Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Toward me.
I said nothing as he approached, because I was a little surprised how awesome his dragon was.
Okay, so maybe he wasn’t a massive, powerful, fearsome beast, like Aleksei’s.
But he was still beautiful.
And fearsome.
I then said nothing as he came to me, his face a mask of fury, and immediately grabbed my arm.
I didn’t have to pull it away. He yanked his hand from me while shaking it.
“He’s keeping you marked, which is good, but you need to get your ass inside,” Timothee decreed.
“Why?” I asked.
“They’re after you, in case you hadn’t noticed,” he returned.
I looked stupidly to the sky. “Isn’t this airspace protected?”
“Yes,” he clipped. “Do you want to see if they can penetrate that?”
Considering an all-out affront on the Celestial Palace would be an open act of war, I thought he was being a mite overprotective.
And then I had to give a thought to the fact that he, Timothee, was being overprotective…of me.
When I didn’t move, he threatened, “I can text comm my brother and tell him you’re in the gardens, meandering about under the open skies.”
I didn’t want to give Aleksei anything more to be angry at me about, so I headed toward the door I’d come out of.
Timothee followed me.
Once we were inside, I decided to make an effort.
I turned to thank him.
He was already stalking away.
“Timothee,” I called.
He stopped in a manner that he wanted to make it clear it was taking all of his effort and patience to do so, and he aimed his attention to me.
“Thanks for”—I drifted a hand toward the door we’d come in—“looking out for me.”
“Whatever,” he muttered and made to leave again.
“Timothee,” I called, moving toward him this time.
He stopped and bit out, “What?”
“If you have some time today, maybe we could—”
“I have all the time in the world, Laura. As you know.”
Okay then.
He wasn’t going to make this easy.
Not a surprise.
And so be it.
“Then perhaps we could, I don’t know, chat or something,” I suggested.
“About?” he asked.
“You’re my mate’s brother. I’d like to get to know you.”
He leaned back and crossed his arms on his chest. “Would you?”
“Well…yeah.” I gestured to the door again, this time indicating the garden beyond. “That’s the first time you’ve spoken to me.”
He looked at the door but didn’t say anything.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” I began to lay it out.
He returned his attention to me.
I kept going.
“All my beings are working. I don’t know where Aleece is, and I don’t want to comm her if she’s busy. Your mom…” At the ice-blue flare in his eyes, I decided not to get into why she was unavailable. “And Aleksei was a big jerk to me this morning. Also, unless you aren’t paying attention, you know I didn’t exactly have a loving mother who sat me down and explained the many nuances of living with a male shifter, so all I know about it is my dad alternately not giving a dang about me or doing other not-so-fun things when it came to me.”
Was that a slight flinch I saw on his face?
Hoping it was, I powered on. “So you’re all I’ve got.”
“All you’ve got for what?”
“To explain about male shifters.”
He blinked. “You want me to explain to you about male shifters?”
“You are one, who better?”
A long hesitation (very long), and he asked dubiously, “What do you want to know?”
“You could start by explaining why the dragons flew last night, and the wolves howled, the bears roared, etcetera.”
“Someone shot a stream intended for the True Heir’s mate and killed her bodyguard,” he said like I was a dim bulb.
“Yes, I get that, but I’m not their mate.”
“Do you not know history?” he asked, again with the dim-bulb tone.
“Of course I know history,” I answered, thinking maybe I wasn’t the brightest, considering it was clear using this to try to make inroads with him was not a sterling idea.
His head tipped to the side as he muttered, “Do females not get this?”
“Get what?”
It took him about twenty beats, throughout all of them, I didn’t know if he’d march away or stay.
Finally, he said, “Follow me.”
I wanted to crow in victory that maybe I’d made a break in the walls around Prince Timothee.
I didn’t do that.
I followed him.
He took me into a cavernous room on the first floor that had its walls covered entirely in a magnificent mural.
This included the ceiling.
I’d heard about this mural. It was famous.
But I hadn’t gotten to this wing of the Palace before I got sidetracked by the gardens, so I hadn’t seen it yet.
He went to a corner and pointed at the wall.
“This is Battle of the Chasm, which happened about a hundred and fifty years before the Troll Invasion. And this”—he did a circle, his finger still pointing, indicating the entire room—“is the history of the Starknight Clan.”
Slowly I turned, taking it all in, knowing I was going to be in that room for hours, inspecting every inch of Aleksei’s family history in mural form.