Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Clay
Islammed down hard in the valley outside the village Camilla had pointed me towards.
Pulling my dragon back inside me was nearly impossible with this much rage and fear coursing through my system, but eventually my wings snapped in, scales fading to smooth skin.
Absently, I glanced down at my naked form with a wince.
I hadn’t thought to stop and grab clothing to carry with me. No matter.
I’d worry about modesty when Thea was safe.
“Sir!”
I glanced sideways at the small woman with auburn hair who clutched at her chest dramatically while staring at my groin. She stood by a clothesline, hanging damp garments to dry, a wet cotton shirt dangling limply from her fingertips.
“Where are your clothes?”
I didn’t blink. “Have you seen a woman with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes?”
A beautiful woman with an undeniably fiery spirit and an indescribable strength.
The woman blinked. Once. Twice. She seemed entirely incapable of thinking about anything other than my naked form—her gaze never straying far from my cock.
Sighing impatiently, I stalked forward, tore the worn brown trousers hanging on the line, and stepped into them one leg at a time.
They fit too snugly and just barely touched the tops of my ankles, but they would have to do.
“Sir, those belong to my husband!” she protested.
I didn’t have time for this.
“The woman!” I barked, feeling fiery spikes of magic shooting up the veins in my arms. “Have you seen the woman?”
She shook her head. “There are many blonde women here in town. What is her name?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
She was useless.
Without another word, I turned and marched away, taking the worn path towards the center of the village and not caring as the rocks beneath my feet dug into the skin of my heels.
The village wasn’t particularly large. It was one of those places within the country that could entirely fend for itself. Farmers shared their crops, and the children were all educated together. They exchanged waves and smiles with each other as women beat out rugs and men tended to gardens.
And they all stared wide-eyed at me as I made my way to the center square.
I could only imagine what I looked like to them.
This far from the Capitol, these people wouldn’t recognize me as their king.
They only saw a dragon seconds away from shifting.
I could feel the scales lining my spine, refusing to fully retreat into my skin.
Black veins covered my entire body. The magic was a tangible force inside me, burning me from the inside out with its intensity.
Thea was the only person who would be able to soothe this raging storm of my magic. I needed her presence at my side to calm it. Needed her smile and laughter. Needed her attitude and defiance.
I needed her.
With a heavy breath, I stopped in front of the blacksmith, his hammer hanging mid-swing as he took me in.
“I’m looking for a woman from the castle,” I told him, my voice laced with the animalistic snarl of my beast. “Blonde-haired and blue-eyed.”
His jaw fell slack, eyes trailing over me.
An uncontrollable snarl ripped out of me.
If I had to individually question every single clueless fool that lived here, I would never find her in time. I exhaled a heavy breath as I looked around myself, taking in the brick-faced homes and beaten-down grass. It looked exactly how Camilla had described it. This had to be the right village.
Were they lying to me?
Maybe not. Maybe Thea had been brought here under the cover of night?
The woods. They would have had to travel through the woods to get here from the castle. I could follow the tracks.
I was already moving when the blacksmith finally spoke.
“She was traveling with the Fire Elemental?”
My movements halted. Fire Elemental? My brows furrowed as I considered whether I knew a Fire Elemental.
I turned back to him, taking in his greying black hair and bulky frame. There was no visible Descendant's Mark on his skin, nor any malice in his features. Neither of those facts indicated if I could trust him, though.
“What do you know?” I demanded, a plume of smoke escaping from my nostrils.
He cleared his throat awkwardly, setting down his hammer with a kind of slow carefulness that made the dragon inside of me roared impatiently. When he lifted his head to meet my gaze, there was an apology written in his eyes.
“I think George and his men already got their hands on ‘em,” he told me with a shrug. “I imagine they’re already on their way back to the castle to claim the reward. You’re a bit late.”
He lifted an arm, gesturing to the post on our left. My heart pounded unhappily as I took in the unevenly tacked parchment against the wood. And though I had no logical proof, I knew in my bones that it was Caldrius’ hand that had drawn her likeness.
It was a near-perfect rendition of her—one that could only have been done by a man who had spent an eternity thinking of that face. Her face. And the same face as the woman who had worn it before her.
He’d offered a small fortune for her return. Enough money to make desperate people do desperate things. They’d drag her back in pieces if it meant they could claim those coins.
And this man? This man in front of me was apologizing to me because he thought I wanted money for her.
As if any sum of coins could ever capture Thea’s worth to me.
She was everything—worth more than gold, more than my kingdom, more than this realm, more than my own damn soul. Anyone who saw anything different when they looked at her deserved to burn.
I moved in an instant, my hand wrapping around the blacksmith’s throat and slamming him against the desk he’d been working on with an echoing crack.
“Where?” Sparks and smoke fell out of my mouth, dragonfire burning through my lungs. My beast was wrestling for control, itching to take over my form, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold it back.
He blubbered, fingers wrapping around my wrist to try to pry me off him, but it was no use. My dragon’s strength refused to give an inch. I was so at war with myself that I didn't notice when talons pushed through my fingertips, poking into his skin.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” he yelled, brown eyes going unnaturally wide. “They live that way!”
I followed the line of his finger, releasing him in an instant. He slid sideways, falling to his knees on the ground. The sword he’d been fashioning was still hot to the touch when I lifted it, but the scales that rippled against my skin stopped the heat of it from burning me.
“Who are you?” he cried, rubbing at the torn skin against his throat.
“I’m the—”
I stopped, my spine going entirely rigid as a sudden wind blew harshly against me.
Every muscle in my body locked. The beast inside me roared so violently that it left my ears ringing.
Hope blossomed in the depths of my heart, the feeling so beautifully foreign that I gasped.
That wind carried a distinct floral smell—a fragrance that had haunted every one of my nightmares and dreams since the day we’d fled the castle.
Thea.
She was here. She was so close that I could smell her as if no time or distance had ever parted us at all.
I took a deep breath in, filling my lungs with her, wanting to savor that smell. But the deeper I breathed her in, the more my hope faded into something infinitely colder and far more insidious.
The floral scent of her skin wasn’t only the smell on the wind.
I could practically taste her blood.
Any logical thought left my mind as I took off in a desperate sprint towards her.