Page 115 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)

While the soldiers had kept their distance from Kein, both women and Tievin stepped forward, reaching the Prince just in time to see him extracting a bundle of saliva-covered gray fur.

Gently, he pulled one of the corners, revealing a baby’s face.

They all stilled as the young, innocent, teary, and white eyes took them in.

The baby’s lips trembled before it broke into a proper cry.

With the resounding silence, the baby’s cries echoed surprisingly loud around the camp, as if alerting everyone of its arrival.

Lorey covered her mouth, Kiera grimaced, and Tievin was simply frozen, his eyebrows nearly to his hairline.

Kassein ignored them all; his attention was focused on the baby girl in his arms, all the tension in his body gone.

He slowly stood up, carrying her in the bundle of fur. He recognized that coat; he had given Alezya that coat.

If he hadn’t been holding the baby tight, he might have realized his fingers were slightly trembling.

His throat was tight, his heart drumming in his chest; Kassein let out a faint breath and slowly untangled the baby girl from the layers of fur, revealing more of her perfectly snow-white skin and, contrasting with it, the string of leather around her tiny neck, little fingers gripping a pendant at the other end of it.

More careful than he had ever been in his life so as not to drop her, Kassein slowly took her arm in his hand, his fingers brushing up her tiny, chubby forearm and lifting it up slightly. The child cooed at the feeling of his warm skin, her eyes going up to him.

Kassein didn’t need to wrestle the pendant out of her tiny fist; he recognized Alezya’s pendant and, even better, a whiff of her scent. His heart skipped a beat, and he leaned closer to the baby, who had calmed her crying down a bit to scrutinize him back.

That child smelled like Alezya. It was faint and mixed with many things, including his dragon’s scent and the fur, but he would have recognized her smell anywhere, anytime.

He was like a dog, so dedicated he’d pick up his owner’s scent every time.

It was her coat, it was her necklace, it was her scent. ...It was her baby.

Alezya’s baby, so small, so fragile, and so white. Her hair, her skin, her tiny eyelashes, her misty irises, even the tiny fingers that grabbed his hand to inspect it. She was as white as the purest morning snow.

“... Lumie ,” he mumbled under his breath.

The baby whipped her striking white eyes back to him as if she recognized that word. It was definitely her name. Everything came back to him all at once, like he’d found the missing piece of a large puzzle to help make sense of it all.

“It was you,” he whispered. “You’re the one she wanted to go back for...”

Something like a strangled chuckle crossed his lips, dipped in sadness and relief.

He was holding Alezya’s last secret in his arms, and all of a sudden, everything made sense.

Pieces of his heart fell back in place, just as his love for her instantly extended to include the part of her he was carrying in his arms.

It just all made sense. Her baby. He had seen all of the signs. The pregnancy markings. Lorey’s intuition. Alezya’s strength despite all odds, her desperation to go back there, her tears... They had all been for the baby she’d left behind.

How could he have thought it was because of a man? She was scared of men. She wouldn’t have loved him so much if there had been another. No. Only a child made their mother’s heart big enough for more.

Lumie is my family , she had told him.

And there she was. Alezya’s family, the piece of her heart she couldn’t bear to leave behind.

Little Lumie was now staring directly into his soul with her big teary eyes, looking so much like her mother it was breathtaking.

She had plump cheeks, thick, snow-white eyelashes, and little strands of white hair adorning her round head.

He hadn’t thought his heart would ever have room to love someone else as much as he did Alezya, but he was proven wrong. It was as simple and powerful as that; Lumie had just lodged herself into his heart, with her mother, right where they both belonged.

When she began to whimper again, Kassein, who had never carried a child before, dropped the saliva-covered fur cloak in the snow and gently brought her against his torso, covering her with a side of his cloak.

The child immediately relaxed against his warm skin, and he could feel her tiny fingers wriggling against his chest. Slowly, he turned around, and Lorey moved first to come close to him, her amazed eyes on the little girl.

“...She’s gorgeous,” she whispered. “Hello, sweetie.”

Lumie blushed and hid her face in Kassein’s cloak, apparently already feeling quite comfortable with him.

“It’s a... child ,” Tievin scoffed after a beat.

“Why the hell did Kein bring down a brat?” Kiera spat after a second.

