Page 259 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
After a few seconds of observing Kassein, it hit her that she had never seen him fight so hard, so... furiously. He looked wild, enraged, and unstoppable. It was like watching a wild beast unleashed on the battlefield, a human-sized dragon sowing fear in his wake. His attacks weren’t reckless, but he fought with all his furious might. She noticed how the men around him desperately avoided engaging him, forcing him to seek out opponents, hunting them down with merciless efficiency.
He didn’t seem set on finishing them off, either; he didn’t chase those who fled, nor did he linger to end the fallen. Instead, he simply moved on to the next target, leaving them in the aftermath. She wasn’t sure if it was out of mercy or pragmatism, but she liked it all the same; many of those men had marched into war without truly understanding what they had signed up for. Alezya tried to look for Kiera, but before she could locate anyone else, something suddenly grazed her, and seconds later, she felt the searing pain and screamed.
Kein growled in echo to her pain, and the dragon got them out of there just as Alezya realized an arrow had nicked her. She let out a wail of pain, taking in her ripped sleeve and the large bleeding stain that was already spreading. It had to be sheer, impossible luck that someone had managed to hit her amidstthis chaos and the thunderstorm, but they had been relatively still for too long.
Alezya held onto Kein, biting her lip to ignore the pain while the dragon flew away from danger. She realized it could have been Kein that had been hit, all because she’d worried too much about Kassein.
She couldn’t make that mistake again.
“We need to stop this war,” she hissed.
Kein growled again as if in agreement, and soon, the dragon found another mountain’s flank to attack. Alezya let it scratch the rocks and ice, inspecting her wound again. Thankfully, whatever magic this pregnancy had unlocked was working because white scales were appearing under the ripped coat to cover her wound, patching her flesh and numbing the pain.
“Thanks, baby,” she whispered to herself.
Feeling a bit better, she looked around; most of the mountains were now empty, she guessed, as most of the enemy and allied forces had descended into the Wailing Rift to join the battle. They weren’t going to stop or get out of there until the war was over, and that meant a lot of dead people. Alezya’s anger rose again. She had to put a stop to this madness, no matter what.
“I need to find my father,” she hissed.
Ultimately, if there was one thing she’d learned, it was that clans followed their leaders, and if their leaders stopped fighting, so would the clans. She hoped they would be able to see that they had to stop fighting, that their survival mattered more than her father’s empty promises.
But she knew no truce would be possible while her father filled their heads with his poisonous lies. He was the one they were all following into the abyss, and she had to stop him before he sacrificed hundreds for his greed.
She rode Kein to survey the battlefield again, noting how many men lay dead already and the awful amount of bodies wrecked on the jagged cliffs; one man was even impaled through his torso, his lifeless limbs blown by the wind in a sorrowful sight.
Alezya even spotted some men who were hiding from the battle, hidden in gaps or shivering behind rocks, and she couldn’t blame them; it was a massacre down there. She tried to be careful as she swept Kein above the battlefield, watching out for treacherous knife-sharp cliffs and anyone who would target them.
They made several passes, Kein sometimes crushing a man who had the audacity to stand out there between its fangs or claws while Alezya leaned to survey the area. It was almost impossible to recognize anyone with the rain battering them, the darkness that had overtaken the scene, and the distance.
The only good thing was that the mist was gone, and occasionally, a bolt of lightning from afar would suddenly illuminate the scene. Alezya glanced up, growing nervous as it felt like the thunderstorm was coming closer; she was fairly certain even a dragon wouldn’t take a lightning bolt too well, and she didn’t want them to end up burned to a crisp mid-air.
They had to find her father fast.
“Where are you, Darak?” she hissed as they did another pass of the battlefield.
Where would her father have chosen to stand? He was arrogant, and a manipulative leader. He would have wanted to make sure they knew who was in charge. But he was a coward. She had never seen him go to war himself, and he never risked his most trusted men either...
“He isn’t down there,” she realized.
Her father was a coward.
He had a big, smart mouth, but if there was one thing she knew, it was that he never joined a fight he wasn’t sure he could win; he was far too spineless for that.
He had sent hundreds of men to their deaths, never once risking his own life. Alezya was red with fury. The manipulative bastard had dragged more than a dozen clans into his war, but he wasn’t even there. Of course, he wasn’t. He would trigger a war, send hundreds to die, and then wait to collect all the glory. Perhaps he even prayed some other clan chiefs would lose their lives, giving him less competition.
It was possible the Deklaan Clan wasn’t down there at all; she wouldn’t have been shocked if he had come up with some mastermind plan that justified him staying behind or lied about what his clan would do.
“You’re going to pay for this, Father,” she hissed.
She took Kein for a larger tour of the rift, trying to locate her father.
He had to have chosen a safe place from which he would be able to see the battle. She couldn’t imagine him not wanting to rush to the forefront if the victory was theirs so he could take all of the credit.
He wouldn’t have positioned himself at the rear, but more like right above where the main battle was, close enough that it would take him minutes to descend and reap the benefits of other men’s sweat and blood.
Alezya focused on the mountains close to where Kassein fought, scouring the area with hawk-like eyes to try and find a familiar face.
It took her several minutes, but finally, she spotted one.
