Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

E sta had demanded I get more sleep, but Malachi, Emric, and I spent most of the afternoon trying to think up a trap. Something we would tell the advisors which could out our traitor.

John had rolled up his sleeves and joined us by dinner time, and while we still didn't have a solid plan, the idea of concocting a trap was genius. And working through hypotheticals all afternoon was better than doing nothing. I had Wylan to warn, Whit and Owen in route to the ship, which would promptly return for my questioning of the crew. I had the people of Corsha's disappearance to consider. Not to mention the traitor within Dra Skor, all while slowly trying to win over the Dra Skor people so Esta and I could have a future.

Too much. There was too damn much to clean up and not enough time to do any of it. There was being spread too thin, and there was being spread so thin that you pulled apart entirely. And I was walking that fine line recklessly. I took a pull of my whiskey, relishing in the burn. I wasn't dead yet, so there was still work to be done.

"We need a way to force each advisor to choose between Esta's safety or the crown itself," Malachi offered what had to be our tenth theory.

"But whoever would do that could just argue they were protecting the crown," John argued.

"What if we gave each of them a false piece of information?" Emric asked. "A location or something. And set up teams and traps at each location?"

"Smart. I like the false information aspect," John agreed. "Just not the massive organization of all the traps. There would have to be too many people brought in on this. So many that there is no way it wouldn't be leaked. Considering we cannot even trust the advisors themselves."

"Can we weed the advisors down and pinpoint five of them?" Malachi asked. "Go with the top suspects?"

I added, "We also need to really examine the royal family, something is up there which I just cannot put my finger on."

"So daddykins, little brother, and who else?" Emric asked.

"Zaire, Morana, Mikael," I rattled off. "Gut instinct if we are going top five."

"I was going with the same," Emric nodded. "Malachi here, Amory, Whit, and Otis we all trust. So truly, the suspect pool is small. If this is someone who serves as an advisor to the queen. There is always the possibility they are not."

A knock sounded on the door, so Emric moved to answer.

It was Esta. Standing there in a day dress and looking lovely. The same one she had worn to sign the treaty that morning. "Hi."

John and Emric moved to stand, but she reached a hand out. "Not necessary. Thank you." She turned to Malachi. "I wondered where you ran off to this afternoon, I should've known."

"Amory told me to get lost," he explained.

Esta's lips twitched. "And you and I both know she did not mean it. "

"We can be done here," John offered as he gestured for Emric and Malachi. "We will keep deliberating the trap idea. We are to the point of just talking ourselves in circles anyway."

As they left the two of us alone, I realized the queen had come alone. "Where are your guards?"

She sent me a smile as she walked to look out my balcony doors. The same balcony she had slept on in her dragon form all those nights ago. "I brought them. They are in the hallway. Calm down."

I inhaled deeply. These days my Enchantment didn't like for me to be away from her. And I should think long and hard about what all of that meant, but with everything else going on, Esta needing more time, it was what it was for now.

"Any ideas for the trap?" she asked.

"None worth repeating yet, but I do want to ask you about your family."

She walked toward me and picked up my whiskey glass, taking a sip. "Are you sure that's what you wish to do? I would rather distract you." She put the glass down and straddled me, giving the collar of my shirt a tug. "I am also staying. You made sure I got sleep last night, I am making sure you get sleep tonight."

"I am in need of distraction?" I asked even as my hands moved to hold her in place. Traitors.

"You arrived back here ready for war," she explained as one beautiful hand settled on my neck. "And I cannot say I would have done anything different had you been the one attacked. But you are tense, Keir."

"There is a lot I am trying to handle." I sighed. "I feel like what happened today was another stick added to my pyre. Someone I brought here with me on the ship disrespected Dra Skor. A people I am actively trying to win over so that you and I can have a future."

She shook her head. "They see you. They see you healing us. You are not spoken ill of here. Not anymore. It will take more time, but it is not as if you need to meet and greet every single person and win them over, Keir."

I had to wonder if there would ever come a time where I would truly feel "enough" for Dra Skor. But I had also felt that way in Wylan too. Damn crowns.

Her voice went soft. "Let's make a deal."

"What kind of a deal?"

"You have exactly three minutes to ask whatever you need to ask. Then you let me distract you. And I know, you said you don't want to only love me in the night. I heard you and I understand. It can be as little or long of a distraction as you need."

I read between the lines. Things would go as far as I deemed. "Es, you were the one who was attacked. Why are you distracting me ?"

"Aren't I distracting both of us? Reminding both of us why it's all worth it? What we are fighting for?"

She had a point. And with her body this close to mine, I was forgetting why I should be arguing with her anyway.

She took my silence as agreement as she said, "The clock starts now."

"Can you just help me understand where the tension is in your family," I began.

She moved her hand down to touch my collar bone. "It's a royal family. There is always tension. My personal tension with them started when I turned ten and they blindfolded me, dropped me in the middle of Dra Skor, and told me to make my way back."

"I—" I cut off. That was before their magic settled around the age of puberty. "That was before you could shift. Or fly."

"Correct. It's some sort of messed up rite of passage all the previous kings had done that I am never going to force my own children to do."

My Enchantment flared, sensing how painful and terrifying that must have been. How brutal it must have been to be forged into a proper queen of Dra Skor.

She moved to trace the magic swirling under my arms.

"Would you like to feel it?"

"Please."

I sent two tendrils out slowly to caress and warm her skin, a warm breeze which traveled up one arm, another up the other, only for them to meet down her back.

The soft sigh that escaped her lips made me forget every thought in my brain.

She leaned down so we were eye to eye. "Other than that, my uncle Lennix and my father do not like one another, nor have they ever. Their animosity is the reason I took the throne so young. My grandmother demanded it because of them."

I knew Reyald had two siblings though. "And what about your aunt?"

She moved closer, her hands moving to gently tug on my hair. "She was the youngest of the three siblings. She's always been their peacekeeper."

She leaned in again, the smell of her, every inch of her body overpowering all of my senses.

"Has it been three minutes?" I sent another tendril of my magic to trail along her skin.

"I hope so."

I didn't give her the option of checking the time.

She was the dragon queen, and I was the enemy prince, but when we touched, it wasn't about alliances or treaties or crowns. It was very simply about two bruised souls which found solace in one another.