Chapter 2 Izzy
IZZY
“Did she suspect anything when she undid the binding on you?” Koar asked.
“I don’t know…” I said, honestly. “She didn’t have a lot of time to take it in, before I escaped. She seemed more upset and disgusted that I was a half-breed.”
“So… she may not know you’re a royal… not yet anyway,” Safir mused.
“I don’t think we can rely on that,” Vyns offered.
Thank you Vyns.
“Why did she undo the binding?” Rook asked, sounding like he didn’t want to be involved in this at all. “How did she even know about it?”
“As an elf, she might have sensed it,” Safir said, but Koar spoke over him.
“It was luck or fate, call it what you will. She wished to torture Izzy, wanted to have Neyalim turn her into a frog so she could pluck off her limbs, then heal them, over and over again.”
“Sick fuck,” I murmured.
“Indeed,” Koar agreed. “But when Neyalim tried to transmute Izzy, she couldn’t. That’s when Saldrea found out there was a binding keeping Izzy’s form as it was. After that, she sought to break it.”
“While we’re on the topic, why are you even here? How did you find out about Izzy’s royalty?” Safir asked Koar.
“Her handwriting,” the dragon said stoically.
“I saw some of Izzy’s handwriting in her notebook when Saldrea and the others trashed her room.
Something seemed familiar about it, so I compared a sample to old written records.
Turns out, she has a lot of the same writing inflection as her mother, even her grandmother.
After that… I suspected, but I didn’t know, till you confirmed it just now. ”
“Wait,” I said, interrupting. “You rescued me, took those attacks for me, and you didn’t even know for certain I was a princess?”
Also… wow, I did not give the big man enough credit. I’d thought him a relatively mindless thug, but he’d done all that research and meticulous study.
Koar shrugged his massive shoulders. The sheet hanging off him swayed and I caught a glimpse of thick thighs, but nothing more.
Did I want to see more? I mean… right now a distraction wouldn’t go amiss, and that huge man’s dong would be one hell of a distraction.
Still, not what I should be focusing on right now.
“I knew Saldrea wasn’t what a princess should be… and I had hope,” Koar replied evenly.
Wow.
Hope.
He’d been going on hope alone?
“We can’t trust him,” Safir said, an edge to his voice.
Koar nodded. “That’s fair. But consider: I could easily bash through this wall and go tell someone about this illicit meeting.
There’s not a single one of you who could stop me, except maybe Izzy, but she’s still new to her power.
” He looked at me. And I couldn’t say what exactly was in that look, except for maybe some of that hope he’d spoken about.
“And Vyns knows me, knows I serve the true crown to a fault. Up till recently, that fault was following Saldrea, but I’m done with her. I serve you now, Izzy.”
And something about how he said it made me want to believe him. And something in the rumbling admission also made me want to climb that sexy AF body of his and find out how dedicated he was.
Wow, girl, slow your roll. You barely know him!
That’s how we like our men, remember, unknown, I reminded myself.
True. But he was also threatening you just last week. We can’t trust him… yet.
We rarely trust any guy we fuck. Trust is for relationships, which I don’t do… or didn’t… until recently. That had all changed in the last few days, now I was bonded to two men and had a third fuck-buddy on the side.
Fair. Where were we?
Got me?
I listened to see where the conversation had headed while I’d been chatting with myself.
“Maybe you’re waiting to hear our plans, then you’ll report us to Saldrea,” Safir accused Koar.
Koar sighed. “Why would I wait to hear your plans? What purpose would that serve when Hana can rip them from your minds?”
“He’s right about that,” Vyns added. “He has no reason not to report us if he’s working for Saldrea. There’s no point to a long con here, that would only make Saldrea mad.”
That sounded like the truth to me.
Time to end this argument.
“Safir!” My stern tone got the shifter to turn toward me. Looking at him still made me see red, but not as much as it had a moment ago, more like a deep rose, not quite crimson blood, enough that I could speak to him without exploding.
“I don’t trust him either, but Vyns does and Vyns is bound to me and that’s good enough for me. That means it’s good enough for you, if you serve me. Got it?”
Safir nodded. His disgruntled expression told me he didn’t like it, but he didn’t argue.
And since I could look at him without combusting, perhaps it was time to find out more.
