Page 83 of Her Dragon Daddy Disaster
“Yes. But there’s no time to waste. We have to get there first.”
“Get where, first?”
“To the palace. To warn the sovereign and stop Malakai from killing her.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Levi
Save the sovereign? Stop Malakai?
Who am I?
The idea of saving her was beyond foreign. For years, I’d plotted overthrowing her, doing everything I could to make it happen. That included spending several years among the humans, researching howtheywent about it. I’d met Sarah while doing just that.
Now, my wings beat with frenzied energy to get me to the palace as fast as possible, to try to do the exact opposite thing!
It would have boggled my mind as a plain impossibility in the past. Not anymore. Not after witnessing the changes in Malakai. No, not changes. That was who he was and had been for longer than I was able to accept at the moment. The onlychangewas him finally letting me see the real him. Not the man I’d called my best friend. That man was gone. If he’d ever existed in the first place.
The fire in my stomach was nothing like the burn of shame washing over me. How easily I’d been tricked, duped by someone I trusted implicitly. Tricked andused. All to be discarded as his mad power grab came to a head.
Well, no more. I was done with that, done being his patsy. Done helping a maniac.
My wings beat a little harder, driving us even faster toward the palace’s spires. They thrust up from the side of the mountain like the fingers of a giant, reaching for a sky they couldn’t quite touch.
“No matter what, today will be her last day on that particular throne.”
“What was that?” Sarah called. “I couldn’t hear it.”
I didn’t intend to say it out loud, but I did now, repeating the phrase.
“Malakai’s words,” she said.
“Yes. I can’t get them out of my head.”
“Why not?”
“Think about it,” I said. “It’s an interesting choice of words. Why did he use the words ‘that particular throne’? What other throne would she sit upon? There’s only one dragon throne, and I seriously doubt any of the European royalty are just going to scooch over and let her in, right?”
Sarah snorted. “‘Scooch’ over is not phrase I think royals of any location are familiar with when it comes to their thrones.”
“Exactly.”
“What if he wasn’t referring to it symbolically?”
She was smart. Another reason I loved her. “That’s what I was thinking. He means the actual chair she uses.”
“He’s going to destroy it.”
“My guess would be he intends to blow it up. Ideally with her on it.”
“Why do you think that?” Sarah asked.
“Because today is the first day of the new session of the Council after the Summer Solstice. Which is when she will sit on her throne and call them to assembly. What better time to blow the current ruler to smithereens and announce you’re taking over? There’ll be no question that she’s dead, and if I know Malakai, the other seats are probably wired in some fashion as well.”
“They’re in the same room? The throne and the Council meeting, I mean?”
“Yes. They bring in tables and set them up. Which means Malakai has an in with several people on her staff. People high enough up who can swap the chairs or bring in the explosives. I don’t know. It’s going to get ugly.”
