Page 76 of The Lost Princess

I think I fell in love with her all over again, my cock springing to life at her ruthlessness, her beauty, and her pain.

She attacked the dead body again, clothes and armor turning to shreds as she tore into it. I scooped her under her belly expertly, and tugged her away. The guard was nothing but a pile of torn flesh and meat.

“I’LL KILL THEM ALL! EVERY LAST ONE!” she screeched.

I forced her head into my neck and squeezed her body against mine. Her fangs sank into my neck instantly, and I groaned.

The doors to the room burst open, thirty guards running in with the man Kaida had been with before trailing behind. The one from the balcony.

Him.He must be the one behind all of this.

Kaida shook in my arms, desperately drinking down my blood. The man (or king, I assumed, by the way the guards obeyed him) pointed a finger at us.

“Subdue them. Don’t kill. I want them alive to breed.”

Normally I considered myself a patient draken, someone who thought first and acted second, or at least as much as my instincts would allow. I was rational and calm, despite my long, long years trapped in a feral state.

But when that human man pointed at me and his plans for us became clear, I gently tugged Kaida off of me, pushed her a safe distance away, and exploded.

Power that I didn’t know I had burst from me, white magick sizzling and hissing as it burned everything around us. The guards flinched back and drew their bows, others tossing daggers. None of it reached us as it all burned to ashes mere feet before getting near me.

And yet all I knew was pain. Uncontrolled, pent-up magick blazed through my veins, lighting up my nerves like lightning. It sparked through my body, burning my skin and blood. My eyes hurt. My teeth hurt.

Kaida cried out in alarm and covered herself. My arms shot straight out from my sides, unable to control it as white magick flew out of me in torrents. The guards screamed and disappeared under the flames. Kaida wasn’t effected.

I was going to die. Magick wasn’t supposed to do this. It had to be controlled and harnessed, and I didn’t have the skill to reign it in.

And no other drakens were alive who knew how.

I couldn’t die here. Kaida needed me, and I needed her. All I had ever wanted was to reclaim myself and live the rest of my life by her side, but I’d ruined it. All because I couldn’t control myself. I wasn’t disciplined in magick.

A flash of a silhouette darted in, grabbing the king and yanking him away.

I let them go. Not like I’d be able to do anything to help anyway. I was in agony, curled into a ball on the floor.

I had to get up. Despite the pain, I knew we had to leave. We had to get to the sky. My arms blindly snatched out and grabbed Kaida, and I praised the gods that she didn’t fight me as I pulled her to my chest again and rose, stumbling out of the room and over to the balcony. I pushed through the agony to spread my wings, pumping hard to gain altitude. The crackling magick kept everyone away.

There were shouts from below us. A crowd was gathering, throwing things. More guards had regrouped and poured through the castle, trying in vain to get through the crowd and out of the main gates.

“Nasi, let me go! LET ME GO!”

Kaida fought me like a feral beast, scratching and clawing in her efforts to get away.

I stubbornly clung to her. She smelled too injured and I wouldn’t risk her getting hit by a rock or an arrow. There was no way she had drank enough blood from me to heal. I kept her in an iron grip, and flew.

The white magick was receding, allowing me to breathe. Had it finally burned itself out? I put all my efforts into flying,the high walls of the city just ahead. The guards pushed through the crowd and were racing toward the open gates. I didn’t know what I’d do once I collapsed. They could chase us back to the mountains. Would I make it that far?

I couldn’t think about it.

Screams of rage mixed with a cry of victory. I twisted my head behind me just in time to witness the heavy iron gates slamming shut, a company of guards slamming into it like little toy soldiers. A human woman stood in the lookout post next to the level, high fiving an older male.

“MATERI! SELENA! THANK YOU!” Kaida cried as we zoomed past the first gate, the one separating the castle from the rest of the city.

I didn’t question it. I kept flying.

“Hang on Nasi, we’re almost there.” Kaida’s voice came the muffled voice from my chest. I wanted to bellow at the unfairness of it—that my sweet Kaida should worry over me when I was the one who abandoned her, leaving her to be caged like an animal.

She should hate me. Revile me.

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