Page 75 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)

His sword was getting rusty.

Kassein inspected it; he didn’t mind making those men suffer after what they’d put Alezya through that morning, but he hated when his weapon wasn’t as sharp as it should have been.

Upon closer inspection of the blade, he could spot a few dents where his excessive strength had probably broken the metal.

The blacksmith wasn’t so bold as to voice it out, but it was clear they were upset about Kassein’s brute force damaging their carefully crafted weapons at an increased, unnatural rate.

If anything, he would rather blame the crafters.

He couldn’t remember his siblings’ weapons nor his father’s being damaged so easily.

Did they craft lower-quality weapons here?

“I think we missed one.”

He glanced back at his sister, standing a few steps away from him with her fists on her hips and a frown on her face.

“What?”

“I’m counting the bodies,” she said. “I think we missed one... The count isn’t right.”

“Tievin?” he called with an angry tone.

“W-well, from what I’ve been able to tell,” he stuttered behind his notepad, “I-I think Lady Kiera might be right. Although I do need to point out, it would be a lot easier to tell if I could count entire bodies instead of limbs...”

He had been avoiding looking at the bloodshed around the siblings, but for once, Kassein wasn’t the only one responsible for it.

Kiera had been the first one infuriated by those men’s attitudes and had gotten overly excited to be given the chance to fight, or more like slaughter, some real people for the first time in a while.

His sister was a proper savage when it came to fighting, causing as many injuries as she could on the enemies’ bodies until some bled to their deaths.

One could tell she was used to fighting many enemies at once; she liked to inflict a string of incapacitating injuries first and only go for the kill later.

He wondered if the absence of her partner had helped in unleashing her violent nature; she probably didn’t dare to be this cruel in Lorey’s presence. ..

“Pieces of shit,” she hissed, finishing off a man who was still moving with a clean slice of her blade. “Those fucking rapists should be executed on sight, not sent here... I’ll never forgive Kassian for refusing to strengthen the law.”

Kassein scoffed. On that, they agreed. But their brother was too worried about what his precious politician friends thought...

Kassein checked his appearance; this time, he’d been a bit more mindful of the bloodshed and not staining himself as much.

The blood didn’t get higher than his forearms, but that could be washed away.

He was getting annoyed with having to clean himself every time before seeing Alezya again.

He couldn’t touch her with his bloodied hands. ..

Kiera was the one covered in blood, while he’d managed to remain mostly clean. Nothing a bit of snow wouldn’t wash away.

“That was all of them?”

“I think so. Minus the one we missed...” said Kassein, glancing around.

He had been dying to murder those bastards since earlier, and only Alezya’s presence had kept him from going on a rampage right away. He had carved their faces into his mind and rounded them up the minute she and Lorey were out of sight to give that scum what they deserved.

Even Tievin hadn’t objected for once; he was never against less criminal mouths to feed around the camp.

“I’m not too worried about Lorey,” Kiera said, cleaning her sword while she walked up to him.

“She can defend herself, and Kiki’s never far away.

But your girl, you do need to teach her how to use that dagger.

This kind of shit is bound to happen again now that the soldiers are aware of her.

You have more criminals here than can be found in the Capital.

You’d better start tightening the discipline if you don’t want to have to kill a dozen of them every new moon. ”

Kassein silently agreed. It wasn’t that he had been negligent until then; he just didn’t care.

He felt as exiled here as those criminals had been, and so long as they didn’t cross the line, he didn’t care what happened to the prisoners sent here, in the middle of nowhere, where they couldn’t harm anyone anymore.

.. until now. Now, Alezya was here, and Lorey too.

That made two people who were far more vulnerable than regular soldiers and possible targets for the worst of that scum to prey on.

He couldn’t just act passively anymore, for there would be direct consequences to his lack of involvement.

He turned to Tievin, who straightened like a stick.

“...Summon all the generals, brigade captains, and unit captains. I want every single leader from every corner of the camp at the training grounds.”

“When—”

“Now.”

Tievin went a bit pale, but Kassein didn’t care.

