To Love a Prince (Knights of Valor Book 1)(69)

The thought made her chest ache, but she composed herself and eased over to the bookshelf. Perusing the small library, she selected a book on the history of Qumaref, one on horses, and a crime novel.

As she headed back towards the door, the motion of the ship and her own rebellious stomach had her clutching a large trunk to keep her balance. Taking a few deep breaths, she waited for the nausea to pass then pushed against the side of the trunk to stand. A hidden compartment slid open revealing a Tamarian coin.

She lifted the coin and peered at the image of Eli etched into its surface.

Her eyes unfocused, seeing the coin but also past it. Eli’s hair lengthened and curled on the coin. His face morphed from the hard planes she knew to rounded cheeks and puffy lips. His eyes transformed from their brilliant blue to flat black discs, cold and reptilian. Anger and greed contorted the face, then darkness engulfed it.

Sucking in a breath, her hands shook as she studied the darkness more closely and realized thousands of snakes writhed in the shadows, their bodies twisting and coiling over and around each other as they devoured the dragon crest of Tamryn.

She swallowed a scream, threw the coin back into the compartment, and shoved it closed.

After several long, deep breaths, she steadied herself. Her hands still shook as she pushed herself back to her feet.

She didn’t understand the vision.

It wasn’t Eli. It couldn’t be Eli.

He may marry Daniella to secure his political plans, but he wanted to save Tamryn. Protect it.

She stared at the books in her hand and the ones still arranged by title and subject on the shelves. They told of a man with wide and varied interests. An intelligent man and a driven one. A man who loved his country and his people. Who had spent much of his life in service to them.

He was not hiding in the shadows waiting to strike. Waiting to kill. Waiting to take what was not his and destroy Tamryn.

She knew him better than that.

So what did the vision mean?

Her visions warned her, helped protect her. Guided her.

Auburn rubbed a hand over her belly. The fatigue. The sickness. Had she been with the sultan, they’d be rejoicing at the news. But Prince Eli had been adamant about not being permitted to give her a child.

She wasn’t sure what he’d do if he discovered her secret. If she ruined plans he’d spent his whole life crafting.

Her fists balled at her side, and she straightened her spine. She would not lose her son, not even to the man she loved. She had plotted just as long as Eli had. Maybe longer. She would not back down now.

Auburn swallowed hard as she regarded the trunk.

Steadying her thoughts, she considered the vision again. The shifting face. The snakes. The dragon crest. The vision was a warning, but she didn’t know what it meant.

Not yet.

She clutched the books and returned to Eli and Leopold. She then handed the volumes to the Knight.

“Thanks.” Leopold peered down at the titles and raised a steel-colored brow. “Interesting choices.”

“I thought you’d like them. You can learn a lot about a man by what he reads.”

“Some truth in that, I suppose.” Leopold turned from Auburn to Eli. “You let her get lots of rest. Sleep’ll help. Time’ll help more. Reading’ll make it worse. I’ll have a couple chairs brought out. She gets bad, have her sit in one and watch the horizon.”

“Thank you, Sir Leopold.” Auburn studied the Knight. Perhaps she could tell him the vision, see what he thought of it. But then she’d have to confess her condition, and she wasn’t ready to do that.

“Keeping Ndrek away from you for now. One of you gets sick, you’ll set off the other.”

“I’m taking her back to rest.” Eli touched his lips to her temple. “I’ll read to her and practice my Elven.”

A smile curved her lips and emotion bloomed in her chest. “I’d like that.”

Eli nodded to Leopold and helped Auburn back to their cabin. Once he had her tucked into bed beside him, he selected a book written in Elven, and he was still reading to her when she fell asleep.





Chapter 41





Auburn slept half the day away, but snakes, the man who resembled Eli, and a temple illuminated by a gold dragon haunted her dreams.

Was the vision showing her that there was safety in the temple of the gold dragon? If so, from whom was she running?

She thought again of the man with the reptilian eyes and shivered.

“Bad dream?” Eli held her, warming her with his closeness.

She nodded then stroked a finger along his smooth jaw. One of the first things he’d done when they’d set sail was shave his beard. “Have you ever worn your hair curly?”

Eli frowned. “Once, when I wasn’t much more than a boy.”

“But you haven’t recently.”

He caught her fingers and brought them to his lips. “It didn’t suit me. It’s fashionable in Tamryn for men to wear their hair longer than I do, to curl it even, but I have no use for such foolishness.”

“Odd the style has remained popular when the prince doesn’t wear it.”

Eli shrugged. “Lots of wealthy noblemen do.”

“It’s a way to distinguish wealth and privilege,” Auburn said.

“There are far better ways to use that wealth and privilege than to look like a fop.”