Page 12 of The Crimson Princess (The Ravengale Chronicles #1)

Chapter nine

T he wrath of my father will surely find me before the night expires into daylight.

The minute I’m in my room, I strip out of the silk of my dress and replace it with my favorite faded jeans, a tee, combat boots, and a hoodie.

Of course, my father won’t approve of my attire, but this is how I dress to feel like me, shadow to my mother, warrior princess, as she sometimes called me, and I need to be that connection to her right now.

It’s the only way I know how to survive her loss.

But once I’m changed, I’m not all better, not even a little better.

I’m antsy, pacing about and wishing I could just get my tongue lashing over with and be done with it.

I need to do anything that keeps my mind and emotions in check, and when pacing fails as a solution, I sit down at my desk and grab the journal I’ve kept for ten years now, detailing every night I’d spent hunting with my mother in San Francisco.

Our duty was never to simply guard the portal, but rather to fight all the nasty beings that escape the tiny cracks in its barrier: demons, zombies, hades, and sometimes even monsters.

And this journal is meant to remind me how to deal with every challenge we’d faced.

The single challenge missing is “that” night, the night I lost my mother, and I force myself to fight through the dread of reliving her death.

With a trembling hand, I begin to write down everything I remember.

It’s all I can do to push through the events, but that was the night that stole my mother from me, and that means something went horribly wrong.

I can’t cope with her ending without understanding it, and what if we as gales can’t survive without a plan that doesn’t end the same brutal way?

Once I’ve placed pen to paper, memory takes over and emotions flood every pore of my body, every tortured crevice of my mind.

But the words flow, and by the time I’m done, tears I do not remember crying drench my cheeks.

I shove away from the desk, my lashes lowering as I replay every moment of the event, but I don’t know what transpired before I arrived.

I don’t know enough to find peace in knowledge, but then, I don’t know if there will ever be a conclusion that offers me any such accord.

I push to my feet, and I’m pacing again, willing any memory that might help me recreate the failure of that night to the surface, but I find nothing. I certainly do not find peace.

A thunderous knock jolts me, telling me exactly who is at my door and what his present mood is.

With knots wreaking havoc on my stomach, I force myself to walk to the door, my knees wobbling in the process.

I can face a zombie or two or ten, but my father is another story, especially now, this day.

He doesn’t care that I’m grieving. I’m not sure he even cares that she’s gone, and I hate him for that with all that I am.

Those feelings driving me, I yank open the door, much like one would rip off a human Band-Aid, to find my father standing there, still adorned in his formal king attire; his expression grumpy as I remember him all too often in my childhood.

Back in the day, I’d sneak out to the village and pretend to be a commoner, wanting so much to be a normal girl despite my green eyes that label me a highborn.

I’m sure my father was relieved when he saw my eyes, as he’d mated with a commoner.

Though my mother was something no one really understood, who lived as a commoner, and as such, she should have possessed no magic.

Instead, she bore the purple eyes of a sage, gales who are linked back to our ancestors, but not as powerful as the highborn.

Only my mother was more powerful than any living highborn, outside of my father, of course, at least while he holds the book.

Without it, I wonder whose magic would have dominated .

She was an anomaly.

I think it was her differences, her roots as a commoner, that made me want to understand them, to fit in and be with them.

When I’d refused to stop my visits, my father had blown up. Once he even threatened to send me to the Third World for a day and see if I could survive. I’d been ten at the time, and I one hundred percent believed he really intended to do it, but as always, my mother stood between him and me.

Now there is only me and him, and that truth cuts cold and deep, with more force than I’ve ever swung the guardian dagger I’ve carried for the past ten years.

In this moment, as my father stomps into my room, slams the door, and proceeds to order me to sit on a chair, I miss her profoundly.

And not because I need protection from my only living parent, either.

It’s so very difficult to truly wrap my head around losing my rock, and she was that and so much more.

“You do not call Toren king ,” my father snaps. “Do you understand me?”

He towers above me where I sit on my desk chair, his handsome face pinched pink with fury, but the truly unappealing display would do nothing to stop the many women who rush to his bed from doing so again.

I wonder how many of them wish to be there now?

“No,” I say, my chin lifted in defiance.

“I do not understand. He’s the reason we’ve lived in peace with the vampires.

And respecting a title causes us no harm. ”

“It empowers him.”

“Perhaps it empowers us. With respect comes the ability to live in peace.”

He kneels in front of me. “You’re too like your mother.”

“I’m proud to be like my mother,” I hiss, my voice quaking with pride and grief wrapped in defiance I possess no will to contain. “And it’s an insult that you suggest otherwise. Did you even love her?”

His chin dips to his chest, and his shoulders lift with a deep, cavernous breath, seconds ticking by before he slowly lifts his head, his eyes shockingly bloodshot.

“I loved her, more than you can possibly know, but I am king, and you will listen to what I command. Toren is dangerous, and you have already proven vulnerable to his charm.”

I bristle with rejection. “Perhaps it is he who is vulnerable to my charms , and that is an asset against someone who could bring war to Ravengale.”

“Stay away from him.” His words are steel, his stare impervious to my resistance.

My adrenaline surges, and my magic whips about inside me, wild and on fire, tingling along my skin, and the scowl on his face tells me he knows; he so knows.

He points a finger at me, gritting his teeth.

“And this, this ridiculously out-of-control reaction you’re having to me right now is exactly what I’m talking about.

You are not ready to go toe to toe with Toren.

It’s the lack of control you’re displaying that will get you killed. And worse. You just came of age.”

