Page 7 of Prince of Blaze and Embers (Emberveil Empire #1)

“Get your clothes back on.” The prince’s words were forceful behind his dark wolf mask. “Sign the paper.” The way he shifted his tone from forceful at me to sinister at Garris made my skin crawl.

This had to be the most dangerous man in the whole world, and he was about to take me with him.

I blinked hard, rubbing the back of my neck.

My world reeled and spun violently. As I pulled up my clothes, letting them settle loosely on the angular bones that jutted across my body, I heard Garris scribble his name on the parchment the prince had ready.

“Undo the shackles.” As soon as the prince finished saying it, I heard the clacking of keys as Garris pulled them from his pocket.

I was going to be free from this wretched man!

My mouth fell open and a warm tingling took every inch of my skin.

But then another troubling thought entered my mind as I felt Bella’s fingertips skirt across my arm. She stood beside me, pulling her clothes up as well, her lips quivering and her eyes welling with tears .

I couldn’t leave without her. I didn’t know why that thought raced through my mind as our eyes locked.

Fuck. I knew why—because she was my best friend.

Hell, my only friend in this rotten world, and for all I knew, I was about to be taken to the worst place in all of Allovan.

But something tugged at my heart, forcing my lips to part.

The words left my lips before any real thought pushed them out.

“My friend is coming with me.”

The feeling of the room shifted before the key could slide into the keyhole at my ankles. Like all the air was sucked from the room, leaving us all breathless.

Garris’ mouth flattened hard, and the prince let out a deep growl, his gorgeous sapphire eyes glowering hard at me. But I didn’t shrink. I didn’t relent.

“She’s coming with us. She’s a hard worker, young, and I’m not leaving without her.”

Bella covered her mouth with her trembling hand as tears dripped down her cheeks and onto her collar.

“Absolutely not,” Garris’ words brought back the power-hungry, hellish brute he was. It was as if the prince wasn’t in the room, and it was just the master and his two prisoners again. “That bitch stays here. Right where she belongs.”

“You—you wish for your friend to come to the capital?” There was a hint of confusion littered with curiosity in the prince’s voice. He sounded human for the first time and not a bloodthirsty monster. “You may resent that choice once you see what waits there.”

“I don’t care.” Bella’s hand dropped down to her sides. “I want to go.”

“You wretch!” Garris lunged forward much faster than a man his size should, his palm opened and ready to strike her face.

He rushed past me quicker than I realized, his shoulder knocking me over nearly to the floor.

I fell to a knee, and as I looked up, I saw the most powerful thing I think I’d ever seen, and that includes seeing dragons roam the sky.

What I saw sent a hot rush through me—my breath hitched, my legs weakened, and desire bloomed low in my belly.

For as swift as that bastard Garris was, the Blaze Prince was far faster.

In his dark gauntlet, the prince caught Garris’ wrist, squeezing so tightly Garris’ face twisted in pain.

The prince stood between Bella and Garris, and the heat radiating from the powerful prince made my throat catch.

Heat rose from my chest to my ears, and my vision tunneled only onto him.

“I’m taking her, too.” The prince’s words were cold enough to freeze the Infernal Depths. “Five hundred. And don’t even think of trying to barter with me… weak man…”

I swear, I thought Garris was either going to have an aneurysm there or just explode from his frustrating position. But for all his faults, he was smart enough to know he was overpowered, outclassed, and in way over his head against the prince of the Emberveil Empire.

“Fine,” Garris said through clenched teeth. “Take both the bitches far away from my sight. More trouble than they’re fucking worth.”

The prince released his wrist, and Garris pulled his arm back, rubbing it.

The keys jingled as they hung from his fingers.

He bent down with a groan and slid the key into my shackles.

With a click, the metal lock released, and I felt the cool air hit the open wounds underneath. He undid Bella’s next.

I wanted to kick him. I wanted to kick him so badly, right in the fucking temple, but I somehow restrained myself.

All the beatings that bastard laid onto me, all the times he touched my sides or my ass—all I wanted to do was shove my knee right into his fat nose.

But instead, I came up with something less violent, and more… lasting.

“Someday…” The word was laced with pure hate as it left my lips. “Someday… I’m going to repay you for all your… nastiness… one thou sand-fold. Mark my words. You’re going to get yours, and I’m going to watch you squeal like the little piggy you are.”