“And where the hell did your dumb dragon find the self-restraint not to chew her like a damn snack? She was in his actual– ...Also, what the fuck’s with the arms?

Are we going to talk about the fact that there are also two arms in his—no, no, don’t eat them, you crazy dragon! ”

Kassein ignored her, his eyes riveted on the toddler in his arms.

He ripped his cloak off his shoulders to fully wrap the little girl in it, holding her with one arm wrapped around her, his hand under her bum, the fingers of his other hand splayed against her back.

Lumie looked quite interested in her surroundings; her eyes opened wide as she glanced around.

Kein, who had finished eating the arms, let out a slight burp, which made half the audience grimace, and let out a growl before it stood up again.

The dragon’s orange snout approached, sniffing in the child’s direction.

Far from being scared, the little girl giggled at the whiffs of hot air blown in her direction.

“She looks so much like Alezya,” Lorey smiled. “Such a precious little girl...”

“She’s her family,” Kassein muttered, Alezya’s words echoing in his mind on a loop.

Snow is my family. Lumie was her family, all of it in the shape of a tiny little snow-white body.

He lifted the baby girl to get her a bit closer to his eye level to observe her some more, as if he couldn’t get enough of discovering her features, of finding traces of her mom in her, or admiring how white her skin was, with dashes of pink and red on her cheeks and around her still teary eyes.

Lumie looked up at him before blushing again shyly when Kassein gave her a faint but genuine smile and she pressed her face against his neck to hide.

“That child is very... white,” Tievin eventually said. “Is she, I mean, is this not slightly worrisome? ...Is she contagious?”

Kassein glanced to the side, noticing his Intendant was keeping a distance.

“We’ve seen a man like that before,” Lorey told Kassein. “His hair, skin, and eyes were all white as snow. His clan called him the man of the moon, for he couldn’t stand the daylight. He lived during the night and stayed indoors during the day.”

Kassein frowned and glanced at the skies.

The first colors of dawn had appeared, but it would be a while before the sun properly rose up, and the child looked fine.

“So, are we sure she’s Alezya’s? Your woman had a brat?” Kiera asked.

“It seems so,” Lorey replied in his stead, already smiling at the baby girl and offering her finger for Lumie to grab.

“Well,” Kiera continued, “she’s still gone, and now she’s most likely back with her damn tribe. What are you going to do about it? Send Kein back? Is she just expecting you to take her kid and be done?”

Kassein’s eyes went to his dragon.

The two of them missed Alezya terribly, and they didn’t need to communicate for that; if Kein had returned without Alezya, it meant she wasn’t in a place where his dragon could bring her back for now. Or else, he would have gone back the second they took Lumie.

At least, that was what he hoped. Kein had come back with Alezya’s child but without Alezya.

She’d learned to tame and order his dragon around, and now, he knew there had been a point to it.

She wanted to save her child, at any cost. He was certain she would have never wanted to go back if it wasn’t for Lumie.

But she did go back. She had gone back, sacrificing herself and the protection Kassein had offered her to save her child.

She had rescued her baby all by herself, and he’d done nothing to help.

The truth hit Kassein hard, although he was completely still.

Inside, however, it felt like his dragon had dragged his body over miles, crushing him under the weight of that guilt. He was powerless to help the one woman he wanted above everything. And now she was gone, most likely in danger again, or worse, already suffering.

Even if the horrible, worst possible reason why Kein had returned without her was eating him from the inside, opening like a void of anguish that was threatening to tip him over, Kassein tried to push it away.

He refused to even think about it. It couldn’t be. No. He just needed to find her, bring her back, and it would all be fine. Alezya had to be alive somewhere, and he would bring her back.

Everything would be fine so long as he got her back in his arms.

His eyes slowly turned back to the line of mountains, gradually filling with cold rage.

Those mountains. Those tribes. Those people who had hurt her, who were hurting her again at this very moment.

He wasn’t going to let them get away with it any longer.

His dragon growled furiously, echoing his own thoughts. They couldn’t let it happen ever again.

They couldn’t let her be hurt for a second longer.

“...Brother?” Kiera frowned, her eyes on the growling Kein. “What’s going on in your head? Care to share?”

“I’m going to the mountains,” he spat, turning around to carry Lumie away.