”
“And Lumie’s father?” Kassein asked.
Alezya’s eyes opened wide, visibly surprised to hear him ask. She avoided his gaze for a second, causing his heart to skip a beat with worry, but when she returned to Kassein, her eyes were filled with fury and disgust, nothing else.
“He said... he called Lumierakshnia,” she muttered.
“I’ll take it that’s bad?” Kiera tilted her head.
Alezya nodded with an angry expression.
“Really bad,” she seethed. “He said Lumie isn’t his baby. That I made Lumie withrakshnia. Bad blood. But I did not. Lumie is notrakshnia,Lumie is just white. Snow child.”
“...He didn’t want her?” Kassein hissed, furious and dumbfounded.
How could a man refuse his own child? Lumie was an adorable little girl, as beautiful as her mother. He had seen men agonize over their wives not being able to have a child, andthat man had refused his simply because she had been born a different color? He clenched his fists, while Alezya’s eyes grew angrier.
“He didn’t want Lumie,” she muttered. “He said... he wanted to hunt Lumie. I said no. He said I couldn’t have Lumie, but I wanted Lumie. So I go back to Deklaan. To my father.”
A jealous, ugly part of him was relieved that this man had rejected his child; if he had been a half-decent man, Kassein would have never met Alezya nor been given the chance to adopt Lumie as his own. Thinking this, he took a deep breath in, and pulled Alezya in for a gentle hug, putting his lips close to her ears.
“Lumie is perfect,” he whispered. “Your baby is as beautiful as you, my moonlight. Your little snow girl is beautiful. I’ll love you both. I’ll protect you both. I’ve got you two.”
He let her relax against him, rubbing her back while emotions she’d kept suppressed for a while emerged in the form of quiet tears against his torso.
“Alright, I’m adding him to my list,” Kiera grunted. “Lumie’s bastard father is a dead man too.”
“...He’s mine,” Kassein suddenly hissed.
His sister raised an eyebrow, but Kassein pinned her with a glare that allowed no refusal.
“He’s mine,” he repeated.
“...Gods, eighteen years old, and you still can’t share with others,” Kiera rolled her eyes. “Alright, fine. I’ll probably have more than my fill of her tribe’s bastards to kill, anyway. Bonus points to whoever gets their hands on her wretched father first.”
Kassein didn’t care which one of them would get to him first, but he certainly wanted to make Alezya’s father’s death as slow and as painful as possible. He couldn’t understand why a man would have thrown out and hunted his own daughter and grandchild. The truth was, Kassein had cared very little aboutwhich tribes he would have to defeat until then, but now, he had one he planned to destroy above all else. He hadn’t felt such a desire to fight in a long while, but now, his blood was boiling, and outside, Kein’s furious growl echoed through the valley too. His sister grinned sinisterly.
“...You and me both, Brother,” she smirked. “We do need a proper plan, though. We might have a dragon, but this is foreign territory for us, and if we’ve learned anything, it’s that they are gearing up for this fight. So what’s it going to be?”
Kassein turned his eyes back to Alezya, and cupped her face in his hands, gently wiping her tears with his thumbs. Even with her eyes red and her lips in a pout, she was adorable. He gave her a confident smile.
“...We need to meet with thekulanithat will be our allies. The Munsa, and the others. Alezya can translate a plan for us.”
“Sounds fine to me,” Kiera shrugged, ”but where do we meet them?”
“We’ll find them. Alezya probably knows how to find them.”
At the mention of her name, Alezya frowned slightly.
“The MunsaKulani,” Kassein said. “Your friends. Where are they?”
“They find us,” Alezya said. “They say they come to DragonKulani.”