Garris was about to bark back. The hate in his eyes was unmistakable. But instead, he found a gauntlet holding up five hundred royal coins his way.

“Take it and sign.”

“Fine,” Garris said, seething. Bella wrapped both of her arms around me so tightly, it squeezed a wide smile across my face.

“I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, but I couldn’t leave you here with him,” I said, squeezing back.

“I know. Thanks, Ash. Whatever comes next, at least we’ll be together, and far, far away from here.”

“Come,” the prince said after Garris scribbled again on the piece of paper, the contract that held our ‘freedom’.

Freedom. What a strange word to use for this scenario. From one slaver to the other, but I had a feeling this was going to be so much more adventurous, even if it led to my end.

I may not be in chains, but the prince has a different sort of ownership over me.

The way he treats me… there’s a darkness in him…

but it’s different that Garris. He doesn’t seem…

cruel. He’s more… distraught and dark. But he’s worlds more handsome.

I hope there’s something to that. I feel deep down that this is better. Or at least, I desperately hope it is.

I’d rather live a little than not at all.

I didn’t want to die, but I wasn’t living any kind of life anyway.

We left the cold iron chains on the stone floor of the back room of the forge, Garris falling back into a chair, sulking, shoving the gold royals into his pockets. Before we left the room, I made triple sure to turn my head and stick out my tongue at the prick.

Bella rushed beside me out of the forge. We locked arms, and my core heated like a furnace. Following the dark prince, with his cape flowing behind his massive shoulders, its cape tails gliding along the floor like ribbons cut to the exact length to not discolor at its tips.

In some strange way, there was a feeling of safety that enveloped me like a warm bath after being out in an ice storm with frozen fingers.

Even though I knew he was evil, even though I knew his reputation, even though I dreaded where we might be going and what horrible things might await—it was exhilarating. All of it.

And then there were the dragons…

Going out into the last bit of daylight, as soon as we stepped foot outside the forge, it was all that filled my vision.

Massive. Terrifying. Enchanting. Dangerous.

Krakos was waiting just outside the forge, filling the entire square.

The endless South Cape Sea whipped with crashing waves beyond the dark dragon.

The hills that surrounded Bramblebash rose high, making the tiny town feel as if it was the whole world.

After all, it was for me. I didn’t remember anything else but this shit town.

Beyond Krakos, another dragon waited. It was stone-gray with black stripes down its back and the webbing on its wings.

It was smaller than Krakos, but almost every dragon was—even half the black dragon’s size was impressive.

And the dragon that waited behind Krakos was slimmer, with pale white eyes like clouds, and small crimson horns all the way up the sides of its snout and up to the two huge curling ones.

Its rider leaped down from the saddle as we approached.

My chest tightened, and Bella squeezed my arm hard. I gulped.

Once we were out in the courtyard of Bramblebash, there were so many gazes upon us from all their hiding holes; I thought it was a weird way for the town to say goodbye.

I’d known them, and they’d known me my whole life.

But as a low slave, the only respect ever given was between all us slaves.

I wouldn’t miss a single one of the others and their high noses and disdainful glares.

“I’ll miss the children,” Bella whispered into my ear. “That’s all.”

“We’ll come back to see them again,” I lied.

I had no illusion we would ever be back, even with the threat I promised to Garris.

The prince spun, his cape tails flowing behind him. Suddenly, unchained and standing before my new master, he seemed like a mountain of a man. He glared down at us, his iceberg-blue eyes shimmering like perfect waters behind his black metal mask.

The smoldering smell of dragonfire burned my nostrils.

It was an ancient kind of burning, like brimstone and some sort of rock being scorched by unnatural, god-like heat.

The man behind the prince joined him at his side.

He was shorter, but not by much. He wore dazzling copper-colored armor with accents of black at its tips, and his helmet framed his handsome face perfectly.

His tan skin glistened from the fading sunlight to the west, shimmering on his carved nose and perfect lips.

His auburn hair gusted at his brow as the winds picked up.

“Oh my,” Bella gasped. “He’s gorgeous.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. We don’t know these men. They could be worse than Garris. Keep it together. Stay close to each other.”