Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Imoved carefully through the course now, every muscle taut and alert, blood still damp on my arm where Perin’s blade had found its mark. The trees no longer felt like shelter, they were shadows, cover for knives, and I knew better than to assume one ambush was all Iron Fang had planned.
Every so often, I stopped and waited. Listening.
Sure enough, I spotted them, three more Iron Fang riders, sprinting past on the path with blades already out, their eyes scanning the trees, hungry for a target.
They weren’t just running the course. They were hunting.
And I had a damn good guess who they were hunting.
I let them pass, my breath low, feet silent on the forest floor, and kept to the edges of the trail. I didn’t waste energy. I didn’t draw attention. I moved like the assassin I’d been trained to be, the one they always underestimated.
When I saw the red ribbon marking the exit, I didn’t hesitate. I broke into a sprint, pain lancing through my ribs with every step, but I didn’t slow.
The trees broke open into the clearing. Zander was there, standing beside Hein, arms crossed, watching the tree line like he was expecting a war.
The rest of Thrall Squad’s dragons stood nearby, wings tucked, shifting restlessly. I reached out instinctively for Kaelith, only to feel the mental shield still in place. No response. Just that dull emptiness that came from being severed.
Zander’s eyes flicked to the blood on my arm. “You had some trouble, I see.”
I slowed as I approached, pressing a hand over the wound. “Yeah,” I muttered. “But Perin has a broken arm.”
Zander smirked. “Good.”
I stepped closer to him, lowering my voice so the others wouldn’t hear. “Perin didn’t just try to fight me. He tried to kill me.”
Zander’s expression darkened immediately, his lavender eyes turning pitch like storm clouds gathering in real time. “He’s dead.”
Before I could respond, a low growl rumbled across the clearing, deep and menacing.
Kaelith.
I glanced back, startled to see her eyes locked on us, her wings twitching, her tail curling with tension.
She’d heard every word.
Her hearing was sharper than I thought.
“No,” I said quickly, turning back to Zander. “Not yet. I don’t want him dead. Not until I know who he’s working for.”
Zander frowned, jaw tight.
“Others will come for me,” I said. “And he... he inferred one of them is someone I trust.”
Zander’s fists clenched.
“I need to find out who.”
We waited near the edge of the forest, our dragons restless but grounded, tails flicking as the sky above slowly dimmed toward dusk. One by one, the rest of the squad emerged from the trees, boots crunching on the leaf-strewn path, breath visible in the cooling air.
Each of them was unharmed.
Jax was the first to speak, his tone laced with confusion. “Every member of Iron Fang ran past me. Even when I drew my blade, none of them engaged.”
“Same with me,” Riven said, brushing a twig from her braid. “One looked me over and kept running like I wasn’t even there.”
Cordelle adjusted his gloves, his brows furrowed. “Two of them actually stopped and asked me a question.”
“What?” I asked, already knowing.
“They asked if I knew the rotation,” he said. “Specifically, when you were entering the course.”
My jaw tightened. “And what did you tell them?”
“I said you went last.”
Zander’s lavender eyes darkened as his gaze swept across us. “They were looking for you.”
“I figured as much,” I said, my voice even.
He didn’t hesitate. “Mount up. I want to get back.”
We all moved without another word. I swung back onto Kaelith’s neck, settling into place with a practiced grace that felt like second nature. The instant she lifted more than twenty feet from the ground, her mind shimmered into mine like a drawn blade.
The next time that despicable excuse for a rider attacks you, Kaelith said with a low growl, I am scorching him from the skies.
I sighed. Not yet. Not until I find out who’s pulling Iron Fang’s strings.
Besides, I added, won’t that piss off his dragon?
Kaelith scoffed. His dragon is only a hundred years old. Too young to form a proper bond. He can always choose another.
I thought dragons only bonded once.
We can bond as many times as we like, she said, wings catching the wind with ease. But under the treaty, we’re only required to bond once. Most don’t wish to experience the loss again. The more time a dragon spends with their rider…
The more they grow to love them. I finished the sentence, knowing Kaelith would not.
We flew fast, quiet, the tension from the course still simmering just beneath the surface. By the time we landed back on the Ascension Grounds, the sky had turned dusky gold, and the wind had shifted cooler with the scent of firewood and steel.
Zander dismounted from Hein first and turned toward my squad.
“Thrall Squad,” he called out, “take a break.”
They didn’t need to be told twice.
But Zander didn’t wait for me to follow them.
He stepped beside me as I slid from Kaelith’s back and gestured toward the castle. “Come with me.”
I raised a brow. “The wound’s fine. It’s already healing.”
“I know,” he said, not slowing. “But I need a minute alone with you.”
That stopped me harder than any blade. But I didn’t argue.
I followed.
Zander didn’t say a word as he led me through the castle corridors, his pace sharp, purposeful. I followed in silence, the echo of our boots the only sound as the torches flickered along the stone walls. We passed no guards. No one else.
Only when we turned into a narrow corridor near the east wing, completely empty, did he stop.
And then he turned.
His hands were on me in the next breath, pulling me flush against his chest as if the space between us was something that offended him. His mouth crashed onto mine with a fury that stole every thought from my head.
