Regret (Lady of Toryn Trilogy) by Charity Santiago Read Free Book Online Page A

was
smarting enough that she wanted to avoid traveling with Drake.
    Although looking at her current
situation, that plan hadn’t worked out so well either.
    “I knew you would come after me,”
she said for Skye’s benefit, “so if something went wrong you would be there to
help. Leaving without you showed poor judgment on my part, but...at the time I
was feeling a little overwhelmed. Emotionally.” She glanced up at Skye again.
“Kou is still alive. The bear that was attacking me- that was him. Did you kill
him?”
    Skye, still looking unsatisfied
with her excuses, shook his head. “There’s no way to be sure. I was moving
pretty quickly. Are you sure it was Kou? Getting shot and falling off Na
Michico- surviving that seems unlikely.”
    “I don’t know how he survived,”
Ashlyn admitted, “but he did. It was him.” She fidgeted with her reins,
shifting her weight in the saddle. “He’s lying to the soldiers he is leading,
though. They didn’t seem too keen on attacking me once I claimed to be the
Elder Heir. I’m sure they all still think I’m dead.” The only reason that Lord
Li had adopted Kou as his heir- according to Kou, anyway- was because the young
man had claimed to have a “vision” of Ashlyn being killed by a wolf in the
Heavenly City. It wasn’t unreasonable to assume that the soldiers had all been
told the same story.
    “Did you see your father?” Drake
asked, speaking for the first time since Skye had joined them.
    Ashlyn shook her head. “Nope. I
was inside the cave, trying to find him, but Kou recognized me.” She paused. “I
did challenge him to a Leadership Duel, but he denied my heritage. I’m not sure
he’s going to follow any of our customs. I mean, this whole time I’ve been
trying to avoid getting anyone else involved, but it’s looking like I’m going
to have to.”
    “You’re certainly going to have
to let us help you,” Skye said in a clipped tone. “No more running off. If we’d
gone with you, we might have been able to help you before you were injured.
You’ve got to start thinking like a leader, Ashlyn, and leaders don’t abandon
their followers.”
    Ashlyn nodded, lowering her chin
and sneaking a peek at Drake through her eyelashes. Skye was right, of course,
but that didn’t stop her from wanting to blame this entire incident on a
certain vampire and his unpredictable behavior.
    “I guess I need to work on my
impulsiveness,” she said, genuinely apologetic and hoping she sounded like it.
“But I’m here now. I think…I think we should track my father’s army and try again.
They’ll be on higher alert now, but it’s still our best chance at getting to my
father and Kou and…well…cutting the head off the snake.” She didn’t like the
thought of killing either one of them, particularly her father, but her options
were becoming limited.
    “That’s probably a good idea,”
Skye said. “Would you like to use reveal to
show us the way?”
    Oops. “Of course,” Ashlyn
answered, offering a weak smile. Well, now he was definitely aware that she had
stolen it three years ago. At least the stane was coming in handy now. Grabbing
her shuriken, she activated the magic and urged her horse towards the glowing
path that sprang up before them.
    “Are we planning to capture
Devlyn and Lord Li?” Drake spoke up as his horse fell in behind Ashlyn’s.
    “Capture if possible,” Ashlyn
said, and hesitated for just a moment. “If it’s not possible, then we’re…just
going to have to do what we can. The soldiers can’t fight for long without a
leader, so if it comes to that, I am…um, aware that my father might not be taken
alive.” Her heart chilled as she said the words, but she ignored the feeling.
Now was definitely not the time for emotions. The situation with Drake had
already made that exceedingly clear.
    As she rode, with Skye flanking
her and Drake lingering further back, she wondered again how Kou had managed to
survive his fall off Na