Crown of Beauty and Vengeance

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

They'd been in Eld for two weeks now after a week's worth of travel. The village in need of rebuilding after their unfortunate mishap with a baby Alzriade Black was now starting after taking a while to clear out the debris. Instead of the tears and devastation one would think the people of the village would have, they were all smiles and laughs even after losing everything.

The answer was the same no matter who they asked. "We get new buildings and houses...why would we be upset?"

And the dragons...

Jai had been around them plenty but could never get over the shear size of them. Alzriade Blacks and Tarvor Reds were always the biggest. The deadliest, too, with the hottest fires and their own magic in being able to turn the ground where they stood to molten rock. Galor Blues and Veidrass Greens were the calmest, smallest, and found mostly near the coast of Eld or near water. And last, Leod Yellows and Nikiel Silvers were medium in size and liked to keep in the hills and grasslands near the border of Eld and Aarden.

The village only had three fully grown dragons, two Tarvor Reds and an Alzriade Black, and two babies, one of each. The adults were bigger than Jai had seen before, thick, scale-armored bodies with the mass of three horses, talons that could shred anything to pieces, and great leathery wings that were roughly double their length. They could live for hundreds or even thousands of years and were rare because, just like Fae children, dragon eggs were rare.

The babies were still growing, of course, but Jai really couldn't call them babies in the sense that they were small. They were both over a month old, their bodies the sizes of a horse, and they would both be fully grown in their bodies by six months, though they still had to mature mentally and wouldn't be considered an 'adult' until they were a year. The Alzriade baby was growing the fastest, though, and apparently already had a fondness for her fire and flying.

With their work done for the day, Jai found himself going to another nearby village with a few of his guardsmen. He hadn't had a drink since they left Ayveri just a few weeks before...and didn't want one. He was going for the company.

The company he kept, though, was getting drunk off Castyr, which kept flowing to their table because the barmaid continuously came over. Though she was pretty, with long strawberry blonde hair and a slim build, Jai was trying to ignore her flirty looks and not so subtle advances. Even the guardsmen he was with took notice.

"It's been a while since you lay with a female, hasn't it, prince?" one smirked into his tankard of ale. "You've got one eyeing you right now, you know."

"I'm not interested," he mumbled.

But the drinks still came...his guardsmen were getting more drunk by the shot...and he was bowing to the pressure of joining them and then going to the female's upstairs room just to take the edge off.

And as soon as she put the next round down on the table, Jai downed two of the shots, grabbed the female's hand, and pulled her to the stairs the calls of his guardsmen behind them. He made sure to also grab an unopened bottle of Torrent as well. He would need it.

The female was on him just as soon as they were through the door of her room. Her mouth tasted of the lemon water she'd been sipping on throughout her shift, her body soft against his. Jai tried squeezing his eyes closed as he kissed her, tried to suppress the feeling of wrongness in taking advantage of her. He really wasn't when she opened her mouth and moaned, kissing him deeper.

The female loosened the laces at the front of her dress, letting it fall to the floor just as her hands went to pull his tunic over his head. He couldn't deny he wanted to feel a body against his, but still. The wrongness was eating at him.

He stopped her hands just as they went to the laces of his pants. "I can't do this now," he told her.

She grinned and leaned forward to kiss his jaw and the scruff he hadn't bothered to shave. "Of course, we can, my prince," she purred. Her hands were back at his pants, dipping below the waist band to grip him. "Your friends said you needed to...take the edge off."

But Jai removed her hands from him, that need of a female beneath suddenly and absolutely leaving his mind. "I'm not doing this."

Pushing her away gently, he reached down and scooped up his tunic, putting it on before he grabbed for the bottle of Torrent.

He was leaving then, shaking his head as he closed his eyes. But what he didn't realize he was doing was walking toward the shadows, letting them swallow him as he faded to wherever they would take him.

The darkness surrounded him as a calmness went through his body, easing the tension he'd held for so long.

And when he left it, he was in a place he hadn't set foot at in over a year.

The dark streets of the city of Escarral lay before him. Being close to midnight, there wasn't anyone close by and only a few lights on in the windows and those lamps that were lit along the streets. Still, Jai glamoured himself to look like a nondistinctive human and good thing, too, since a group of guardsmen patrolling the streets just turned the corner toward him.

He quickly made his way into an alleyway that he knew would take him where he wanted to go, where he needed to go.

The back door of the Rose Stem Tavern was closed and locked, but Jai had it opened with just a small bit of magic. He could hear the clattering of glasses being stacked in the main room of the tavern and followed it.

Jules, the dark-haired owner, was behind the bar and just finishing up for the night when he appeared. She looked up and barely glanced at him before speaking.

"We're closed. You can come back tomorrow afternoon since..."

"Jules," Jai said, stepping up to the counter.

Immediately, she went still, eyes slowly lifting to his face.

"You've got some nerve coming here, Jai."

The prince lifted his glamour and smiled slightly at his spy as he set the bottle of Torrent on the counter. "I come with a gift...and a need for someone to talk to."

***Short chapter, but we learned that Jules is Jai's spy!  Yay for @enbenn for guessing correctly!

We're going to get a little backstory on how they met in the next chapter, as well as another visit from Merek, who was the new guardsman at the beginning of the book for those of you who don't remember.  Wonder how his reaction is going to be to Jai, huh?  

As always, I love to hear your thoughts, so comment and vote! 

Happy reading!

- Ansley***