Page 24 of The Crimson Princess (The Ravengale Chronicles #1)

Chapter eighteen

I ’m practiced at avoiding my father’s guard and I’m in the forest without them so much as glancing my direction.

I decide the way to be found is while I hunt werewolves, if there are any left this night.

Even if the frostburns have them handled, the werewolf problem is real and my father has failed his people by allowing it to exist. Once I reach the pond again, I drink without interruption.

The forest is eerily quiet, a facade of peace, I’ve already seen doesn’t exist.

I shake the water from my hands and rotate to suck in a breath.

The frostburns surround me again, their fur bloody but their bodies able.

“Hello again,” I murmur, and it hits me that I killed one of their pack and perhaps that frostburn was their leader, and they now see me as the new alpha.

It would be a crazy idea if they weren’t following me around without a single attempt to kill me.

“Are we hunting again?” I ask, wondering if they’re trying to tell me there’s more trouble brewing.

As if in answer to my question, there’s a shift in the air and I can feel magic bloom from the dank depths of the forest. A moment later, Bellar has appeared out of nowhere and the druid prince is now standing just beyond my furry fan club.

Moonlight caresses his high, defined cheekbones, sharper now than I remember from our previous encounters.

The wind lifts, and the frostburns’ haunches raise, and I decide the wind has nothing to do with my new powers at all, as I’d thought early.

It’s the frostburns. The forest is connected to the frostburns, and it seems to react to their emotions.

The frostburns pivot in unison, as if they think as a unit, facing off with the druid prince, snarling at Bellar, as they create a barrier between me and him.

I don’t ask where he came from or how he got here.

He can blink. It’s irritating that I cannot.

And limiting. Not that I’ve tried since my meltdown in the bedroom.

I’ve already seen tonight, on at least one occasion, my new abilities weren’t announced.

They simply exist. “What the hell is with the frostburns?” he demands. “Why are they all bloody?”

“They hunt for food at night. Why are you here, Bellar?”

“Your father is pissed that you’re not in the castle.”

“And he called you ?” I sound incredulous, but I shouldn’t be.

Despite leaving Ravengale for years, I know how my father operates.

He’s not just king of Ravengale. He’s the king of manipulation and heartlessness, exactly why I believed Toren’s tale of the two of them.

And right now, he’s folded Bellar under his control. If my father says jump, Bellar jumps.

“Of course he called me,” Bellar replies, a bite to his tone. “I’m supposed to be your future husband. It’s my duty to protect you.”

“I don’t need protection, and it would be smart to talk to me, perhaps ask me to marry you, before you assume that I’ve accepted becoming a bargaining chip.”

“It was the two kings. I didn’t do this.” His answer is fast, and while his voice lacks inflection, there is no question, he sees his statement as his out. He didn’t do this. They did this. He bears no responsibility.

“You think my father can force me to marry you?”

“Why does he need to force you? This is good for our people.”

Right then he tells me all I need to know about him.

He never once considered me anything more than a pawn in a game.

That’s how he sees me. That’s how he sees our people.

My father is a fool to walk this path with a druid by my side.

And I wish like hell I could crawl in his head and dissect his insanity.

For now, I focus on the druid prince who I do believe sees himself as the benefactor to all of this. “Our marriage would be good for your people,” I say, “not mine. ”

Bellar stares at me, his eyes dark as the night, and as unreadable as the Book of Life is to everyone but my father.

Seconds tick by and I can feel the crackle of his magic in the air.

One of the frostburns to Bellar’s left snarls and the wind whips again.

It also tells me Bellar was about to do something stupid like blink and grab me.

Bellar grimaces at the offending frostburn and several others snarl and crowd him.

He blinks several feet away and calls out, “Can you get rid of the frostburns?”

“I no more control them than my father does me.”

He grits his teeth again. “You need to come home.”

“You say that as if my home is yours. It is not. ”

“Let me take you to your home. Your father’s worried.”

“I’m headed to the castle. If you want to attempt to travel with me, feel free. And good luck.” I start walking, and the frostburns create a path for me to travel, but they stay close to me, sheltering me. Animals sense character and they dislike Bellar for a reason.