“Why did you wait to tell me who I am? I’ve been in this world for several days now, which admittedly isn’t too long, but still… you knew exactly where I was. Why couldn’t you tell me who I was?”
Safir met my gaze with an intensity I was staring to understand was at the very core of the old man.
“For your own safety.” His tone was level, unemotional.
That irked me even more. I hated the tired male trope of using “protecting women” as an excuse for not being honest with them. Also… how could he be so calm at a time like this?
“Please explain how me not knowing made me safer?” I said.
“I don’t doubt you could have kept the secret, but it’s inevitable: knowing things changes people. Others may have sensed a difference in you and if Saldrea’s mind-reading sylph companion had caught one glimpse of your thoughts…”
Ah, yeah. Hana, that damned sylph and her mind-reading. And if Saldrea knew who I was… I’d be dead, plain and simple.
Safir finished with, “The fewer people who knew the truth the better.”
Well fuck. That made a lot of sense. Still, others were playing games with my life and that royally pissed me off.
Royally… ha!
I sighed heavily. “Okay yeah, fine. But I’m still mad at you.”
“Understood Your Maj— Izzy.”
Again, under different circumstances Majizzy would have been hilarious, but not right now.
“What does this mean?” I asked. “I have no clue how to be a princess… or an elf for that matter. Wait… do I have earth magic now?” Probably.
The nods from everyone else confirmed it.
“And… bindings?” I murmured. “I can do those?”
Myel tensed. I felt his trepidation, but I didn’t know why. Did he think I’d bind him somehow?
“Yes,” Safir confirmed. “Your mother was very strong in earth magic and you most likely are as well. The fact that you wore down your mother’s binding — enough to start showing your true form — without any clue what you were doing, is proof enough of that.”
Huh… I had done that, hadn’t I?
And…
I shifted around a little, stretching and rolling my joints. I ignored the odd looks from the others as I confirmed… no pain.
My lingering body pain — from healing Vyns, who’d been on the brink of death a few hours ago — had vanished. It had dissipated the instant Saldrea had broken the binding on me. That seemed significant.
I worked it out slowly, talking it through. “Would that binding… would it have potentially caused me pain if I did anything which might have modified my form? Would a workout or strain, where the body usually grows… would the binding have resisted that?”
“That seems logical, yes,” Safir confirmed. “If the binding was keeping you as a human, it may have resisted growth in that manner, causing pain.”
“But then why didn’t I remain a two-year-old, I did grow…?” There was so much I didn’t know.
“Your mother was extremely proficient, as I mentioned,” Safir said. “She would have accounted for regular growth, so she wouldn’t have to constantly redo the binding on you every few weeks or months, especially when you were young.”
That explained my chronic body pain every time I’d worked myself too hard: my muscles had been trying to grow and the binding had shut it down.
I looked at Safir. “Since we’re stuck here and I’m not the least bit tired.” Despite it being quite late at night. “You’re going to tell me everything. Everything you know that I don’t. Go.”
He nodded. “As you wish, Izzy.” He’d finally managed to say my name.
Safir told me everything he knew about my parents, which was a lot.
Most of it, I probably could have read about in some history book, but the little details were fascinating.
My mother’s love of plants, nurturing them with her magic, helping them grow.
She’d been a florist in the human world and done well for herself.
My father’s quiet and contemplative nature, which I had not inherited.
How both had been truly beautiful people inside and out and how much I looked like them.
“Wait…” I stopped him. I rose quickly and went to the small mirror hung on the wall to one side of the room. I hadn’t looked at myself since the binding had been broken.
Seeing my real form… took my breath away.
“Oh…” I sighed, lost for words.
My eyes were the same, at least the same color — that rich sea-green, with a ring of emerald around the iris and a circle of darker blue around the edges — but they were also a little larger.
Wow. I didn’t need makeup to make my eyes pop now!
My nose was more refined, a bit smaller and sharper.
My hair was no longer dirty blond, but a rich, deep golden blond and my ears were so much taller and very pointy, peeking up through my hair.
Gone was my slightly tanned complexion, I was quite pale now.
And I looked more like a model, my figure leaner and slimmer, which included my bust. Huh…
I didn’t know how I felt about that. Being chesty had been one of my prime attributes, even if it hadn’t always been a blessing.
To distract myself, I moved my mouth, stunned at the plump fullness of my lips.