Black Crown (Darkest Drae, #3)(77)
What? So these were the favorites in his harem? I narrowed my eyes at the other female Drae, staring at them suspiciously. Though they all ranged in height and posture, each of them had black hair and an athletic build. I had no idea how old they were, except they had to be over one hundred years old if they’d been rounded up when Tyrrik was placed under the blood oath.
They watched me, most with smoothed expressions, a couple with pity, one with thinly veiled mistrust. They wore similar sack-like tunics, sleeveless and undyed like mine. The one pursing her lips had a silvery scar climbing up the left side of her neck, and as soon as she caught me staring, I blushed and forced my gaze over the group, taking them in as a whole.
As I looked at them, studying them as they measured me, the oddest thing occurred. A sense of kinship swelled within me. They were family. I could feel something with each of them, a tether, a duty to protect them, a heritage that tied us together.
“Is that because they’re Drae or because you’re their alpha and I’m your spawn?” I asked, knowing Draedyn would be paying attention to my thoughts.
“Because you’re Drae,” he answered before taking a bite from his toast.
The other women and I continued staring as their rapist, my father, casually chewed on his toast. I hoped the bread stuck in his throat and killed him.
His growl rumbled through the room, and many of the women blanched or cowered.
I smiled, taking morose pleasure in his irritation. The horrors he’d inflicted on these women grossly overwhelmed my fear.
“I’m Ryhl’s daughter,” I announced. My anger rising swift and hard to her defense, I continued, “You know, the one who escaped the empire with the Phaetyn’s help and evaded all attempts to find her for seventeen years?”
The shock on the women’s faces was well worth the bravado comment. Even the one with the scar raised her eyebrows.
Draedyn cleared his throat. “Seventeen years is but the blink of an eye. Draehl could have had eternity and you too. Alas, now she is dead, her effort for naught, and you are back in my possession.”
I hunched forward slightly. His words were akin to a physical blow. I managed to control my expression but not my mind. The sorrow of her death pierced my heart, and I couldn’t help but wish things were different, that I still had her.
A cruel smirk crossed Draedyn’s face as he listened to my silent lament for my mother.
But his callousness fed my anger, giving me strength. I straightened, smiling back at him. “Not all for naught, I think.”
I glanced around the room as if taking it in as I continued my thoughts internally. If I’d grown up here, who knows what I might have become. Ryhl taught me more in seventeen years than I could learn in seventeen hundred years from this second-rate loser with wings.
His face contorted, but before I could continue to insult him, one of the female Drae stepped forward. She appeared a year or two older than me, and this close, I could see that her hair was dyed, the blond roots a sharp contrast to the black. Her skin was pale, and her eyes were a warm honey brown. She was maybe an inch taller than me but way curvier. Beautiful. She passed behind the other chairs until she stood before me. “I am named Draesi.”
Indignation burned hot in my chest. That wasn’t her real name. Draesi was her slave name.
Another growl, this one louder, slipped through Draedyn’s teeth, and the women froze. One of them whimpered, and two of them exchanged fearful glances. Draesi smiled tightly.
I tried to appear unbothered. With the crushing force of emerald power in the room, that was no easy feat, but I took the extra moment his temper provided to engage my full senses and look at the energy of the Drae women. Unsurprisingly, most of them were drenched in the oily emerald green, but a few of them had other colors peeking through: gold, red, purple, and a rich royal blue.
“Nice to meet you,” I replied, omitting her name from the end. It wasn’t the first time I’d used this plot to undermine someone in secret, and it wouldn’t be the last. Except I guess Draedyn was in my head, so the secret was missing the secret part.
The strange connection between the women and me intensified with Draesi closer. Acting on instinct, I reached out a hand and touched her. The smile fell from our faces as we stared into each other’s eyes.
Scales rippled up my neck, and my shoulderblades ached with the need to allow my wings to burst forth. Fierce determination pulsed within, and I clenched my fists. No one would harm my kin.
“You’ve never met another Drae?” Draesi asked, her expression softening.
I inhaled deeply and pushed back the stunted start of transformation. “Not since coming into my powers. No one but my mate. He’d spoken about the kinship between Drae, but—”
I hadn’t expected it to be so strong. I wanted to do whatever I needed to help them.
She flipped my hand over in a blur and squeezed it. “It is a beautiful feeling. I’m very glad to have met you.”
One of the others stood, the scarred mistrustful one, although she was just as beautiful as Draesi, just in her own way. “You have a mate?”
I nodded, aware from Tyrrik that they would never find their mates because the emperor had Irdelron kill all male Drae.
“He must be going insane right now,” the same woman said, her blue eyes narrowing.
I nodded. He would be going insane. I was going insane. My chest was going to explode from the ache. I was unreasonably glad that we had gone our separate ways a few times in the last month or I’d be freaking out right now.