Black Crown (Darkest Drae, #3)(71)

Tyrrik mentally tsked. Good, and I need to focus on the boats.

Okay, I’m going to drop my shield so I can find Lani. Are you ready?

I love you, Ryn.

I love you too. Words failed me except those that were honest. I wanted to laugh, to somehow make a joke. I’d always joked, even in the dungeons of Verald, but my humor had apparently fled.

I took a deep breath, double checked my Phaetyn veil, and then relaxed the blue bands of my Drae shield from around my mind.

The sun dipped below the horizon, the sky’s hue deepening from cerulean to indigo. My Drae vision was still fine, but my anxiety increased every time the shade in the sky darkened. Normally, I loved the night. Back when I lived in Verald, I went through a romantic phase where I believed the darkness called to me like a lover. Now, I was fairly certain most of those emotions were my Drae transformation building within me. I still liked the darkness, a lot even, especially if it meant I got to be in bed with my mate. But flying in the night sky with Draedyn on the loose made my Drae skin crawl. Even with my Phaetyn veil firmly in place.

A roar from behind me shattered my thought, cutting through my attention to Tyrrik. Fear spiked through my spine, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. My heart raced, but I didn’t even have time to turn before a heavy weight crashed into me.

Sharp talons pierced my scales, and I shrieked in pain.

Tyrrik!

My mind blanked for a moment amidst my panic. Then I was reaching for the azure bands of my Drae power. I pulled them close, tossing them in loops around my mind. Faster, faster. I needed my shield; I knew what this was . . .

An explosion of emerald detonated in my mind. My chin dropped, and I blinked to clear the blurriness from my eyes. I pumped my wings, weaving in the sky as I grabbed for the threads of my power, but the lapis lazuli strands evaporated faster than I could grab them. Every time I snagged a bit of my power, deep-green ropes wound around the blue and pulled them away, swallowing them whole.

Dark, oily power poured over me, pushing through the shattered blue bands, cracking the remains of my shield as the emerald force flooded into my head.

Ryn—

I latched onto Tyrrik’s voice, screaming his name. My panic spiked and then waned as the Drae-energy of my alpha father swamped me, coating my insides.

My connection to Tyrrik disappeared, followed by my fight. I had a fleeting concern about the hunger behind Draedyn’s determination to own me, followed by a passing thought, now no more than curiosity, about how my father would’ve found me. The darkness of the emperor’s strength swallowed me and my entire world. My sole focus became the will of my alpha.

I was my father’s daughter, and I only wanted to serve him. I needed to. I had to make up for all the problems I’d caused.

Come, my beautiful daughter, let’s go home.

He thought I was beautiful. I bowed my head in reverence even as a quiet voice in the back of my mind screamed in protest. Yes, Father.

Cover us with your Phaetyn veil.

I pulled the mossy-green net over Draedyn, seeing for the first time that my father carried a passenger. The silvery-haired man sat astride my father between two of his spikes, facing away from me. Hiding, even. He was clearly a Phaetyn, our enemy. My father’s disgust echoed through me. The Phaetyn had to die. All of them.

The traveler turned, and the shock at seeing his handsome face and stunning smile disconcerted me enough that I reared back in the sky . . . though I couldn’t place why I did so.

Or how I knew the Phaetyn’s name.

Kamoi.





28





I stretched out in bed, one of those long extensions with the arms above the head and the toes pointed. The morning movement was my favorite with muscles taut the length of my body; the occasional shuddering spasms were like kisses of life.

Except it didn’t bring a smile to my face as it had in the past.

I threw my arms out, extending my hands to either side of me on the bed before opening my eyes. The sheets were coarse and cold, like burlap left out during a frost. Rough but unrumpled. Unused.

Something was off. My excitement for a new day, the pleasure of a stretch, even the knowledge that something was wrong only produced a mild, blunted emotion. My fingertips felt numb, and although I could move and think—

“You understand, of course, I had to remain in your mind. You’re far too volatile, and until your will has melded with mine, I will be present, at least in some capacity, daughter.”

I wrenched my eyes open and stared at the ceiling overhead. Matte-black graphite as though the room had been carved into the side of a cliff greeted me, the dull darkness disturbing. Dread rioted in my stomach as I propped my elbows up to sit in the bed, but my head felt stuffed with cotton. The coarse sheet fell down the front of my nightgown, and despite the fact Emperor Draedyn was definitely in the room, my gaze dropped to make sure I was decent.

My shoulders sagged at the plain black nightgown I’d been put in, which covered me from neck to wrist and—I shifted my feet to check—to my ankles. Emboldened by this and very little else, I lifted my gaze to peer across the room.

Draedyn sat semi-reclined, at ease on a black velvet couch. He had one arm propped on the cushioned side. Behind him, a red woven blanket draped across the back of the couch, the contrast like blood on a battlefield.

“Where is my mate?” I croaked, surprised to still have control of my voice. I forced myself to look at my father and tried to ignore the blood-red throw.