Empire of Flame and Thorns (Flame and Thorns #1)

Chapter 37

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

F ear twists in my stomach as I race back towards the river. What if the dryads managed to overpower him? What if they’re torturing him? What if he’s already dead?

My heart clenches at the mere thought.

I stumble and almost crash into a twisting tree as a sudden question flashes through my mind.

Why do I even care?

Why should I care if Draven gets hurt or killed? He has done nothing but sabotage me ever since he first saw me on the Dragon Field. I should be hoping that he’s hurt or dead, because that would make it so much easier to steal the ring back and win the trial. So why is dread and panic currently twisting between my ribs and strangling my lungs?

Deep down, I know the answer to that question. And the truth is as shocking as it is disturbing.

I have started to care about Draven.

Yes, he’s ruthless and domineering and an absolute bloody menace. But he’s also unexpectedly kind and thoughtful and funny. He has protected me from attackers and a wolfbear, and he gave me his own shirt so that I wouldn’t have to walk through the halls naked for everyone to see. He sees me. Sees all the parts of me, even the ones I try to hide from the rest of the world. And he makes me laugh.

With him, I feel free. Free in a way that I have never felt before. I don’t have to hold myself back or make myself less for him. I don’t have to choose my words carefully. For some reason, he makes me feel like the real me is enough. Like I’m enough. With him, I never feel as if I have to adapt my personality to fit the people around me. I can just be me.

Panic crackles through me as I sprint through the forest. But panic for a different reason this time.

Because Goddess above, I actually like Draven Ryat.

What the hell is wrong with me? He’s the Commander of the Dread Legion. The leader of the enemy army. I should feel nothing but rage and hatred towards him. And yet, I can’t forget the feeling of his warm body holding me last night. The feeling of his hands as he brought me to the brink of an orgasm in his room. The taste of his mouth as he kissed me like he was starving for it.

Confusing and highly conflicting thoughts whirl inside my soul as I leap over fallen trees and dash towards the river.

But when I at last skid to a halt in front of the flowing water, the grass around me is empty. My pulse thrums in my ears as I whip my head from side to side. But Draven is nowhere to be found.

My heart clenches.

Channeling my magic, I use the same technique that I used on Fenriel earlier. I try to find and latch on to one of his emotions so that I can follow that bond towards his location.

I throw out my magic, searching for a spark of anger.

Nothing.

I try annoyance.

Nothing.

Impatience. Frustration. And several other emotions that he surely must be feeling.

But every time, I’m met with nothing.

A growl of frustration escapes my own throat. What could he possibly be feeling?

On a whim, I throw out my magic towards a spark of worry.

I gasp.

The purple spark of worry in Draven’s chest is so massive, so all-consuming, that I have to scramble to pull my shields up so that I won’t be affected by the emotion as well.

Stunned, I just stare in the direction that the emotion is coming from. Draven is worried . And not just a little worried. Based on the intensity of the flame, he’s so worried that he must not even be able to breathe properly.

Giving my head a few quick shakes, I snap out of my stupor and instead start running towards him. Since I need to manipulate the emotion to keep my connection to it, I decrease it ever so slightly while I dash across root and stone. But the worry is so overpowering that it barely makes a difference.

My heart jerks as Draven at last comes into view a little farther down the river.

He is pacing the grass like a caged wolf, clenching and unclenching his hand while whipping his head from side to side.

When his gaze finds mine, he stops dead in his tracks. For the briefest of moments, I swear I can see relief flicker in his eyes. But that unyielding expression that he so often wears remains firmly on his face and betrays no emotion as he looks at me. As if he couldn’t care less whether I showed up or not.

But because my magic is still connected to him, I can feel that raging flame of worry in his chest go out with a whoosh .

I cut off my magic. Still stunned by his reaction, I walk the final distance to him. He just watches me with unreadable eyes.

“Took you long enough,” he mutters when I come to a halt before him.

I was planning to say something snarky in reply, but instead, I find myself saying, “You were worried about me.”

