Page 16 of Brutal Dragon King (Nayara Dragon Kings #1)

Watching Althea flee the library, my frown deepens, my inner dragon ready to act, but I find that I can't move.

I'm shocked into stillness, only staring after her as she runs out the door and disappears down the hall, her footsteps becoming fainter until only silence remains to leave me mulling over what just happened.

Did she… just try to kill me?

As if to confirm what I already know, I glance at the floor where the Dragonclaw Dagger had fallen from her clutches, frowning when I realize I didn't notice that it was missing from my hidden weapons room.

When did she enter my bedroom?

How did she find the dagger?

It's not as if these questions matter when the human slave just tried to kill her king.

It's the highest, most punishable act of treason, yet all I can do is stare blankly at the door as my admiration for Althea grows at this moment.

If I thought she was brave before to use her voice to stand up against me, the attempt on my life has only proven that she has a warrior's spirit.

There was never any need to doubt the reaping and the participant that came from it as my child-bearer if the result was meeting the most resilient and brave human who will no doubt pass on those extraordinary traits to the first heir of the kingdom.

The heir who has probably already been conceived, by what I've gathered.

Althea was about to slit my throat with the dagger when she'd suddenly been pulled to look down at her belly. The proceeding scream that left her throat was anguished, as if she'd felt my child stop her from killing me.

My child hasn't even been born yet, and already, it protects me against its mother.

Pride swells my chest, and I curl my hands into tight fists, my arms pumping with enough blood to expand and snap the string that binds my wrists to the chair.

I let out a sarcastic chuckle. What did Althea think, tying my wrists with the featherlight string? If I really wanted to, I would have snapped free from the binds and grabbed her when she gave me the most mind-blowing, life-altering blow job, or defended myself when she placed the dagger at my throat.

Both times, I'd become consumed by my curiosity and awe of her. I couldn't interrupt, wanting to see through her game and plotting against me.

Though I'm not sure why she'd suddenly become determined to avenge the innocent lives she spoke of, I have to give it to her that she'd been brave enough for her attempt to take my life.

Has her resentment for me become so strong? Was what happened this morning in the courtyard so wrong, that she'd decided to end my life?

Shaking my head wryly, I rise from the chair and decide to go off in search of Althea. If she's pregnant with my child—it's only a suspicion for now—I need to make amends and speak to her in a calmer setting.

Things need to change around here, and for one, she has to know how much she affects me to the point of insanity. That was the driving force behind my actions this morning, behind my words and implication that I would pass her along.

I would never dream of passing her along to anyone, my possessiveness over my human becoming stronger with every step I take toward the library door. She's probably back in her bedroom, mulling over her attempt on my life.

Those horror-stricken eyes before she dropped the dagger and fled could only possibly indicate that she's pregnant and now regrets her actions as much as I regret mine. Trying to push her away, steer clear of her while denying what I feel has boiled over with what happened tonight.

It's enough.

Marching forward, I take the stairs measuredly, each step fueling my bones with the natural desire to be close to my human. My mate, who's potentially pregnant with my child, is the sole reason for softening this dragon king's heart.

It's high time she learns of her power over me.

I get to the bedroom door, frowning upon finding it left open a crack. Pausing, my mind races with the possessive and furious thoughts that she might have been seen rushing through the palace in the most revealing negligee. No one's allowed to see her exposed body except for me, but what's more alarming is finding that she isn't in the guest bedroom beside mine.

“Althea?” I call out, my ears buzzing as my heart drops to warn me of something instinctually.

I look all around for her, to no avail. She's not in her bedroom, and neither is she in mine when I rush into mine only to find it empty.

The alarm bells going off in my head have me rushing to the balcony, realizing quickly that if Althea was pregnant with my dragon cub, she'd have gained some sort of power.

She must be overwhelmed with that power. She must have used it to flee the palace grounds.

A newfound sense of possessiveness washes over me, curling my hands into raging fists of fury that send me leaping off the balcony and shifting midair. I land on my dragon paws, sending a mind link out to call upon the royal guard.

“ Has anyone seen Althea Waters? ”

A series of replies return to me telepathically in response to my question, all confirming that no one has seen her. Not the servants in the palace or the guards around the grounds have seen my human.

I lift my head toward the night sky, my dragon howling and releasing a thunderous flame of fire into the air. When I lower my head, my dragon pulse racing and soaring to dangerous heights, I find Ryu standing in front of me in his dragon form.

“ No one has seen her running away?!” I roar mentally, taking a powerful step forward with dragon paws, looming over the chief of the royal guard. Anger has me seeing red.

