A Shade of Dragon 2 by Bella Forrest Read Free Book Online

my shoulders, giving me a shake. My head snapped back and forth. “There are no accidents,” he seethed, thrusting me to the side. My heel caught in the edge of my petticoats and sent me tumbling to my side.
    I propped myself onto my elbow and Lethe leaned down and scooped the pendant from the floor, examining its soft light.
    No. He knew… and the pendant was still active. He could see Theon. He might even be able to deduce where in this city Theon was.
    The shard of crystal went dark, and I feared for Theon—but Lethe only closed his fist over the pendant and glared down at me.
    “I will send the guards into the streets,” he promised. “They can smell fire dragon stink from the skies.”

Nell
    L ethe swept from the room , locking it behind him. This time, I didn’t bother to fling myself against the wood; I didn’t bother to scream, cry, or beg. I knew that it would do nothing to help me. All I could do now… was wait.
    I went to the window and watched as a team of guards were dispatched—in dragon form—from the castle, into the skies and the streets, in their hunt for Theon and, inexplicably, Michelle. The moonlight throwing itself down onto the crisp white snow illuminated the entire city. It would have been beautiful, if things weren’t so hopeless. As it was, the beauty of the city only registered as bleak and solitary.
    I wished suddenly for my mother. For Dad. Anyone…
    The sound of a key turning in the lock wrenched me from the window. Lethe stood in the doorway, disheveled, vengeful, and cold. Everything about him emanated the winter world outside this window.
    “I have sent the guard,” he informed me.
    “Lethe,” I pleaded, treading forward, into the room. “Please—”
    “Please, she says,” Lethe snarled.
    “Please don’t punish Theon for my mistake! I’m sorry!”
    “Of course you’re sorry. Everyone is sorry.”
    “You don’t understand. I just—I was desperate, I—You kidnapped me, Lethe! I don’t live here!” I knew that this was a weak defense. What I’d done was wrong.
    “You are more akin to the ice people than you know,” Lethe informed me, his eyes a dark winter’s storm. He strode forward, but halted before he reached me, looming in the doorway. “We, too, are ruthless. We, too, are utilitarian and concerned solely with logic.” I could see the eddies of snow reflected in his eyes. “We care not for the fragility of a heart.”
    Dammit, I felt guilty now more than ever.
    “Lethe, I’m sorry. I didn’t know—I didn’t think—” I didn’t know what to say.
    “Oh, are you sorry, my lady? Do you feel that, perhaps, I was wounded by your minor and pointless betrayal? The betrayal which, in truth, tipped Theon’s hand?” Lethe stepped closer, now peering down at me. “You need not apologize, my would-be queen… for I am as innately composed of ice as you are,” he hissed. His hand plunged into the hair at the nape of my neck, clutching it in his fist. I winced, my neck stretched for him.
    But all he did was look at me closely, absorbing every curve of my face, suddenly breathless and hesitant, suspended amid the violence.
    I thought he was about to say something, but we only hung there in silence together, and it was someone else’s throat clearing which startled us from each other’s eyes.
    “Prince Lethe,” a masked guard announced from within the still-open doorway. “We have found smoke issuing from a merchant chimney in the town square. We await your decree; our forces surround the domicile.”
    My throat constricted with terror for Theon.
    “Break down its door,” Lethe commanded coldly. “And remove this—prisoner of war—to the dungeon, where she belongs: amongst her compatriots.”
    With that, he released my hair and I slumped, oddly surprised and even betrayed by this turn of events… though I supposed I should not have felt either.
    Lethe strode from the room without turning back.
    The guard advanced with sword drawn and seized me