Daughters of Lyra: Heart of an Emperor by Felicity Heaton Read Free Book Online

where had it got her? She had convinced Regis
to lose control and she still hadn’t been able to discern whether
he felt love. His feelings had been so strong and, while there had
been a connection to him, and she had felt tenderness and devotion
within his emotions, she hadn’t felt anything that she could
distinguish as love. Now, Regis would pay the price for her
mistake. He would be punished, not her. It should be
her.

    “ What will
happen to him?” she whispered, staring at her mother’s hand where
it covered her own. She could feel her mother’s sympathy and
understanding.

    “ They are
holding him in the cells for now,” her mother said and Sophia
forced a smile when her mother brushed her hair behind her ear. She
didn’t want to think about her appearance. It was probably obvious
what had been happening in this room before the guards had burst
in.

    No, they hadn’t burst
in.

    Regis had gone to fight
them.

    She had felt his need to
protect her.

    “ Will they kill
him?” Her voice trembled and she looked up into her mother’s dark
eyes. Sometimes, it was as though she was seeing herself in the
future. They were so alike. Perhaps that was why her father doted
on her so much and tolerated her sometimes wild ways. “I have to
speak to father and tell him not to kill him.”

    Her mother’s grip on her
hand tightened, stopping her from leaving the bed. She looked back
at her.

    Her mother laughed. “Do
not be so overdramatic. They are only holding him because he is
trying to kill anyone who goes near to him, even his kin. Your
father asked me to take you down there. The Varkans believe that he
will calm down if he sees that you are not harmed.”

    Sophia frowned. “Will they
take him away?”

    Her mother’s eyes
widened.

    “ You’ve fallen
for him!” she said with a strangely serious expression, one that
unsettled Sophia.

    She blushed. “It’s
pointless. He says he can’t love.”

    “ I know love
when I see it and can feel it,” her mother said on a
laugh.

    “ Feel it?”
Sophia said and clutched her mother’s hand. “What do you mean, feel
it? I can’t feel it. I tried... this is all because I tried to see
if I could feel that he loved me.”

    “ Love is not
one feeling that you can sense, child,” her mother said with a sigh
and smoothed her hair, pushing each rogue strand back into place.
“It is the culmination of many feelings. It is something you have
to see with your eyes. That boy... no... man, very definitely a
man, loves you or he would not be shouting your name from the
cells.”

    “ He is?” Sophia
said, unable to believe what her mother was saying.

    Her mother nodded. With a
grin, Sophia stood and raced from the room, running for the cells.
She held her skirt high so she didn’t trip as she bounded down the
steps that led into the dungeon beneath the palace. It took a
moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness and then she rushed
on. Her heartbeat quickened when she heard Regis. He was shouting
something but she couldn’t understand it. The old language again.
Other voices joined his as she followed it, trying to find
him.

    She skidded to a halt when
she turned a corner and saw a row of men stood in front of one of
the cells. She raced over and pushed her way through the guards,
coming out beside her father and the emperor. The Count of Aeris
was pinned with his back against the bars, Regis’s arm across his
throat. Regis snarled, his eyes still bright red even in the
darkness, and went to bite the count.

    “ Stop!” she
screamed.

    Regis froze and looked up
at her.

    “ Beauty has
timing at least,” the Count of Aeris drawled and she gasped when
she saw the blood on his cheek and throat. “Although you might have
come quicker to tame your beast.”

    Regis snarled and released
the count. She went to help the count but stopped when Regis
roared. It froze her blood and she tensed.

    “ It is not wise
to anger him,” the Count of Aeris said as he got