Wherever Althea is, she could be in danger while she carries my child.

“ No, Your Majesty,” Ryu replies, prompting me to roar in his face. He might be my closest friend in the kingdom, but he's done a great disservice by not being vigilant enough to see her escape.

Grunting in my mind loud enough so that he hears me, a flicker of fear ignites a spark in my chest.

I could lose both Althea and my child, and there's no time to stand around here and wait for these incompetent fools to find her.

Without breathing a word or a flame to Ryu, I flap my wings and push myself off my paws. When I'm high above the ground, I give another thunderous clap of my wings, letting out a shrill screech from my dragon throat before flying out toward the human village.

That's the only place I can think that Althea might have fled to. It's familiar to her, and she might still be on her way there on human feet.

But there's no sign of her on my way to the human village, no trace of her scent lingering in the forest to indicate that she was even there.

I stop, calming my frenzy to become more attuned to my senses. That's the only way I'll find her. I take a long, deep inhale, and then sniff the air to find traces of her scent to give me a better idea of which direction she’s headed in.

I close my slitted eyes, focusing on her scent when I catch a mild trace of it, but it’s not in the direction I expected. My eyelids flew open, my head snapping behind me as I let out a beastly grunt when I realized which direction she’d fled in.

She isn’t headed for The Emberlands.

She’s headed toward Wyrmwood Forest.

Panic sets in, amplified by my dragon’s possessiveness and anger that its mate had escaped the safety of the palace grounds. With one giant flap of my wings, I send my dragon up above the pine trees in the forest, shooting out pastel flowers from their roots with how powerful and frantic my dragon has become.

Flying toward Wyrmwood Forest, I pass the raging rapids of the Nayara River that connects from the mountains of The Spine and flows through the other kingdoms of The Shadowlands and The Aether Steppes—Kaid?n and Jaid?n’s respective kingdoms. The picturesque, serene abundance of beauty that lies in the realm of Nyxoria does little to soothe my frantic nerves, nor does the sound of the river water.

I pause, only to catch a brief glimpse of the waterfall that gushes from The Spine’s tallest mountain, my dragon sighing as a projection of distant memories come crashing into my mind the way the waterfall crashes into the bed of water at the bottom.

Those childhood memories were buried deep, memories of a carefree time when responsibilities and duties were nowhere near my mind. I’d often find myself at the top of that waterfall as a young dragon, using that point to determine if I was strong enough to use my wings, quick enough to beat the time it took to fly from the bottom.

When I’d fly to the top, I’d shift into human form, my heart racing with adrenaline as I’d sit on the rock and stare at the kingdom below, wondering what it would be like to hold so much power as the king. Then I'd close my eyes and trust-fall into the waters below with my dragon on standby.

I thought it would be fun to be the king, to rule my own kingdom, but I had no idea that I’d be so bound to duty, that I’d soon forget how to be carefree. So much so that I became fixed on the idea that a human was below me, and not a creature of the realm just as I am.

Back then, things were less complicated, even if Mother drilled it into our heads that dragons were the most superior beings of the realm. My brothers and I would listen to her tales about the creatures that exist here, and how the realm came to be when there was a thunderous bang in the sky many centuries ago, and they’d all end with the immortal dragon shifters ruling their kingdoms to create balance in Nyxoria.

Stories my heir would have to hear while he learned how to fly as a youthful dragon, oblivious to the weight of responsibilities that would come in his future. My dragon sighs once more.

I do imagine that it’s a boy Althea carries.

When there’s a tortured scream in the distance, my ears barely catching the distant sound, I snap my dragon head back in the direction of Wyrmwood Forest.

Right now, I can’t help but think about the safety of my unborn child, carried in Althea’s womb as she roams the kingdom freely, vulnerable to the threats that lie outside of the palace grounds and even the village where she’s from.

The Wyrmwood Forest isn’t a safe place, littered with disfigured creatures and vines that have a life force and mind of their own. The forest is more like an exile ground where the cursed Wyrm lies dormant in the ground. Since it had been cast away there almost three hundred years ago, its life force destroys and mutates everything above ground.

I can’t believe that Althea has found herself there, and my dragon springs into action, flying as fast as I can to the forest, where I see her through the trees.

My momentary relief is cut short when I notice the vine curling around her ankle. She’s smacking it away, but it becomes more aggressive and yanks her off her feet.

I fly down as quickly as I can, shifting to land on human feet on the body of the vine. Althea’s eyes widen with horror as she stares at something behind me, then screams,

“Haid?n! Watch out!”