“What does me coming of age have to do with Toren?”

“You’re weak with emotion and unable to manage the new power you’ve been given. If you think Toren won’t use that against you and me, you’re wrong.”

I’m incredulous that he has no idea that I have not come into my full powers, and oh, how I want to throw it in his face.

Somehow, though, I shackle my irrational urge to confront him when that will go nowhere pleasant.

Besides, he’s already pushing to his feet, intent on dismissing me, and I want nothing more.

Go. Please. Forever.

But he doesn’t, not yet, as he just can’t seem to resist one more command.

“Focus on the druid prince and show him the attention you did Toren. The druids intend to enslave the druid sorceress. She will be their property. Make sure that means us, too.” With that, he rotates and marches for the door, and I’m not about to let him get away that easily.

I pop to my feet. “Why not ask for her help? Are you really trying to whore out your daughter now? ”

He rotates to face me. “You are far too uneducated on what a druid sorceress will do to all of us if we allow her the chance. I’ll deal with her when necessary. You make Bellar want peace,” he pauses for effect and adds, “ princess .”

And with that, he marches away from me, and a moment later, the door slams shut.

My hands lift in the air, fingers curling into my palms, and I bite back a scream, refusing tears unworthy of a warrior or a princess.

I’m coming out of my own skin, ready to chase my father down and battle this out.

I need out of here before that’s exactly what happens.

I walk into the closet, grab a baseball hat, and pull it over my hair, tucking it under the cap.

It’s my favorite disguise and a fashion statement we garnered from the humans.

They’re a part of us in ways I do not think my father will ever acknowledge.

He protects them under the command of the Book of Life that says he has to protect them.

Not because they deserve to live, not because they are a part of the thread of our existence.

I grab my backpack, pull it over my shoulders, and head for the door, well-versed on how to leave the castle without being spotted.

I head down the rear steps, walk through the kitchen, and exit a side door used by staff.

Once I’m outside, the stars glisten in the sky, uninhibited by clouds, leading me down a path to the ocean.

The crash of waves on the shore soothes my aching heart, and the closer I draw to the sound, the closer I am to my escape from the kingdom that too often has felt like my prison.

Soon, I’m on a brick path that leads from one ocean village to the next, and once I reach the first destination, Pava, a small commoner village, I snag a car—yes, we too have car services—and head toward my destination: Tegus.

It’s the village where my mother was raised, where her adopted family used to reside, but I’m forbidden from seeing them.

My mother believed the council might well punish them in some way for raising a sage who did not belong with commoners.

We protect them by staying away, and they are no longer in Tegus, anyway.

My father gifted them a home amongst the humans, somewhere in Alaska, I hear.

But my mother held fondness for Tegus and we discreetly visited on several occasions when I was young. Visiting now will be good for my soul, healing, but the trip is not short, a full hour before I thank my driver, and pay him in gale gold.

Soon, I’m oceanside in the always bustling row of restaurants and bars that line a boardwalk, my destination the Silverdale Bakery that operates until late to accommodate the nightlife.

I step inside and inhale the delectable scent of bread, cookies, cakes, and every baked good imaginable teasing my nostrils.

There is nothing like a gale bakery, and while, yes, I grew fond of human sweets, the spices and flour are different, not as lush and full of depth.

And right now, this place, and the memories of visiting, feels like coming home.

There’s a lift to my step as I cross to the counter and greet Naomi, the owner, a beautiful brunette with brown commoner eyes.

What hurts my heart is to see how she has aged, looking more like a sixty-year-old human than the thirty-something of my mother, when they’re the exact same age, both far older than they look.

Commoners age far more rapidly than sages and highborns.

The more magic you possess, the slower you age.

“Oh my gosh,” she exclaims, a smile on her lips while tears well in her eyes. “I miss her already.” She rounds the counter and hugs me with the fierceness of a warrior, murmuring, “I’m so sorry,” before she pulls back, hands on my shoulders as she studies me. “How are you?”

“Confused,” I whisper, struggling to find my voice. “I don’t know why the Book of Life took hers.”

“She would have told you that it’s not for us to understand.”

“Yes,” I agree, nodding. “Yes, she would have. Is Marion around?” I ask, eager to see my mother’s long-term friend once again.

“No, honey. She met a man and moved to Hallos, the next village over. She will be sad to have missed you. And I think she’s afraid if she goes to the castle to show her respects, she’ll go off on your father and end up in the Third World. She never liked the way he treated her.”

For good reason , I think, but I tone the words I actually speak. “She was protective of us both.”

“As am I, honey. How about I make you a little box of all your favorites? My gift to you.” The door behind us chimes, and a group of gales enters. “I’m short-staffed tonight. Cali is pregnant and feeling poorly.” Cali being her daughter.

“Oh my gosh. Congratulations. Tell her, too, please. I’ll come back to visit her. And, take your time.”

“I’ll get you that cocoa you love.” She hugs me again and hurries behind the counter.

I walk to the rows of books and gifts along the far wall and imagine the conversations my mother and I would have about each item. The coffee mug is so darn adorable. This book, oh yes, we could read it together. I can’t take it, and damn it, tears pinch at my eyes.

“Cocoa up!” I hear and rotate toward the counter to find a tall male dressed in black jeans, boots, and a jacket, standing in wait as well, his back to me.

I know immediately he’s not gale, the power radiating off of him lighting up my magic, and I wonder if he can hear the rush of adrenaline and the pulse of blood racing through my veins.

Vampire.

Toren.