He watched until the Grand Intendant helplessly turned around and scurried out of sight. Only then did Kassein start cleaning his sword with the fresh snow, while his sister stood before him.

“I’ll teach her too,” Kiera said.

“I thought you said I should do it.”

“I have a feeling you’ll get distracted during the lessons,” she scoffed. “Moreover, she’s clearly not a fighter. There is a big difference between training someone to kill and training someone to defend themself. I’ve already done it with Lorey. Plus, your girl’s growing on me a bit.”

Kassein couldn’t help but raise his eyes from his sword to give her a threatening glare, but his sister replied with a click of her tongue.

“Nuh uh, not to me, little brother, unless you want me to discipline your ass... Keep your bloody dragon-sized jealousy in check, you know I’m not interested in her that way.

I’m taken already, remember? I meant she’s an interesting girl.

Not a girl, really, she’s a proper woman, and far from stupid too.

She’s not afraid of Kein anymore, but she keeps in mind he’s a dragon, not a pet.

She was careful enough to use your dragon as her bodyguard too.

.. She’s smart enough to learn our language quickly, from what Lorey said.

She nicked your dagger too, which was a smart move for her own good. Something I respect.”

He wouldn’t mention it to his sister, but there was one more way Alezya was impressive.

She had snuck out of bed without him noticing... It was true he’d spent most of the night awake and unable to sleep, but for someone to move around him without waking him up was a first. He’d always been hyper-sensitive, and no one had ever been able to sneak past him unnoticed.

For Alezya to have been able to do so, even if he might have been slightly more relaxed in her presence, showed that she had an impressive stealth skill... which made him curious how she’d come to cultivate it.

“...But?” he said, sensing his sister’s unvoiced protest.

“But, I’ll remind you to think with your head, if you know what I mean.

If you’re anything like the men in our family, you will tend to be unreasonable when it comes to your.

.. love interest. Be careful, Kassein. We do not know those people, and there are reasons we’ve been fighting them for centuries.

She might be different, but she was raised there.

We still know nothing of her. So curb your dragon, because I won’t be enough to stop the bloody chaos if shit goes wrong. ..”

He knew it all too well; Kiera meant that both as a figure of speech and as a real warning.

His dragon was problematic; it had been for a lot of years, and they all knew that if Kein went on a rampage, Kiki or Kiera couldn’t possibly stop it.

.. Kiki was a stealthy dragon, but in terms of brute strength, Kein was stronger by far.

It could rival most of his siblings’ dragons, even his older brothers’.

Last time, Kassian’s dragon, the silver dragon Kian, had barely managed to stop and subdue Kein. ..

If anything happened here, Kein’s attempts to kill him would be nothing in comparison. He could handle his own dragon attacking him for he had his Dragon Blood to protect him and abnormal strength, but normal people like Lorey, Tievin, or Alezya would be the first ones at risk...

He took a deep breath. He had to keep his emotions under control. He wouldn’t let another “accident” happen.

“I know,” he finally said.

Kiera let out a faint sigh, clearly trusting him for now. They both knew there was little that could be done anyway; until they could communicate more with Alezya and understand where she came from and why, things would be at a standstill there.

Kiera kept glancing around with a frown now that her weapons were clean and back in their sheaths. Some soldiers had already come to clean the area, but she didn’t care for them. She was looking more broadly at the camp as if she was seeing this place for the first time.

“I can’t believe you pushed the North Army this far... Isn’t it a pain to go back to the closest village?”

“We’re far enough that they can’t cause incidents there,” he retorted, “and we send people there now and then. The journey isn’t that long.”

“That’s still, what, half a day with a good horse? And you don’t have many horses... Why, by the way? You’re not breeding them or what?”

“We were not breeding them fast enough,” Kassein scoffed, giving her a meaningful glance.

Kiera’s jaw dropped.

“Fucking Kein kept eating them, you mean?! Your dragon’s a bloody nutcase!”

“Has been for a while,” Kassein groaned. “Glad you finally noticed.”

“I thought you had him under control by now! He... He’s been following your girl around like a trained pup!”

Kassein let out a grunt.