Page 74 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)

It felt a bit strange for Alezya to be in a womanly space all of a sudden.

She had grown up with a lot of older sisters and was expected to act a certain way with other women, but since Lumie’s birth, she had been shunned by all.

.. No, even before that, since she had been married, she had felt the lack of a safe space to return to.

It was the rule of her clan that she belonged to her husband since her wedding, but with her sisters all married to different clans, she had no female circle to go to, to confide in.

The Exkiu Clan was even stricter when it came to what they expected from women, and although she’d benefited from the respect due to her husband for a few months, she had still felt like a stranger in a foreign clan.

Her months married to him had been amongst the loneliest of her life. ..

She couldn’t help but glance around, feeling strange standing amongst colorful fabrics, beauty products, nice scents, and ornaments again.

When her eyes stopped on Lorey, she realized the young woman had let her tour around with an amused eye without saying anything.

Alezya felt a bit embarrassed to be caught acting like this.

Was Lorey thinking she was strange, or some uneducated kind of woman?

But Lorey just kept that enigmatic smile on, and pushed one of the colored cushions in front of the polished surface, gesturing for Alezya to sit there.

Alezya nodded and sat facing the reflective stone. Only then did she get a glimpse of her appearance... and she was a bit stunned.

She had changed. Perhaps it was the fresh air from her morning walk or being able to bask in the sun for the last couple of days, but she found her complexion better than it had been in a while.

Her dark circles were gone too, and all her injuries had been healing faster than she’d thought, leaving neat or no scars behind.

She even thought she looked a bit younger, all of a sudden.

She hadn’t given a damn about her appearance since Lumie’s birth, but with a few baths, some combing of her hair, and being able to sleep deeply and safely, she had already changed so much.

.. That, and the generous amounts of meat had refilled her cheeks a bit too.

The taste of her breakfast still lingered on her lips, and she was getting dangerously used to having a full stomach.

As always, she couldn’t deny the pang of guilt that overtook her when she thought of all the luxuries she was enjoying while away from Lumie and with no way to check how her baby was.

She could only hope, once again, that her cousin was acting like a decent human being in taking care of her baby.

She knew Suolk was a decent hunter, more than capable of providing for his family, so she knew they wouldn’t run out of food just because they had one more mouth to feed.

Her father also didn’t care enough about Lumie to check on her or anything like that, so hopefully, they would be unbothered by him as long as Alezya seemed to keep going with the plan.

Her fingers naturally went to the bandages on her forearms.

The herbs. She just had to take the herbs for a few more days, and then, her plan could work.

She could go back by the next full moon and, hopefully, fool her father and the Healer long enough to get Lumie out of there, one way or another.

It didn’t matter how fast her relationship with Kassein progressed so long as she gave her clan the illusion she was acting as expected.

All they would see was that she slept in his habitation and stayed close to him.

If her plan worked, she would return after a couple of weeks.

.. and without her period. She had never tested that combination of herbs for herself, but she knew the effects they were supposed to have.

She hoped it would be enough to fool the Healer, at least for a couple of weeks. All she needed was to get Lumie out of there; Alezya didn’t care what happened to her after that... but she knew who she wanted to entrust her baby to.

“Alezya?”

Lorey called her attention gently, and sat behind her with a comb. She showed her the object in her hands.

“ Mushti .”

“ Mushti ,” Alezya repeated with a nod.

Then, Lorey began gently combing her hair, and while she did so, both women sat facing each other through the reflection in the polished stone surface, going through all the words Alezya had learned the previous day, plus a few more as Lorey showed her objects from her dwelling to add to her vocabulary.

It was hard. Alezya was getting frustrated each time she forgot a word, and the pronunciation was also complicating everything.

She felt like every time Lorey uttered a full sentence, she was thrown on the side of a mountain to hang on to a cliff with one hand.

.. and trying to grab the words she knew to make some sense and pull herself out of her ignorance.

Lorey was showing incredible patience, sometimes repeating words four or five times until Alezya got the pronunciation right, and repeating the same words over and over as Alezya went back to dig out what she’d supposedly learned the previous day.

If her teacher was patient, Alezya wasn’t. She wanted to learn, and fast, and she was getting frustrated at her own memory for being so lacking at times. But slowly, she was learning. It wasn’t a matter of days, but she trusted herself enough to learn the vocabulary that mattered fast enough.

