Silk and Steel #3: Blood & Ice by Ariana Nash

Author:Ariana Nash [Nash, Ariana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crazy Ace Publishing
Published: 2019-10-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Eroan

The trek back to his settlement took entirely too long, but they managed it in two days, traveling through the night. Eroan hadn’t realized how much he’d feared his new home had been destroyed in their absence until he’d seen the flickering torchlights and breathed out. Nye could have told Dokul of this place, so perhaps Nye hadn’t lost all reason.

Chloe greeted them with a broad smile that quickly turned to concern at the sight of their weariness and without Lysander among them.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I will tell you, but…” He drew her to one side while Trey and Seraph escorted Akiem to a hut. The dragon was getting stronger every day. “Ashford is going to be attacked.”

“Ashford?”

“An elven stronghold. Dokul is on his way there with a dragon horde. He has Nye.” He didn’t need to say anymore. The implications were clear. Everything Nye knew, so did Dokul. Eroan had thought of little else as he’d fought through the landscape, each step taking him farther away from where he truly wanted to be, who he truly wanted to be with. “I need every elf who can carry a blade. Human too, if you’re willing to fight with us?”

Chloe didn’t hesitate. “Of course. I’ll spread the word. I assume we leave immediately?”

Eroan nodded tightly. “Give me a little while… There’s something I need to do.” He followed Seraph’s and Trey’s path and entered the hut they’d taken Akiem to. The black prince had shrugged off his coat, clearly making himself at home. Eroan crossed the small hut in a few strides, grabbed the dragon by the neck, and pinned him to the wall.

Akiem winced, but his smile grew. “I wondered when you’d snap, elf.”

“When I do, you won’t see it coming, dragon.” Eroan squeezed and a little of Akiem’s smile broke off. “Don’t mistake this truce as my acceptance of you. Just because Lysander hasn’t killed you, it doesn’t mean I won’t.”

Akiem breathed through his nose, his dark eyes drinking in Eroan. “If I wanted to betray you, I’d have done so already.”

And that was what Eroan couldn’t understand. Why was Akiem still here? He was strong enough to take flight, to go anywhere, why stay? And he wasn’t buying the “nowhere else to go” excuse. A dragon with both wings could go anywhere.

“We’re going to Ashford. You’re either with us or against, and I’ve seen nothing to convince me of either, so convince me now or I kill you here.”

“I killed the emerald—”

“Don’t try to tell me that was for Lysander. You did that because you knew what that dragon could do, and right now, I’m inclined to believe you’ll do the same to Lysander if—when—when he returns. You’re a dragon of the worst kind, the type who weaves his lies around his victims.”

A strange kind of wicked delight sparkled in the prince’s eyes. “If you know me so well, kill me already.”

Eroan let him go and stepped away, taking the sword from his back. He should do it.

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