The fact that my father is willing to take a dramatic step and marry his daughter off to an enemy says there is something he’s not telling me. What does he know that I do not? What has the book told him about the sorceress and how does his betrayal of Toren play into how he deals with it now?

Eager to talk some sense into him, I start running, the frostburns keeping pace, but Bellar is not or I’d sense his magic.

It’s thirty minutes later when I step out of the woods, and the frostburns hang back inside the forest. My father’s guards are waiting there for me, and I hold up a finger, daring any of them to try to touch me.

No one is that foolish.

I walk toward the castle and a guard greets me with an apologetic expression that warns me I will not like what awaits me inside.

With my barely-there nod of appreciation, he opens the door for me.

Once I’ve crossed the threshold and entered the foyer another guard shuts the door behind me.

My father is waiting on me a foot forward, and I’m not even a little surprised to find Bellar with him, a smug look on his face .

He thinks he’s won. I haven’t even started to fight.

“Where have you been?” my father demands.

“As I’m sure Bellar here told you,” I say, “the forest. Hunting. The details of which you need to know, but not in present company.”

My father’s expression pinches with irritation. “He’s to be your husband. Speak in front of him.” His brows dip. “Why is there blood on your face?”

Some say the truth will set you free and that’s exactly what I plan to give my father.

The truth of what is in the forest, that could have easily caused the blood on my face.

“King Killian,” I say tightly, an address I never use with my father.

“I request consult with the crown. This is not personal, nor is it about me or the prince.”

My father’s green eyes cut into mine, colder than the ice of an Earthly arctic winter. His stare daring me to hold my path if I do not have a matter outside my proposed marriage to discuss. I am not intimidated, my gaze as fiercely firm as his is dominant.

Seconds tick by and he glances at Bellar, a lift to his hand as he dismisses the druid prince, “Leave us.”

Bellar tilts his chin in respect and says, “As you wish, King Killian.” The druid prince then turns to me. “At your service should you need me, princess.” He smartly doesn’t wait for the reply he would not like. He walks to the door, and the guard opens the door for him.

My father motions me out of the foyer. “The throne room.”

With him heavy on my heels I trek the path and once I’m inside the room, he joins me and shuts the door, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “I’m listening.”

“I went to visit mom’s old village.”

“I told you—”

“I needed to say goodbye. I needed to go somewhere that felt like her.”

His lips press together. “That would be here.”

“Of course it is, but at times she would take me to a bakery she loved in the village. It was our special place. ”

“And you went there knowing I would not approve,” he replies, when some part of me hoped to stir a familiar memory in him, and at least a flicker of emotional response.

“The point of this conversation is not my travels. It’s what I discovered during my travels. The forest is infested with werewolves. Translation, our villages are infested with werewolves.”

He waves a dismissive hand. “Impossible.”

“Every Challenge we open the portal. We got them all the time in San Francisco.”

“Because that portal has a crack and it’s right above the Third World,” he argues. “Ravengale’s sealed by my magic and that of the book.”

“We don’t need a crack to create this issue,” I counter.

“We open it and to think nothing escapes is insanity. The frostburns are the only barrier between us and them. I fought with them. We killed at least a dozen tonight. And it was obvious the frostburns were practiced at killing the weres. They were precision killers.”

“Rogues have to shift at least once a week.” The words radiate with mockery, as if I’m a mere child with no common sense. “How has no one seen this happen?”

“I know they need raw meat when they shift and I think that’s exactly why they go to the forest. They’re hunting the frostburns, but at some point that goes horribly wrong and a gale becomes dinner. And then, the king will be blamed for failing to protect his gales.”

He just looks at me, time stretching uncomfortably long before he says, “I’ll send in our army to cleanse the woods.”

At least I’ve convinced him this is real , I think, but I’m confused by his less than strategic approach to this problem. “What happens if word gets out and the weres stay hidden in the villages until they’re forced to shift? We can’t risk them choosing a gale for a fast meal.”

“What do you suggest?”