There was anger in that kiss. Fury and fire and the desperate edge of something sharp.
His lips were punishing, his hands gripping my waist like he needed to remind himself I was still alive.
Still his to protect, even if the world kept trying to take me away.
I tasted frustration, his helplessness that he hadn’t been there when Perin pulled a blade.
That I’d been hunted again, and would be again. The kiss wasn’t soft, wasn’t careful.
It was possession wrapped in desperation.
The Blood Fae wanted to use me.
But someone in the castle?
They wanted me dead.
And Zander couldn’t stop it—not yet. So he kissed me like he was trying to leave a mark they couldn’t steal.
I let him.
I surrendered to his marauding mouth, fingers curling into the fabric of his tunic, the wall at my back grounding me as I drowned in him, his heat, his pain, his fear that he would lose me in the end.
I didn’t want to think.
I just wanted this.
Until—
“Ashlyn!”
Remy’s voice snapped through the corridor like a blade through silk.
Zander tore his lips from mine, breath ragged, eyes blazing lavender and filled with murder as I turned toward the voice still echoing down the stone hall.
He stepped back a fraction, his chest still heaving from the kiss, the ghost of his mouth lingering on mine like heat from a wildfire. His eyes snapped toward the sound of the voice just as Remy appeared at the end of the corridor, his fists already clenched, rage simmering beneath the surface.
“You have no right to touch her,” Remy growled, storming toward us.
I stepped out from the wall, spine straightening as I met his furious stare. “I’m not yours anymore, Remy.”
He froze like I’d slapped him.
But his eyes, gods, they didn’t leave mine. They were raw, burning with all the things he never said out loud. Not since the day he left.
“I never stopped—”
Zander stepped between us before Remy could finish.
“Then maybe you should’ve acted like it,” Zander said coldly.
“Stay out of this,” Remy snapped. “You think you’re some kind of savior? You don’t know what she’s been through.”
“And you left her when it mattered,” Zander cut in, voice quiet and razor-sharp. “You don’t get to come back and stake your claim now.”
“I protected her,” Remy snarled. “You have no idea what it cost me.”
“And yet you’re still here,” Zander shot back, stepping forward, his jaw tight. “Circling like a vulture hoping to reclaim what you abandoned.”
The tension between them wasn’t just anger.
It was personal.
Deeper than the moment. Older than the war. There was something else here, a thread that hadn’t yet unraveled, and I could feel it, straining between them like a rope drawn taut.
There was more to this.
Remy’s chest rose and fell with barely-contained rage, his eyes still locked on Zander like he was daring him to strike first. But then his gaze flicked to me, softer, almost pleading.
“You think you’re safe with him,” he said, his voice quieter now. Too quiet. “But Zander isn’t being honest with you.”
I stiffened. “What are you talking about?”
Remy turned back to Zander, jaw tight. “Tell her the truth, tell her this can’t last.”
Zander didn’t flinch. “That’s not your choice to make.”
“No,” Remy snapped. “But it’s hers. And she deserves the truth. About what your family will do when they find out what this is.” He motioned between us. “About the throne. About what you’re willing to sacrifice.”
Zander’s voice was a low growl. “Don’t talk about sacrifice as if you understand it.”
“I understand regret,” Remy fired back. “I regret leaving her. Every gods damned day. But at least I didn’t lie to her about who I was or what I was.”
“You lied to everyone,” Zander said, stepping forward. “You lived a double life, and when it cracked, you ran. Don’t come back now acting like you’re the noble one.”
“I’m not claiming to be,” Remy said, the fire draining from his voice, leaving something heavier, something broken. “But you? You’ll hurt her worse than I ever did.”
He looked at me then, and there was something hollow behind his eyes. Not just guilt. Resignation.
Then he turned and walked away, his footsteps fading into the corridor’s silence like a closing door I hadn’t realized was still open.
I looked at Zander.
But he said nothing.
And that silence… cut deeper than any blade.
Remy’s shadow disappeared around the corridor bend, his words echoing like a ghost that refused to fade.
You’ll hurt her worse than I ever did.
I turned to Zander, my heart thudding beneath the bruises I hadn’t had time to heal. His jaw was still clenched, eyes narrowed in the direction Remy had gone, but I didn’t give him time to speak.
“What was he talking about?”
Zander blinked, caught off guard. “What?”
“Remy,” I said. “What did he mean? That this can’t last?”
Zander exhaled slowly. “He thinks I have an obligation to the throne,” he said, brushing a hand through his dark hair. “He thinks that duty will always come before everything else. Including you.”
My stomach tightened, but I didn’t let it show.
“And?” I asked.
Zander stepped closer, his lavender eyes softening at the edges, the tension in his shoulders easing like he didn’t want to carry this between us. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, reaching up to touch my cheek. “I’ll work it out.”
Then he kissed me.
And for a moment, just a moment, I let him.
His lips were warm, coaxing, and there was desperation beneath it, the same fierce ache he’d poured into our first kiss. The kind that said this is mine, even if I can’t keep it.
I melted into it for a breath, two, before his words clawed back into my mind like jagged truth.
I’ll work it out.
I pulled back, my breath brushing against his lips as I stared up at him.
“What do you need to work out, Zander?”