She wasn’t interested in how to say a ring, a necklace, or a comb, but she wanted to know how to say a sword, a mountain, or running. She already knew how to say “baby” and their word for snow. She could translate Lumie’s name in Kassein’s language, and it meant a lot.

“Lorey,” she called her friend, remembering something from earlier. “ Aqayir? ”

Tievin had called Kassein that, but it wasn’t his name. Was that his title here? Was that their word for a clan chief?

“ Kassein Aqayir, ” Lorey nodded.

“. ..Kiera Aqayir? ”

“ La. Kassein Aqayir. ”

So it was a title only he held.

“ Kassein ku judun Aqayir. ”

He was a warrior Aqayir ? So that probably meant some sort of special warrior title.

.. Alezya had learned their word for warrior, judun , just earlier.

Or at least, it seemed to be the word for their warriors.

Aqayir had to mean some sort of leader, still.

She already knew he had the highest position here, but it was interesting to learn the exact word they used for it. It made her think of something.

“ I am Aqayir child, ” she said, using the words she knew. “ Me. ”

“ Alezya is Aqayir child? ”

Alezya nodded at her surprised expression.

“ Lorey Aqayir child too? ”

“ No. Kassein and Kiera Aqayir children. ”

So it was as Alezya had expected... It was some sort of inherited title.

“ Aqayir dragon man? ” Alezya asked, glad she had learned the word for dragon early on.

“ Yes. Kassein and Kiera father is man-dragon Aqayir. ”

“ Father... and mother? ”

“ No. Kassein and Kiera mother no dragon. ”

So their mother was a normal person, without the dragon scales or a dragon? For some reason, that made Alezya a little happy.

So their clan chiefs weren’t just picking a partner amongst people with a dragon, it was just something that ran in their family.

It had been a worry of hers that, in their world, all clan chiefs had dragons and they partnered each other up, like how the clan chiefs married their daughters to other clans’ heirs in the mountains. ..

“ Alezya mother? ” Lorey asked.

For a second, Alezya had been worried Lorey was asking if she was a mother, but retracing the conversation, she realized she wasn’t asking about Lumie, but about Alezya’s mother.

Alezya hesitated and then slowly shook her head. She wasn’t sure about her mother’s whereabouts.

She knew her mother’s clan lived far away from her father’s, but her mother had become a strange taboo in her family, and her father refused to talk about her. If he did, it was to say how she had “abandoned” her.

Her mother had been her father’s third wife and the last after she’d given birth to Alezya.

Something had happened, something that had made him forbid Alezya from mentioning her mom ever again or asking for her.

She was young when her mother left, not even ten years old, and she hadn’t been told why her mother had suddenly left.

She didn’t know why she had been left behind or what had caused her mom to leave without a word.

.. All she could hope was that her mom had returned to her clan safely and was happy now.

But even as she tried to believe that, the questions had never fully left her.

Why hadn’t she taken her? Had she wanted to?

Alezya forced her fingers to relax and shook her head again.

There was no point in thinking about it now.

Her mom had never seemed happy while with her father, and after learning the harsh realities of marriage herself, Alezya couldn’t blame her.

It felt foolish for her to even trust a man again, after what she had gone through.

.. and yet, every time she let her thoughts drift toward Kassein, she couldn’t help but find her heart heating up and her stomach doing little flips.

Was it so easy to fall for someone? To lose all reason to her emotions?

She didn’t want to be emotional, not when she needed to stay clear-headed for Lumie’s sake.

But Alezya could already tell she was too far gone.

Kassein had penetrated her defenses and ignited a hope she shouldn’t have had.

Even if she did dare to believe... She had to be sure.

She had to be certain he would not harm Lumie.

He wasn’t like her ex-husband; he didn’t have to recognize the child as his own.

All that mattered was that he treated her fairly.

Even if she was made a prisoner to the Dragon Clan, it would make her better off than up in the mountain, where she was selected for some nonsense sacrifice.

.. but Alezya had to lay the groundwork to ensure her daughter’s survival.

The Dragon Clan clearly wasn’t safe; her bad experience this morning proved it.

It didn’t matter though, so long as she had Kassein and his dragon’s protection.

If she could ensure, somehow, that Lumie would also be under their protection here, then all would be fine.

It didn’t matter what sacrifice she had to make, what she had to do.

So long as Lumie would be safe, that was all she could ask for. ..