Alarm flashes across his face for a second. Then he draws his eyebrows down in a scowl and crosses his arms. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Are you forgetting that I have emotion magic? I could literally feel your worry. It’s what I used in order to find you. I followed your intense worry to get here.”

His angry scowl falters a little, and he clears his throat. “Yes, well…” He huffs. “If you died, your parents would probably riot. And I have better things to do than burn cities to the ground.”

Before I can even open my mouth to respond, he grabs me by the arm and starts pulling me with him as he spins around and stalks forward.

“Now, let’s go,” he declares. “Before we’re attacked again.”

“Yes, about that…” I shoot him a pointed glare as I stumble along beside him. “Do you know what would have been good to have when I was trying to survive that attack? My knife.”

A flicker of guilt blows across his face. Then he slams that mask of ruthless authority back down on his features. But he does in fact slide out the knife that he took from me earlier and then hands it back to me.

“If you try to stab me with this, I’ll bring out the handcuffs again,” he warns.

With a scoff, I take the blade and ram it back into my thigh holster. Then I open my mouth to speak again.

I’m just about to ask him how he managed to get away from his half of the dryad ambushers when hesitation pulses through me.

I don’t even know if he knows that they were dryads. And given what they said to me about hating the dragon shifters, I doubt the Iceheart monarchs would be thrilled to learn that there are dryads living underneath these woods. If Draven doesn’t already know and I tell him about it, he’s going to tell his emperor and empress about it too. After all, he is their loyal lapdog. I don’t know what the history is between the dryads and the dragon shifters, but since I don’t want any dead dryads on my conscience, I decide to take this secret with me to the grave.

So instead, I just yank my arm out of his grip and shoot him an annoyed look at being manhandled like this. A look that he promptly ignores. Rolling my shoulder back, I straighten my shirt again and let out a huff. The silence between us is suddenly thick and tense.

There are several things I want to say, things I want to ask about, but I can’t. I need to keep my mouth shut so that he won’t ask questions that I don’t want to answer. But I also can’t stand the crackling silence.

So just to fill it, I say, “My parents wouldn’t have rioted, by the way. So you wouldn’t have had to burn our city to the ground.”

He glances down at me, his eyebrows raised. As if he’s surprised that I volunteered any information about myself. To be fair, I’m a little surprised too.

“They wouldn’t have rioted if their only child was killed?” he asks.

“No. We have a… complicated relationship.” Pain spikes through my heart, and I suddenly regret bringing this up, because I really don’t want to talk about this. So I hurriedly switch the focus to him and force teasing mischief into my voice as I ask, “What about you? Does the Shadow of Death even have parents or were you just birthed by an angry storm cloud?”

He laughs.

Goddess above, it’s such a pleasant sound. And with it, the tension around us disappears as if swept away by a strong morning wind.

“No, I have parents,” he replies. Then he tilts his head to the side and shrugs. “ Had parents. They died when I was about sixty. Natural causes. Nothing dramatic. And I was already Clan Leader by then, so I had a lot of other people to worry about too.”

I whip my head towards him. “Wait, what? You became the leader of your clan when you were that young?”

“I was actually thirty-seven, if we’re being specific.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “Are you serious?”

He shrugs, as if it’s no big deal.

I squint at him, studying his face. But just like all fae and shifters, he looks to still be between twenty-five and thirty years old. Since there is no other way of knowing, I decide to just ask. “How old are you now?”

“Two hundred and eighty-six.”

I stop dead in my tracks.

Light shines down on the magical forest around us, illuminating the trees and making the colorful leaves shine like jewels. To my right, the river flows steadily to the south. And for a few seconds, that soft rushing sound is the only thing that breaks the silence.

Then I turn towards Draven and lock stunned eyes on him. “Two hundred and eighty-six. You’re only two hundred and eighty-six?”

He frowns, looking genuinely confused by my disbelief. “Yes.”

