Page 204 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
Still, if he hoped to be even remotely worthy of Alezya’s trust, he had to do what he could with all of that. He hadn’t allowed himself to hope for a long time, but all of a sudden, the possibility of a happy future was too blinding to ignore.
Just like that, he remained with Lumie, letting the child play freely in the Onyx Castle’s garden and distract him with her exploration.
He was behind her for everything, telling her about his mother’s plants, letting her dirty her hands and knees in the soil,and keeping her from trying to chew random things she picked up.
Kein had lost patience before him and taken off almost as soon as Lumie had gotten bored of him, but for once, it made Kassein feel better that his dragon was scouring the skies above the mountains. If the dragon caught sight of Alezya, Kassein would know.
Kassein heard the dragon’s cries shortly before dawn.
He woke up immediately after having spent only a few hours sleeping and most of the night with his eyes on the window. On his chest, Lumie, who hadn’t slept in the cradle but in his arms again, whined in her sleep before she stirred too, upset by the sounds. Kassein quickly wrapped her up in the small fur blanket he’d grabbed for her and readjusted his arms for the little girl to stay asleep and comfortable while he rose.
He’d been half-asleep when he’d heard it, but the dragon’s cry didn’t sound like Kein or Kiki’s, which made him hurry outside to see who had come. Baby dragons couldn’t make such loud sounds either, and he didn’t think his nieces’ and nephews’ dragons had reached their adult forms yet, so it had to be someone unexpected.
Once he stepped outside into the entrance courtyard of the Onyx Castle, he found Kein already waiting, his dragon eyeing the sky with its tail nervously swishing.
Although all the living dragons belonged to their family, Kein and Kassein couldn’t say they had a good relationship with all of them, like their older brother Kassian’s dragon, Kian, who’d fought Kein the last time they’d crossed paths.
For a second, Kassein worried that it was indeed Kian flying toward them: the incoming dragon had a long, silver-like body and was much bigger than Kiki and the tiny dots flying next to them that had to be the triplets’ dragons.
But, as the visitors came closer, Kassein was shocked to realize the bigger dragon of the bunch wasn’t silver but the color of ice, a shimmery opal color, and that it wasn’t Kian but Cece.
Cece was their older sister Cessilia’s dragon, the one who’d mysteriously returned as an Ice Dragon after being trapped in the mythical lake of the Imperial Palace after its apparent death years ago duringthatincident. Cece was also one of the largest dragons in size since Cessilia had become Queen and gotten married, and it had produced three younger dragons just as Cessilia had three children with her partner, the Eastern King, Ashen.
Kassein relaxed a little upon realizing who the visitor was, but not completely. He hadn’t seen his older sister in years, and he had ignored many of her letters over the years too.
Moreover, Cessilia had always been different from his other siblings.
She was like a second mother figure to them and far too good at reading people. She was incredibly kind and so good toward others that despite being a foreign queen, she had quickly become an incredibly popular queen in the Eastern Kingdom.
This was precisely what scared Kassein: Cessilia was far too kind.
“Good morning. Is that Her Highness?” Lorey said, stepping out of the castle behind him.
Kassein only gave her a stiff nod while he mindlessly rubbed Lumie’s back to calm himself down. The baby girl was still fast asleep under the cover, her body completely limp against his bare torso, and for some reason, her presence was grounding him and allowing him to stay somewhat calm.
Kein, on the other hand, was growling. Kassein knew his dragon was growling at him, just like he knew that as angry as Kein was, it would never attack while he was holding Lumie.
Graceful as ever, Cessilia’s dragon Cece landed elegantly outside of the castle courtyard, and his older sister jumped down with a bright smile lighting up her face as soon as their eyes met.
Kassein’s heart ached, and he could only reply with the shadow of a smile himself, and a faint nod.
Behind her, Kiki, who was half Cece’s size, landed next. And then, the tiny dragons each landed, although it looked more like the triplets had decided to dive-bomb into the snow rather than land properly.
Each baby dragon landed with a little high-pitched growl of excitement. Bora, the peach-colored dragon, and Leni, the brown one, both found piles of snow to barrel in and play with as soon as they landed. Meanwhile, Vele, which was yellow, and a Water Dragon like Kiki and Cece, began running around immediately, tunneling through the foot-high snow.
In a matter of seconds, the triplet dragons managed to turn all of the snow in the area into a mini-snowstorm, ignoring Kiki’s annoyed growls.
As their owners were ten years old, the young dragons were still relatively small, as most dragons grew exponentially once their owners reached teenagehood. Bora and Leni were Earth Dragons like Kein and, therefore, bigger than their sibling, but they were still only the size of a large dog. Given that their genitor, Darsan’s dragon Dran, had been one of the largest dragons in existence, they were probably going to grow in size very quickly at some point.
“Do you three ever calm down?” Kiera protested after receiving another wave of snow in the face. “Stop it!”
Cessilia rolled her eyes with an amused smile, ignoring the little mayhem to walk directly toward her brother.
She ignored Kein’s growls and went straight to Kassein, wrapping him in a hug. She had always been the tallest of the sisters, and that was perhaps the only thing she didn’t take aftertheir mother; for everything else, Cessilia looked a lot like their mother.
From her gentle green eyes to her long chestnut-colored hair, her thin limbs, and her thin, rosy lips. She also had the palest skin of the three sisters, slightly more tan than their white-skinned mother, but it was glowing from her days on the coast.
Now that she was a mother of three and approaching thirty, Kassein couldn’t help but notice the few white hairs while he hugged her and how her body felt softer than he remembered too.
