Page 5 of Prince of Blaze and Embers (Emberveil Empire #1)

My nerves broke—fleeing down through the floorboards and dissipating into the air from my nervous panting. As he approached, I felt the hot air escaping my nostrils and my mouth left agape.

He’s… he’s huge.

I didn’t think I’d ever felt so small in all my life.

He towered over me. Fucking towered over me.

I’d never seen such a man in all my life. As vulnerable as a doe left to be ravaged by a starving wolf.

He was clad in black armor; finer in design than anything ever produced in our little forge.

His ebony mask was sculpted to sharp angles, representing the likeness of a savage wolf.

The angles of his dark armor carved around his muscular body like water flowing over dense boulders.

The way his armor moved as he strode toward me impressed me in every way.

And as he finally stopped before me, glaring down on me behind the ebony mask…

I saw eyes that stopped me in my tracks on the beach.

Blue as the sky, deep as the vastest ocean, and as exciting as it must feel to glide through the air on the back of a monstrous dragon—I got lost in those breathtaking eyes. They pulled me in so deep a shiver shot up my core, setting me ablaze from the inside.

“Blue eyes,” Bella whispered low. “He’s got blue eyes. Cinderyn have red fiery eyes. Right?”

I was so lost in them I didn’t react. They pierced so deep into me it took me a full breath to notice my mouth hung open.

“Name…” he muttered, his voice hollow and deep, but far younger than I expected him to sound.

I couldn’t find the words as I stood there shivering, completely naked from head to toe, bare as the day I was born, and just as vulnerable. I couldn’t remember my name! How embarrassing…

As his eyes locked hard onto mine, my cheeks flushed and my ears heated.

“Ashlyn Mist,” Garris forced the words out of his own cowardly throat.

“Ash,” I said, mustering all the courage I had. But I hated my real name so much it almost became instinct to correct it.

“Ash Mist?” The Blaze Prince put his hand on the hilt of his enormous sword at his hip, twisting it behind him. The leather of it squealed and his armor clacked as he twisted.

I was so overtaken by the fear that gripped the room, I felt a deep urge in my core. Something primal, something that caused my body to heat and throb. The raw power that emanated from him was unlike anything I’d ever felt. Garris recoiled like a worm in staggering sunlight. I was awestruck.

Then he did the unexpected. He reached out for me, straight for my throat.

My entire body tensed so tight I thought all the moisture might get squeezed right out of me.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. But I didn’t, and his gauntleted hand turned just before it reached my neck; instead, he ran his fingers through my hair.

He pulled it up just high enough that I felt a chill air hit my nipple directly, causing it to stiffen; just what I didn’t want.

I didn’t want him thinking I liked any of this .

“A Mist, huh? An orphan?” He pulled his hand back, but not before tossing my hair back behind my shoulder, leaving my chest bare.

The round room felt like it was closing in on me as my entire world spun.

“No parents,” Garris said. “Found on the beach to the north after a battle when she was a child. I purchased her fourteen years ago. Good worker, small hands for tight jobs, virgin too…”

The prince glowered at me suddenly behind that devilish mask.

He may have sounded young, perhaps in his early twenties, close to my age of nineteen, but those deep sapphire eyes gazed at me with a wisdom I’d never seen in a man.

He was like a god. Sculpted like one, as tall as one, and as terrifying as Gigas—Lord of the Underworld.

He leaned in so close I could feel the cold metal of his mask on my nose. His glare was so deep into mine I forgot where I was, but I remembered one thing, and it sent a shiver all the way down my back.

This is the Blaze Prince, son of the infamous Blaze Queen. He’s killed more men than anyone alive. He and his dragon have killed thousands probably in his war.

“She’s a virgin, eh?” he said with a slight uptick in his tone. His hot breath hit my lips, and I wanted to melt and wash away like the tides.

“Yes, Blaze Prince,” Garris sniveled. “She ain’t much to look at, but what’s between her legs is unspoiled by any man.”

The Prince snorted unexpectedly. I turned my head to the side, forcing my eyes shut hard. I wanted to be anywhere else, anywhere else in the world but there.

“You’re the one who used that magic on the beach.” The prince sidestepped, the sharp nose of his helmet skimming past my ear. My shoulder was just at the point between his two massive pecs. Garris lumbered back at the prince’s swift movement. Bella squeezed my hand tight .

