Page 4 of Heart of Fire (Royal Ice Dragons #3)

HANNA

Thorne wanted to get out of there once we’d made contact, with our mission complete and our identities revealed.

But Kaelan just offered him a crumpled napkin, a glass, and a smile. “Though they don’t have the same pull as Lord Arman does, I see a few old friends here tonight that might be able to help us.”

When Kaelan said “friends,” it always sounded so predatory.

However, his best chance of gathering allies seemed to be female. As Kaelan worked his way around the room, women flocked to his side. Even when no one knew he was the Prince, the way he carried himself drew people in.

And Thorne, for that matter, had gained the attention of a group of sympathetic noblewomen, who were eager to do him all kinds of favors and wanted to be helpful in different ways. It was evil of me, but I was a little amused by Thorne’s evident discomfort.

I might have been less amused by all the beautiful things that kept trying to claw and charm Kaelan, except he was so wildly disinterested. He looked as if he could barely stand still to talk to them.

He could be charming if he wished. He had charmed the women around him back on the Isle, and currying favor and gathering information to defeat Edric was a more worthy cause.

I made my way over to him, pushed through the crowd of women. His face lit up when he saw me, and he reached through the crowd to draw me to his side. The women seemed to recognize something in the interaction between us because, disappointed, they melted away. He dipped his head to my mouth, offering me his ear; his hand fell on my hip as if he couldn’t resist touching me.

“Remember that you’re here for a purpose,” I told him. “You don’t have to worry about hurting my feelings. I’m a spy. Flirting is a wonderful tool for manipulation.”

Kaelan scoffed as he straightened. “I can’t stand to be that close to a woman who’s not you.”

“You’ve done it before,” I reminded him. “When you came back to the Isle as an ambassador, you were surrounded by an admiring throng.”

“Because I knew you were watching,” he said as if that made perfect sense. “It was still always all about you.”

“You were trying to make me insane with jealousy,” I corrected.

He gave me a wicked smile. “I never enjoyed other women being near me, Hanna. But enduring their flirting was worth it to watch you burn.”

I sighed under my breath. He was so exasperating. But he was charming too.

He offered me his arm, and I took it, because leaving him alone was fruitless if he wasn’t going to flirt with other women.

As we moved through the crowd, another conversation about the Isle drew my attention.

“Even with the Scourge gone, I heard that place is still a hellhole. I’d rather vacation in Miskeram.”

“Are the Scourge really even gone? Considering that they still live among them.” The woman shuddered dramatically.

“I heard the queen bred with their zombie king, so her children have all come out deformed.”

I was a spy. I could let anything roll off my back. At least, I could pretend to while I plotted my revenge for later.

“So, did your wife secretly bed some Scourge herself? Because we can all see your son, Lendrick.” Kaelan glanced meaningfully across the room at an admittedly unfortunate looking young man.

Lendrick’s mouth opened and closed. “How dare you. Who are you ?”

I grabbed Kaelan’s arm and tried to steer him away. Into his ear, I murmured, “I don’t need you to defend me. Or my sister, on my behalf.”

“I’m keenly aware that you don’t need me to defend you,” he said. “And that doesn’t mean I’m ever going to stop.”

“You’re being annoying again,” I told him.

“You already know what I’m going to say.”

“I do.”

Lendrick found his way into another conversation, as if he sensed Kaelan’s dangerous aura.

But a while later, when I found myself on my own, Lendrick made his way back over to me. Clearly a few glasses of wine beyond good sense.

That was the only possible explanation for why he talked to me the way he did.

Lendrick looked me over meaningfully. I smiled at him over my wine, though I had been nursing this drink without sipping from it, and started to greet him.

He interrupted me. “So, are you some common Isle witch?”

“Not a common one,” I told him.

“I thought you must be, to be offended by the talk about the queen.”

“I’m not offended by the talk about the queen. It means nothing to me.” I was offended by the idea that my emotions had been obvious, and so had Kaelan riding to my defense.

But my nieces and nephews were adorable . Accusing them of being monsters hurt my feelings.

“Do you know her? Or her sister?” he demanded.

I fixed a smile on my face. I could already feel Thorne and Kaelan pushing through the crowd toward me like arrows marked for destruction. Lendrick was too drunk for the situation he’d created.

