Page 128 of The Nymph Prince

With hands that were still weak from a long sleep, I grabbed the mug and guzzled the contents.

Water had never tasted so good. Once half of the mug was downed, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and sat up. My body ached, but I was feeling better the longer I was awake. It was only me and the man in the room.

“Who are you?” I asked. “You aren’t like the others.”

“I am called Ezra.” He stood and walked over to the fire, poking a log. The flames shot upward and intensified. “And I am nothing like them. You are correct. They are merely pawns to me. So gullible and easy to manipulate, humans are.”

“The other mages don’t follow the seer and the hooded men?”

“Of course not,” he spat. “They would never obey human filth, and it matters not if the humans sold their souls to the darkness.”

Just as I’d suspected.

“Then why put on such a show?” I asked, trying to stand but falling back to the dusty floor. “The hooded men and the seer were all I saw when I came here in my sleep. I believed the seer was leadin’ the dark mages.”

“Only because that’s what I wanted you to believe,” Ezra responded, putting his hands behind his back and walking toward a wooden altar. Crushed herbs and unknown liquids in glass vials were on the surface, as well as lit candles dripping wax. “If you’d seen me, you would’ve told my brother. And that would’ve ruined the surprise.”

My mind whirled at that.

“Brother?”

“Are you that surprised, Aleksander?” Ezra chuckled as he picked up a dagger—mydagger—and slowly turned it in his hand. “Triton is a god, after all, and has lived for hundreds of years. He’s fathered countless children as a result of his insatiable sexual appetite.”

“I thought Lorcan was his only child,” I said, finding it difficult to process the information.

“The only child he let live, you mean.”

My stomach turned as his meaning became clear. “He killed his own children?”

“Oh, yes,” Ezra, still toying with my dagger, strolled back over to me. “The sea whispers to him. It’s one reason he leaves his precious kingdom and travels, sometimes for weeks at a time. If he discovers he has a child, he rips it from the mother’s arms and disposes of it like the cruel beast he is. And if the woman is still carrying his child? Take a guess at what happens then.”

I didn’t want to know.

“My mother protected me,” Ezra continued. “After Triton took her by force and left her there bleeding and broken, she pulled herself back together. And when she realized I grew inside her, she placed a protection spell on me so he’d never know I was his son.”

“Your mother is a mage?”

“Wasa mage,” he answered as sadness clouded in his red eyes. “She died many years ago. Over a hundred to be exact.”

A hundred?

“But you’re still young,” I stated, absolutely stunned. “How are you alive?”

He smirked. “The blood of a god rushes through my veins, Aleksander. When I reached adulthood, I never aged another year.”

I thought of Lorcan. He wouldn’t age, either. ButIwould.

Fate truly was cruel.

“Why are you allying with the dark mages?” I asked. My legs felt less wobbly, so I braced my hand on the stone wall and got to my feet. Ezra must’ve used powerful magic to have made me feel so weak. “Hating King Triton, I understand. But it makes little sense for you to join them. They want another uprising against the humans. Your grief is with Triton, not with the humans.”

“Humans took everything from me!” Ezra charged toward me and slammed his fist on the other side of my head. I didn’t flinch. He seethed with anger inches from my face. “They killedhim.”

His knuckles bled from where he’d punched the stone wall. The color that oozed from his broken skin matched the shade of eyes.

“I will have my revenge by burning the world down if I have to,” he said through clenched teeth. “And after the humans are beneath my feet, I will focus on the sea. I’ll kill my father and take my rightful place on his throne.” Crimson eyes swirled and grew brighter as he released a sharp laugh. “But I will havehimbeside me as I do. My Haman. You look just like him, you know.” His bloody fingers traced the edge of my jaw. “So handsome and strong with dark hair and the sweetest lips. When I look into your blue eyes, I see him staring back at me.”

Ezra and Haman had been lovers? That explained why he allied with the dark mages. But where did I play a part in this complicated game? The ritual was going to make me the dark king. A rebirth, as the seer had said. I would never welcome the darkness, the evil.