“But… but…” I stammer. “How is that even possible? You’re the Commander of the Dread Legion, for Mabona’s sake! How can you be so ridiculously powerful when you’re this young?”

For a few seconds, he just stares at me. It looks like he can’t figure out if he’s supposed to be flattered or insulted. Then he shoots me a pointed look, seriousness descending on his features again.

“Why should I tell you something like that?” He arches a dark eyebrow at me. “We’re enemies, aren’t we?”

I heave a deep sigh and rake my fingers through my hair. He has a point. But I’m suddenly tired. Tired of… everything.

So while I start walking again, I reply, “Because we almost died. And I just want to…” I sigh again. “Just tell me something true. Something real.”

He walks in silence next to me for a while. Just when I think he’s not going to answer, he finally speaks up.

“So you know how the shifter who inherits the clan magic becomes the leader?” he asks.

I nod. “Yes.”

“Our previous leader died when I was thirty-seven, and Azaroth chose me for some reason. So I inherited the magic when I was quite young, which meant that I could start developing it from an unusually young age.”

“So that’s the secret? A lot of time to practice?”

“No.” A soft chuckle rumbles from his chest. “The secret is a grumpy as hell old dragon.”

Blinking, I look up at him in surprise.

There is a wistful smile on his lips as he gazes out at the forest before us while we continue walking.

“One day,” he begins, “when I was out on one of our islands, practicing with my storm powers, this huge gray dragon showed up.”

“Gray?” I stare at him in shock. “There are gray dragons too?”

He shakes his head. “Not on this continent. But she wasn’t from here. She said that she was on vacation, of all things.” Another one of those soft and absolutely incredible laughs ripples from his chest. “Anyway, she saw me trying to practice. And she laughed at me.” With that smile still on his lips, he shakes his head. “I was so offended. Because, back then, I was arrogant and cocky?—”

“As opposed to now?”

He rolls his eyes and gives me a soft shove in the shoulder.

But because I wasn’t prepared for it, I stumble sideways and almost crash into a strange tree with a very thin vine-like trunk. The top of it is shaped like an upside-down bell, and it sways when I hit the soft vine that holds it up. Thick pale green liquid sloshes over the edges of the bell and splatters the ground. I leap out of the way before the sticky substance can hit my boots.

Narrowing my eyes, I glower at Draven.

He just grins, looking entirely unapologetic.

Blowing out a long breath, I shake my head and then move back to his side as we start up along the river again.

“Anyway, I was offended and cocky, so I challenged her,” Draven picks up. He lets out a low chuckle and shakes his head. “She mopped the fucking floor with me.”

I raise my eyebrows at him, surprised that he would admit something like that.

He just shrugs, as if he isn’t even embarrassed about it. “She was incredible. The best storm wielder I have ever seen. And by some stroke of insane luck, she decided to spend her vacation on our islands. So she trained me. She taught me things about storm powers that none of our previous leaders even knew.” He sighs. “I still don’t know exactly who or what she was, but I got the feeling that she was old. Really old.”

“Was?” I ask softly. “She died?”

“No.” He chuckles again and shakes his head. “Like I said, she was just on vacation. So after a few years, she went back to her home. Wherever that is. She said that she had to go back and make sure that the troublesome underworlders hadn’t burned everything down.”

“What’s an underworlder?”

“No idea. But I assume that it’s some kind of vicious demon or something.”

“Huh.”

“But, yeah, that’s the secret behind my power.” His golden eyes glint as he glances down at me and shoots me a mischievous smile. “No grand birthright. No divine fate. Just an old, grumpy as hell, steel gray dragon on vacation.”

“Wow.” I watch him, my eyebrows raised. “That was so not the answer I was expecting.”

“I’m not surprised. Most people just?—”

A sudden idea hits me like a lightning bolt, drowning out the rest of his sentence as my head instead clangs with both excitement and apprehension.

Next to me, Draven keeps talking. But I can barely even focus on his words enough to nod at the appropriate times anymore.

Because I have just figured out how to steal the ring from him.