He shook his head. “The idea that our Prince would marry an Isle whore and put her on the throne as our queen is preposterous. People like you should stay in the whorehouses where they belong.”

“Well, this has been delightful,” I said. “But I must be going?—”

As I started to turn away, he grabbed my arm. His grip was bruisingly tight, but that wasn’t why I closed my eyes and sighed.

“I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” I said.

I looked around, too, wondering what the chances were we could get out of this castle without bloodshed. Not that I minded bloodshed. I just didn’t want to lose our cover.

Kaelan just put his arm around me protectively and steered me away, offering the man a thin smile that anyone with any sense could have realized was predatory. “If you’ll excuse me. I’m eager to dance.”

There wasn’t a less Kaelan statement than, “ I’m eager to dance .”

Still, as we walked away, I told Kaelan, “I’m proud of you.”

“Hold that thought,” Kaelan said.

“Kaelan,” I said warningly.

Behind me, I heard Thorne say, “My lord, there’s a message for you.”

I closed my eyes and requested strength from the gods, although I didn’t think there was going to be enough strength to allow me to handle Kaelan.

“We’re following him, aren’t we?” I asked.

We were indeed.

Once we were outside, Kaelan ripped off his mask and his enchantment. The man’s eyes widened in fear.

“You realized you were talking to a lady of the Isle,” Kaelan said. “Perhaps now you realize you were insulting my wife.”

“Kaelan, let it go,” I said, even though I knew we couldn’t. The man had seen Kaelan’s face. We couldn’t let Edric know that Kaelan had been in touch with Lord Arman.

“You should be praising her for her mercy, not insulting her,” Kaelan said. “Look how kind she is.”

“Thank you, my lady,” the man said nervously.

“Your queen,” Kaelan corrected, his voice encouraging.

“Yes, of course, thank you, my queen. Your mercy is extraordinary.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Kaelan agreed.

Then he reached out and grabbed the man’s jaw in one hand, his other arm circling his shoulders to brace him in place. The man stiffened, his eyes widening, but Kaelan was already breaking his neck. The crack pierced the air.

The man’s eyes were glassy as Kaelan took a step back and let him fall to the ground. “Unfortunately for you, I don’t share her positive traits.”

I stared at him over the corpse. “Why are you so furious about someone being rude to me? You insult me all the time!”

“That’s different.”

“You can explain to me just how while we are on the run from your most recent murder.” I nudged the body with the toe of my high-heeled shoe, feeling exasperated.

“We’ll take the body with us and dump it in the forest,” Kaelan said in a reasonable voice.

I didn’t think he deserved to use that voice with me.

“Don’t you dare ask Thorne to lift that corpse,” I said before he could say a word. “You murder it, you carry it.”

Kaelan raised his brows. Without further comment, he stooped and draped the man over his shoulders.

“I am dying to hear your explanation for why it’s okay for you to insult me but not anyone else,” I said as we walked through the forest.

“This should be a good place,” Thorne said. “The body will be eaten by morning.”

“Then why are we out here while it’s not morning?” I snapped, looking around the forest.

“We’re still the most dangerous thing in the forest,” Thorne reminded me. His eyes sparkled. “But if it makes you feel better, you can stay close to me.”

“First of all,” Kaelan said. “Insulting each other is practically a love language for the two of us.”

“That’s demented.”

“Yes. But that’s us. Second, it’s one thing for me to comment on your negative traits. I’m stuck with you for the rest of my life, so I have a simple forty-seven-step plan to fix them.”

I stopped dead and stared at his back as he kept walking. “Forty-seven steps?”

“There’s a lot of work to be done. But I don’t mind.”

“ Stuck with me ? That can be fixed. So can the rest of your life issue, for that matter. It can be ever so much shorter.”

“Being stuck with you can’t be fixed. I’m ridiculously in love with you, Hanna. I’d die without you. You know that.”

He was veiled in the shadows of the forest, but his smile was bright. Kaelan looked so happy when he was teasing me that it made me melt.

“How are you so infuriating, yet so intermittently charming?”

“Well, darling, it’s what you deserve. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re infuriating too.”

Between them I felt safe, no matter what monsters were in the forest with us.