Drothiker

15.

Syrene could feel each beat of her mounting rage, numbing the barking in her waist.

"What do you mean." Everything—it took everything in her to not pounce at the prince, not claw out that smirk. Her hands were trembling ... with restrain or the blood loss, she didn't give a care.

Azryle's quicksilver eyes missed nothing—not even the scratches of the Pojekk's talons bleeding on her neck. But he didn't answer to Syrene as he beheld the confused sorceress holding Syrene upright. "Do not sleep tonight." Not an order—an advice. His gaze again slid to Syrene, and jerked his head. "You're with me."

Like Saqa she was. She gritted her teeth. "Did you send that beast for training." Not entirely a question. Her rage was a living, blazing fire in her veins, her temple seemed to be pounding with it.

The prince smiled terribly. "So what if it was?"

Even Faolin seemed to be fuming beside her, content to shred his eyes out. But the sorceress' posture ... her face was a portrait of lethal calm, chin-length white hair near-gleaming in the moonlight. But Faolin remained quiet.

Azryle's gaze sunk to Syrene's blood-drenched waist again. He extended his scar-flecked hand. "Come."

It was Faolin who spoke. "She's going nowhere with you." Her words flat, unyielding—of someone settled into being listened to and complied with. Her chin high, back straight. Syrene then glimpsed it, if the calluses on the sorceress' hands hadn't already been an indication.

A warrior of words, steel, heart. A warrior by blood, in all aspects, that's who Faolin Wisflave was. A weaponized fighter, a gloriously deadly slayer.

Azryle's extended hand lowered, only to cross his arms over his broad chest. It was then Syrene noticed the edge of a hidden dagger peeking out through the dark cloth at his elbow, how heavily armed he was. "Then where, exactly, is she going?"

But Faolin snapped, her voice still low but not weak, "She could have died."

The ripper's sheer gaze ran over Syrene, and simply asked, "Did she?" Faolin seemed content to retort, but he cut her off, holding Syrene's gaze. "I am in no mood to spend my night here." Then—

There was a grip on Syrene's waist, around the wound ... the agony diluted like splashing water over scorching steel. A groan of pleasure began rushing to her throat but she clamped it down as she peered up at the prince—caught his hand balled in a fist, as if clutching her wound. His face, though, bared nothing.

He lifted his thick, ridiculously perfect brows at her. "There is another lesson today. A healer is lying in wait for you at the apartment, to demonstrate healing for you."

Faolin stiffened under Syrene's touch.

"Can you walk?" His Highness' gaze slowly descended to her legs—surveying for blood on the dress concealing them. And she could have sworn those unclothing silver eyes lingered longer at her right calf, as if he could perceive the scar of the wolf bite from Lucran concealed behind the thin cloth.

Syrene snapped, "Yes, I can walk."

She attempted to slide her arm off Faolin's shoulder, but the sorceress seemed reluctant to let her. She was holding the Prince of Cleystein's gaze, nothing but promise of slow death in her lilac eyes. "I hear you're one of the very few rippers left on Ianov, Your Highness. Any harm comes to her, I wouldn't entirely hate to reduce the tally."

To Syrene's eternal surprise, Azryle clutched at his chest in mock despair—utterly unfazed by the open threat to the Prince of Cleystein—"How very rude of you, my Lady."