Page 57 of Blood of Dragons
Her hands cupped my cheeks as she sobbed. “I would stay if it were just me.”
My hands gripped her wrists. “I know.” I knew she would die with me rather than live without me.
“Come with us…please.”
My eyes closed, trying to resist the plea in my wife’s voice.
“Please…”
I grabbed her wrists and pulled them from my face. “You know I can’t.”
She started to cry harder, knowing this was it.
The moment was too much, too heavy, my mind couldn’t cope with it. “I will do everything I can to survive. And when I do, I will find you. That’s a promise.”
She sobbed, her cheeks red and her eyes puffy.
I kissed each of her hands. “I love you.” I lifted up her dress and pressed a kiss to her belly. “Both of you.”
“No…”
My hands dug into her hair, and I brought our faces close together. Despite the havoc of emotion inside me, I didn’t succumb to it, not when it would only make it harder for her. “Tell me you love me.”
She gripped my wrists and sobbed. “I love you.”
I kissed her forehead. “If we don’t see each other in this life, we’ll see each other in the next.” I pulled away.
She dug her nails into my flesh and suddenly exerted more strength than her little body could usually produce. She tugged me close.
I had to twist from her grasp and step away.
“No…”
Turning my back on her and walking out was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do, to walk away from her sobs, to ignore my wife’s suffering, to know she would start a life in a new place…and probably remarry and have more children with someone else while my corpse would rot on a battlefield.
With tears in my eyes that I didn’t shed, I rode back to the castle to fulfill my duty…and let her go.
“We need nets. Gather all the fishing nets from the harbor and attach them to spikes. If the dragons attack us, that’s our only chance to take them down.” My father gave his orders, and two soldiers left the room to carry the message.
I walked inside at that moment, seeing Silas in his full armor without his typical smirk.
My father shifted his gaze to me, his stare still angry.
I approached the table, my sword hooked over my back, desperate to look out the window and see if I could spot her ship headed out to sea, but I needed to focus on the war that was about to arrive on our doorstep.
My father had never looked so disappointed in me.
It was the worst feeling in the world, to know your father thought so little of you, but it didn’t affect me whatsoever. I’d made my decision—and I would repeat it a million times.
He looked at me with disdain. “The future Queen of the Southern Isles chose to abandon her people. Perhaps you should have married a woman of noble birth as I suggested, because her spine is weak.”
Silas flicked his eyes to me, forced to listen to this strained conversation.
I continued to feel nothing. “She wanted to stay, but I made her go.”
My father stared, both hands on the surface of the table. “The crown will be passed to your brother Silas upon my death—because your abandonment is treasonous.”
“He can have it,” I said. “The crown is a penny compared to the diamond that is my wife and child. In this, we will always disagree, but my first duty is as a husband and a father, not a prince or a king. Their safety comes before everyone else. I’m not sorry for what I did. Release your fire—but I will not burn.”