Black Crown (Darkest Drae, #3)(73)
Part of me sincerely hoped Tyrrik didn’t attempt it, and another part of me expected him to arrive any second. I expected Draedyn to know more than I how hard a male Drae would fight to get to his mate. But maybe not. Maybe Draedyn had never had a mate. I really didn’t know. There was so much I didn’t know, and in this moment, if the news was bad, I didn’t even want to know. I hoped Dyter, if he was even alive and with the army, would be able to talk reason into Tyrrik. With savage force, I turned my thoughts away from Dyter and back to Daddy-Draedyn.
“I’m in your lair?” I asked, glancing away from the emperor’s intense perusal of me to take a better look at the room. My bed was the centrepiece of the space, the velvet couch with its blood-red throw and a leather-covered trunk at the end of the bed were the only adornments to the chamber. Like the emperor himself, his lair was plain, another testament to his faux-humility. Like anything material would distract from his power? How hard would it be to hang up a family portrait—ugh, no. Maybe a picture of his mother or a landscape or sunset? Black, black, black.
“I’m seeing a decorative theme here,” I muttered. A door to my right offered a break in the dark graphite rock. Did that lead out to the rest of his lair?
“This is my home. Wild animals have lairs. My empire is all of Draeconia, from the front of the cliffs, extending out to the water on all sides, all the way down to your precious Verald. And yes, that door will lead you to the rest of my abode. Behind you is your private washroom, through the smaller doorway there.”
I didn’t even need to speak anymore to be answered. How convenient. I offered Daddy Draedyn a tight smile.
A foreboding darkness billowed out from him, the only response to my flippant thought. The creeping dark-green power crawled through the room toward me, and I had a minor freak out. He didn’t expect me to watch my thoughts, did he? That was probably impossible for anyone.
The ominous pressure retracted like a knife pulled from a wound. I was drawn forward as though dragged by an invisible force.
“Very true, daughter,” the emperor murmured, walking around the bed away from the door. “Our thoughts are the essence of what we are. As you think, you will become. Do you know what guides me?”
Ugh. Was he giving parental advice? Or trying to bond? When would he just go— Oops.
He turned to the black wall, hands clasped behind his back. He was huge although his choice of apparel made him seem smaller. As he drew closer, I better appreciated his height, maybe five or six inches taller than Tyrrik although thinner than my mate. To the outside observer, only years might’ve separated us, but in truth, Draedyn was hundreds or thousands of years old.
He’d killed my mother. Not directly, but he’d led her to a life of secrecy and fear. What life could my mother have had if not for being rounded up and carted off to him to be a brooding mare?
What the hay was he looking at the wall for? The meaning of life?
“Betrayal,” the emperor said.
Maybe he was touched in the head—more than his utter ruthlessness and greediness for power suggested. I took a deep breath and, humoring him, repeated, “Betrayal?”
His shoulders tensed.
His mind-reading-thing was reducing the likelihood of my escape.
“Hundreds upon hundreds of years have gone by,” he said, still speaking to the graphite wall. “And yet the strongest memories I have are those of betrayal. What it felt like: the twist in my stomach, the wrench in my heart, the fire in my belly. I used to get angry and frustrated with the inconvenience. I had to create plans to exact my revenge. I deserved recompense from those who dared to defy me, or worse, rise against me. I vowed never to forget a betrayal, and I didn’t. Each time someone significant broke my trust, I pulled a scale from my Drae body. That way I had merely to look upon my true form and be taken back to the exact moment, the exact feeling I had.”
That. Was. Messed. Up. Seriously.
That, right there, that was why he was crazy, with a capital K. Revenge? Recompense owed? Burn someone’s pancakes, chop down a tree, or get a hammer and go bang some nails into a stump like a normal person. Better yet, go blow fire at the stars.
I cringed as the oily green power began to creep back. What a time to learn my mind liked to rattle one insult off after another. Actually, I might’ve known. Tyrrik hearing my thoughts and Draedyn hearing them weren’t the same thing.
The emperor turned, hands still at his back, his facial features fixed in an impassive mask I was certain male Drae were born with. “I have spent my entire life serving this realm. I came from the Draekon desert with the goal to leave a legacy the Drae could be proud of. But the Drae began to rise against me. My own people denied the aid necessary to obliterate our mutual enemies. I was forced to look for a different route to success. I sent Irdelron and my Druman to give them a choice. There is no way to straddle a line when it comes to war. If you aren’t for, then by default you are against, and the Drae refused to join me,” Draedyn said, his neck tightening as he reigned in his emotions.
Ouch. They mustn’t have liked him at all. No surprises there.
Draedyn’s hands curled into fists.
He continued his history lesson. “Irdelron and the Druman were forced to slaughter them and bring me the female Drae. I took every precaution I could with those of my kind. I collected the Phaetyn, knowing the healers could help the females with child, but we lost so many. And then there was Draehl. I remember the reports of your mother’s progressing pregnancy.” His eyes flicked to mine and I stilled. “I visited her, felt you kick her belly. I watched over her. She was not my mate, but I felt the same protective draw to what she carried in her womb—to you. I was desperate for you. I forced Phaetyn after Phaetyn to heal you and her, but she continued to decline. I remember when the Phaeytn queen poured her vitality into your mother.”