Page 62 of The Ice Prince's Fated Mate
We walked into the dungeons, where forty or so shifters were lounging, all of whom had to be Grounded. I’d never been around so many of my kind before, except in the slave market.
“Ella!”
I searched for the voice, and a moment later, Holly came through the crowd, tall and willowy, her black hair braided down the center of her back. I started to smile at her as her green eyes lit up with excitement, but the look died when I saw the band of silver still around her throat.
“Hey,” she said. “I’m going to take it off. Just waiting for the right moment. Don’t look so disappointed.”
I smiled and wrapped her in a hug. “It’s good to see you.”
“Is it? You looked pretty distraught there,” she said as we parted and moved to find seats in one of the cells now serving as rooms for the group.
“Call it innate guilt,” I said. “That I wasn’t strong enough when mine was removed, and now it’s scared everyone else into keeping those filthy things on. Even Milly still has hers.”
“Milly?” Silt clouded the seafoam of her iris. “Wait. You mentioned her, I think. Your other friend?”
“Yes.” I brought Holly up to date on everything that had transpired since Kolar had brought her to the citadel not long after the rescue.
“Wow.” Holly shook her head. “That’s something.”
“I know,” I said, reaching my left hand around to scratch my back awkwardly.
Holly’s eyes lowered to my side. “I think you forgot a part of the story.”
I glanced down to see that I had inadvertently exposed my side with Dirk’s marks.
“That one is still complicated. Not at all like Anna’s,” I said, gesturing at my friend and hoping to leave it at that.
But when I looked at Anna, I noticed her staring at me from out in the hall. Her face was slack, and her eyes were clouded over with something else, something that made Anna not “Anna.” It was like a foreign entity had taken over my friend.
“Caz,” she mouthed. “Now.”
And started to topple over.
Twenty-Nine
Dirk
The entire flightwas in the room when I arrived at Caz’s private quarters.
“Sit,” my brother ordered, clearly on edge.
I couldn’t blame him. He stood protectively in front of a loveseat upon which Anna sat, her entire body moving slightly as she writhed back and forth. Every so often she would whimper, and Caz would growl comfortingly in her direction.
Moving to the empty chair next to Ella, I nodded at Milly who sat next to Florian, and in front of Kolar and Durion.
“We don’t have much time,” Caz said, stating the obvious, though everyone in the room was very carefully keeping their eyes anywherebutAnna.
With his mate in the throes of her first heat, Caz would be extremely jealous and protective. Nobody wanted to set the tyrant off at this critical moment. That wasn’t what a flight did.
I considered that odd thought. That we were, all of us, a flight. Together. It hadn’t been on purpose. It had just sort of happened.
“For those of you unaware,” Caz continued, “my mate is entering her first heat. She and I will be unavailable for anunknown amount of time. This presents us—you, not me—an opportunity. The heat of the Ice Tyrantess is a known and protected thing. There will be no happenings within the court until we return. That includes questioning of this wet nurse Mirko dug up. That will be on hold.”
I nodded. Anna’s heat would give our agents time to dig into the facts and uncover what we could about the obvious fabrication. It was helpful.
“Dirk.” Caz fixed me with a long, steady look. “You will be acting in my stead if anything arises. This too will pass without issue, as there is lots of precedence for just such a situation. If anything new arises, it will be on you, as prince and heir, to take care of it.”
Although I’d known it was coming, I didn’t bother to hide a grimace. Caz knew full well I had absolutely no desire to rule, to sit on the Ice Throne. That was his position. I hoped the heat was successful, so I could step away as heir. I would prefer to be done with politics entirely.
