Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Dirk
The entire flight was in the room when I arrived at Caz’s private quarters.
“Sit,” my brother ordered, clearly on edge.
I couldn’t blame him. He stood protectively in front of a loveseat upon which Anna sat, her entire body moving slightly as she writhed back and forth. Every so often she would whimper, and Caz would growl comfortingly in her direction.
Moving to the empty chair next to Ella, I nodded at Milly who sat next to Florian, and in front of Kolar and Durion.
“We don’t have much time,” Caz said, stating the obvious, though everyone in the room was very carefully keeping their eyes anywhere but Anna.
With his mate in the throes of her first heat, Caz would be extremely jealous and protective. Nobody wanted to set the tyrant off at this critical moment. That wasn’t what a flight did.
I considered that odd thought. That we were, all of us, a flight. Together. It hadn’t been on purpose. It had just sort of happened.
“For those of you unaware,” Caz continued, “my mate is entering her first heat. She and I will be unavailable for an unknown amount of time. This presents us—you, not me—an opportunity. The heat of the Ice Tyrantess is a known and protected thing. There will be no happenings within the court until we return. That includes questioning of this wet nurse Mirko dug up. That will be on hold.”
I nodded. Anna’s heat would give our agents time to dig into the facts and uncover what we could about the obvious fabrication. It was helpful.
“Dirk.” Caz fixed me with a long, steady look. “You will be acting in my stead if anything arises. This too will pass without issue, as there is lots of precedence for just such a situation. If anything new arises, it will be on you, as prince and heir, to take care of it.”
Although I’d known it was coming, I didn’t bother to hide a grimace. Caz knew full well I had absolutely no desire to rule, to sit on the Ice Throne. That was his position. I hoped the heat was successful, so I could step away as heir. I would prefer to be done with politics entirely.
And with me out of the spotlight, it was less likely that the truth of my past could come back to hurt Caz, if anyone ever learned of it.
There was no way to avoid it for now, much as I wished I could. The kingdom had to be there for Caz to come back to, and I would see that done. No matter what. Which meant everyone would have to be aware of all situations.
“There might be a problem there,” I said in response. “With Mirko.”
“Explain,” Caz barked, sitting on the couch in response to a whine from Anna, who slid across into his lap with a pleasant smile and sigh, working her hips against his. She was oblivious to the rest of us.
“We crossed paths,” I said unhappily. “It did not go well.”
“How not well?” Caz asked, wrapping his arms around Anna and pinning her in place to stop her movements. She only whimpered happily and melted against him, nuzzling his neck. “Be quick about your answer.”
“About as well as it could go with that traitor I’m ashamed to call an uncle,” I snarled, clenching a fist as I explained what had happened. “Apparently, he was unaware of Ella’s and my … status.”
Beside me, Ella stiffened in her chair, but she did not look my way.
“Dirk,” Caz growled.
“I know, okay? I know. I lost my temper, and I screwed up. I am aware of this and nothing you can say will make it better, so let’s acknowledge it and move on. He knows we’re onto him, though I’m sure he already knew we suspected it.”
“Do we?” Caz asked, stroking Anna’s arm as she tried to move. The skin-on-skin contact seemed to settle her once more, but I knew time was running short. Caz was already pushing this far more than he should have to.
“Mirko is a traitor to the kingdom,” I said bluntly.
“That’s how the Reds knew we were at the chalet.
It’s the only thing that makes sense. His mate has worked with the Reds before, and now he is.
He wants us gone, so he can have the throne, a point he’s making clear with this swapped-at-birth fabrication nonsense.
And when I can prove it, I am going to kill him for putting Ella in danger! ”
The room was silent, all eyes on me now.
“And, uh, for being a traitor,” I added, well aware how lame it sounded.
“How are you going to prove it?” Florian asked, speaking up from the other side of Milly. “We’ve never had any sense before now that Mirko is working with the Reds.”
“Sure we have. We know he lied about this estrangement with Bryna. That’s obvious. His mate had six wolves wearing heart scales waiting for Caz. Only because he’s the strongest tyrant in generations did he survive that.”
Caz’s lip pulled back at the mention of the ambush Bryna had created for him. The wolf shifters, wearing the heart scales of fire dragons on their chest, would have access to all the powers of a true dragon, but without the dragon half that made using such things a second nature to us.
“Is that it?” Durion put in. “We have no proof.”
“We have that. We have the fact Bryna was running the slave markets here in Kylma. We know about the chalet attack, as I said. But I realized something else when we were out helping the victims of the most recent incursion from the Reds.”
Caz cocked his head sideway in question. I hadn’t told anyone this, not yet.
“When Florian came to the throne room to tell us of the attack, I was doing my job when we’re in session,” I said to everyone.
“I watch everyone but the person speaking. I see who is surprised, who knows what’s coming, and who is happy or upset.
And when that happened, there was no shock on Mirko’s face.
He wasn’t surprised. I thought at the time that’s what it was, but it wasn’t. It was confusion and anger.”
“Why would he be those but not surprised?” Kolar mused out loud.
“Because he knew the attack was coming,” Florian hissed. “We’ve been getting reports of all kinds of movement on the border, but we didn’t know this was coming.”
“He did. But the timing of it was wrong,” I added, glad the warlord was on the same page as me.
Caz grunted, listening but focusing most of his efforts on keeping his mate calm as she twisted and moved against him in his lap.
“Why would he want the attack?” Milly asked, looking around. “I feel like the only one who doesn’t get it.”
“I don’t either,” Ella said from next to me. “Can you explain?”
“Think about it,” I told her, staring at my mate but speaking to the room.
“Let’s say this wet nurse fabrication worked.
Mirko’s claim is proven right somehow, and he sits as tyrant, and then the Reds attack two days later.
What does he do? He rides out of the citadel at the head of a force to the valiant defense of the kingdom from our longest enemies. ”
“Oh,” Milly said. “That would certainly make him look good.”
“The masses would eat it up because they wouldn’t know better,” I confirmed.
“Then go, keep watch on Mirko,” Caz said, interjecting. “Tail him and his people. Find out what you can.”
“I will,” I promised. “He spends almost as much time at his estate here in the city as he does at the citadel. I will catch him. And then I will kill him.”
Caz made a face but didn’t speak up. I, in turn, didn’t verbally address it.
What no one else in the room, save perhaps Anna, was aware of was that Caz had killed our father and framed it as an assassination in order to take over the kingdom.
He probably didn’t relish the thought of killing another family member, traitor or not.
Which is why he is a good man. And why I will have no hesitation.
Caz thought the secret was his, but I had known from the moment I saw the body. He desired to protect me, to keep it to himself, and so it wasn’t my place to interfere.
But I would handle this one for him.
“You must have proof,” Caz said. “And it must be incontrovertible. Am I clear?”
“I will not make a mistake that big,” I promised. Not again.
Caz eyed me. “Take Ella with you on your watch. She will make sure you stay calm and don’t do anything rash.” His eyes hardened as I prepared to argue. “That is an order.”
I glared at my brother. Knowing him, he was trying to hit two birds with one stone by forcing Ella and me to act together. I wasn’t going to take that bait, though.
Anna moaned, and her breathing quickened, her hand diving for Caz’s crotch. He stood up, gathering her in his arms with ease.
We were out of time.
“You can do this,” he said, his eyes bright green flared through with silver as his dragon rose to meet its mate. “The kingdom must survive.”
“It will,” I said as he left the room, heading deep into the center of the citadel to a heavily protected set of rooms meant exactly for the purpose of shielding the vulnerable tyrant and his mate during a heat. They would not emerge until it was over.
The kingdom was in my hands now.