Forbidden Honor (Dragon Royals #1)(76)

She let out another bubbly laugh and a sense of peace flooded me. I would do anything to hear that laugh.

“Come on, my queen,” I said. “Let me get you home.”





Honor



Once Talisyn handed me out of his carriage and favored me with one last smile before he left me on the academy steps, the reality of the past twenty-four hours hit me hard. I spent the weekend hiding out from everyone but my girlfriends. Calla, June and the other girls from the servants’ quarters rallied around me.

I couldn’t tell them everything. But I did tell them about Alis’ threat against Hanna. They listened with scrunched foreheads and worried lips. There was no way for half a dozen housemaids who worked at the academy to go up against one of the most powerful men in the kingdom and my vile stepmother, who was always so calculating she’d give him whatever he wanted.

“How in the world is it that your stepmother ended up with your father?” Calla asked over glasses of wine as we lounged around her room. June had her head in Calla’s lap, and Calla was gently brushing her hair with her fingertips.

Even though my friends were trying to help me, I still felt strangely left out. I was so busy rushing around on my adventures that I didn’t have time for the cozy little world they’d been carving out in the servants’ quarters.

“I don’t know. That’s always bothered me.” He’d never seemed that in love with her, no matter how much she pretended to be infatuated with him.

“Do you think he married her for some reason besides love?”

“Maybe, but I can’t imagine what it would be, I mean, he was the one who was so wealthy. She kind of came from nowhere.” I’d never seen her in my father’s orbit until just a few months before they married. One day it seemed like she was everywhere we went, at every ball, smiling delightedly at my father as he was grim and polite.

“Maybe we should do some looking into her background.”

“Yeah, maybe I should have asked her questions about her life,” I admitted. “I’ve never been super friendly to her.”

“I can’t imagine why.” Calla was on my side, so she didn’t point out that I had been a petty brat since I was eleven years old.

I’d never given my stepmother a fair chance, but I’d always been able to tell that she didn’t really care for me anyway. Many people think kids are idiots…but those people are idiots themselves.

Lara sauntered into the room. “Give me wine, I have news.”

“I’d give you wine anyway,” Calla said mildly. I handed Lara a glass.

“There are a million questionable stories about what exactly happened between Lucien and Alina.” Lara gripped the stem, looking pleased with herself. “But here’s one solid fact. Alina’s stayed in a castle in the northern territory. Lucien was imprisoned in the dungeon until recently.”

Maybe mice and chipmunks were underestimated.

“Do you think he did something to her?” I could understand why the guys would have wanted to kill me if they thought Lucien had really harmed Alina so badly. What if he had raped her? If someone hurt my sister, I would hurt them, and it wouldn’t matter how hard they tried in the training yard. It made my attempts to win them over seem ridiculous.

And it made me think twice about my desire to use my feminine wiles to tear them apart, all while I finally got some good royal dick.

“I don’t know,” she mused. “You would think that he would have been executed quick and in a hurry.”

“He was a royal son.”

“Yeah, but there are no royals like the dragon elders. And there are certainly no nobles like the young dragon royals.” She added that in a much lighter tone, giving me a once over, her eyes sparkling mischievously.

“Do you think Alina is there by her own choice, or do you think she’s been imprisoned?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past the elders,” she said. “They certainly don’t seem like they’d appreciate being trifled with.”

“I’d hate to be Lucien Finn,” June mused.

“Me too,” I managed.

Then my friends’ gossip and laughter swept me away, and I let Lucien go for a while.





On Monday morning, I was back to being Lucien Finn. I strolled into the arena classroom, slightly breathless from running like an idiot. Calla and the others were covering for me now, which touched me more than I ever could have explained.

It was nice having the attention of the dragon royals, but it was more important to have girlfriends. Especially given that the most alluring men I knew also occasionally tried to murder me.

I’d need to talk to them about what had happened. Maybe there was an explanation I didn’t understand.

No matter what, it would still take me a long time to get over what they had done to me. But I wasn’t quite ready to murder them now that I’d cooled off over the weekend. They didn’t even know to be grateful that my homicidal impulses had faded since the engagement party.

The five of them were sitting in the same place where they always were in the amphitheater. Branok looked worried, and then he saw me, and his face took on the usual look of disgust.

I looked past him, searching.

Jaik looked as if he had been beaten badly, his face puffy and swollen. His posture was still perfect, but he moved with a faint look of pain.