“Answer your prince!” Garris shouted with shaky breath.

“I—I don’t know what happened.” I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Tell the truth? Lie to hopefully get out of it and he might leave me be? Maybe he wouldn’t kill me for what I did? “I…”

“I know what I saw,” the prince said with a rough-edged tone. “You cast that spell, and I saw the symbol glow on the side of your neck. It was you. I remember your hair, your eyes, and the blinding light of your spell. It was you. You’re the Gold-Marked. It’s you.”

Gold-Marked? I’d never heard that term, and I certainly didn’t want to be whatever the hell that meant.

“I’ve been searching for you. The queen has been searching for you, probably for longer than you’ve even been alive. And here you are. Standing before me now. You’re the one who is so dangerous to her? You’re just a girl…” He scratched his chin.

My breath caught as his other hand flashed, sending the dark metal of his gauntlet flickering in torchlight. From his other side a sleek black dagger shot toward my neck, its razor-sharp edge feeling like ice against the soft spot where the golden rune glowed earlier in the day.

He muttered behind his mask. I couldn’t tell exactly what he said, but at the end of his rant, I heard the words, “I could end this all right here, right now, and it would be done…”

“Please, sir, no!” Bella suddenly cried out. “She didn’t do anything on purpose. She didn’t mean to make you get attacked by those other dragon riders. That was all an accident!”

His gaze never left my neck as the blade glided along my soft skin, causing my entire body to tense. I was so afraid I wanted to jump out of my skin. Bella’s words didn’t faze him even a pinch. Cold sweat wetted my skin, causing a great shiver down from my neck to my toes.

“No,” he muttered again, pulling the dagger from the side of my neck and sheathing it as quickly as he sent it flying from his hip.

Garris finally let out a deep exhale, as he’d been holding his breath as well. “So, you want to buy her?”

Buy her? He’s going to sell me to that bastard mass-murderer? I knew with every ounce of life in my body that the prince was going to kill me if I went with him. I couldn’t let that happen. I’d got to run…

But get real, Ash, how in the fuck could you run away from the dragon-riding prince of Emberveil? I’m so fucked…

“Who is that man?” The Blaze Prince’s voice deepened, and he sent an icy glower at the man in the room’s corner—hiding in the shadow as best he could.

Garris’ lips seemed glued together as he struggled to find words behind his lying mouth.

“He was gonna sell me to him, because of whatever it is you all think I am…”

The prince’s intense glare shifted slowly to Garris, who sulked back toward the back wall. The Blaze Prince, in his hulking and very intimidating armor, squared his massive shoulders off against my cowering master. “You were doing what?”

“Forgive me, my prince,” Garris sniveled to the prince but side-eyed me as meanly as he ever had.

“Did you not know this girl was to be handed over to the crown, to my mother, the queen? Magic is forbidden by those not under her employ. You knew that… you know that!”

Garris swallowed hard, and I could feel his nervousness as he wiped his sweaty palms on his thighs.

“D—don’t mind him,” Garris said after clearing his throat. “A misunderstanding. Ashlyn was always going to the queen! I just wanted to get an idea of her worth before I bartered for payment.”

“Liar!” I shouted, spinning to face the awful man.

Heat rose in my core, and my skin crawled; like ants scurrying up my arms. I wanted to smack him.

I wanted to smack him even more than when he lashed me with that nasty whip and snarled through his yellow teeth.

“You were going to sell me to that man so you could get a higher price!”

“Ash…” Bella whispered. “Careful…”

I was so steamed that I hadn’t noticed that the lumbering mountain of a man was standing right next to me, fuming at my master.

I felt as insignificant as I ever had in my life.

The raw power in the prince fumed like a geyser.

He had magic. He was beyond wealthy, and he had killed men with his own bare hands.

As completely terrified as I was, I had to admit to myself that part of me liked being beside him.

He was as dangerous as the devil, but at that moment, he made me feel like someone had my back.

Someone was supporting me against the man who’d beaten me more times than I could count—and I liked it.

“You would sell the Gold-Marked to someone else, for… profit?” The prince was roaring with rage. I could hear it building deep in his powerful chest.

“So?” Garris forced the words out. He sounded more like his cocky, arrogant self, and I was loving it. “What was the crown gonna pay? Five hundred royals? She used magic! She should be worth five thousand!”