The Dragon Prince's Librarian (Royal Dragons of Alaska Book 2) by Elva Birch

Author:Elva Birch [Birch, Elva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-08-23T16:00:00+00:00

16

The guards who had fallen into step behind Tania and Rian stopped them at the top of the stairs going down from the first story. “Is she authorized to go down there?” one of them asked hesitantly. “We can’t follow.”

“She’s my mate,” Rian pointed out, and the guards exchanged dubious glances. “I vouch for her, and she’ll be safe with me.”

The guards spoke quietly a moment, radioed for permission while Tania tried not to fidget, and then finally nodded reluctantly. They took positions at the top of the stairs.

“They...can’t come down here?” Tania said, holding Rian’s hand and using her cane to tap down the wide, steep staircase with the other. They were walking down the center of the stairs, too far from the handrails, but Rian was steady beside her.

“There are a lot of things in the vault with power,” Rian explained. “Including a dagger spelled to kill dragons, and the Compact itself. Ever since Shadow got in with Carina, Fask and Captain Luke have been really strict; no one but family on the sub-level.”

“I’m not family…” Tania pointed out, and Rian’s hand in hers squeezed tighter.

“You’re my mate,” he said confidently, like he’d told the guards.

Mate. Tania almost stumbled, and focused fixedly on her feet for the next several steps. It was still surreal and impossible sometimes, when she thought too hard about things.

She’d been a nobody just a week ago. Worse than a nobody: a disabled, jobless, single woman with no prospects and a crumbled academic career.

Now, she was walking down restricted stairs to a dragon king’s treasure vaults, her fingers twined together with a dragon prince. A dragon prince who looked at her like she was treasure. A dragon prince who was so beautiful that he took her breath away, and was somehow dearer even than his looks.

The stairs opened onto a wide hallway that appeared to be carved from granite streaked with veins of gold. It was lit intermittently with cool electric lights that made it look like it was a string of pearls—light and then dark and then light and then dark.

They walked for some time, at an easy pace, and then, although the hallway continued, they turned at a doorway with no latch or handle. It was perhaps ten feet tall, wooden, and carved all over with tiny letters. Tania let go of Rian’s hand and started to reach for it, wondering how deep the letters were and what the wood would feel like, but Rian hissed a warning. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

Tania put her hand back at her side. Being his mate might be good enough for the guards, but not for this spell, perhaps.

Rian put his own hand flat on the door and said his full name, “Prianriakist.”

Tania memorized the syllables with relish; she’d never heard his full name pronounced, and it made something resonate in her chest.

The door cracked open soundlessly, and Rian pushed it open. Tania was captured for a moment by the thickness of

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