Wicked Crown (Shattered Kingdom Book 2)

by Angelina J. Steffort

  The last Dragon King. Gandrett’s heart missed a beat.

  “The last Dragon King,” she repeated, hoping someone would laugh at her, tell her it had been a joke. But from Joshua’s emerald eyes, Raynar Leyon studied her with the lethal gaze of a predator. His nostrils flared with interest at what he scented.

  “And you are—” He cocked his head at her.

  Gandrett wanted to answer his question with a sword to the gut, but that would mean she would kill Joshua, too, if there was anything left of him in there. So she let go of Brax, who shifted behind her, and let both her swords sink to her sides. “It doesn’t matter who I am.” Her voice was surprisingly steady for the way her heart was racing from fear. Fear of what might happen if this truly was the last Dragon King before her. Her sword would mean nothing then, and her magic—

  She glanced at Nehelon, who met her gaze with that same fear tainting the clear blue of his eyes. No, he seemed to say. Don’t show him what you’re capable of. Don’t let him see your magic.

  Gandrett blinked, the only sign she understood.

  “The crown doesn’t belong to you,” she said, addressing the Dragon King with as little respect as he deserved instead of answering his question, and earned a laugh that reminded her of fire—icy, turquoise fire. “And neither does this body.”

  Much to her surprise, Raynar Leyon didn’t get furious and attack in an all-consuming fire but eyed her with amusement.

  It didn’t matter—for now—that she couldn’t figure an explanation of how the Dragon King had returned from the dead. Neredyn history taught that the last human-Fae Alliance had defeated the Dragon King. For now, all that mattered was that the last Dragon King was back and had occupied the Prince of Sives’s body—and killed the Lord of Ackwood. What else had he done since he had taken over Joshua? How long had he been using the prince’s skin?

  “You will find, my dear,” the Dragon King said with a grimace that made Joshua’s handsome features distort with viciousness, “that after seven-hundred years without a body, you don’t really care who it belongs to—as long as it is a body.” He fashioned a smile that was more a threat than anything as his eyes roved over her. “I would have taken yours had I had the chance. But this one must suffice—for now.” He tapped the crown on his head. “And it is a rather important one, so I’ve learned … the Prince of Sives”—a glance over his shoulder to the foot of the dais where Lord Tyrem’s body was sprawled in blood—“King of Sives, I suppose.”

  Brax huffed his disagreement over Gandrett’s shoulder.

  Thank the gods the Dragon King didn’t seem to notice—or didn’t care—instead, he angled his head, pinning his focus on Gandrett as if he was appraising a gem. “And I must say I am quite impressed with the collection of women the King of Sives has acquired. Not so bad after all—”

  Brax coughed behind her while Nehelon gritted his teeth, unable to keep all of his emotions wiped off his features. As for Gandrett, she didn’t care as much that the general’s eyes kept grazing her body as much as what other women he was talking about. Mckenzie and Addie? Had he hurt anyone? And if—

  Her eyes darted past the Dragon King to the motionless body of Lord Tyrem. How could this have happened? How could this creature from history books have snuck into the body of the prince she had rescued a little over a month ago? How—

  Her eyes followed the corridor of guards who were just standing, waiting … for an order to attack, for something to happen, Gandrett couldn’t tell, but their faces were all blank—

  All except for one. A familiar tan, brown-eyed man was the only one who seemed to notice her gaze, and he inclined his head ever so slightly. A sign, maybe, that he would support them if they attacked. Kyle, Gandrett remembered his name.

  She needed to do something. Needed to get Brax out so at least one heir to Ackwood was safe. Needed to make sure Mckenzie and her mother were far, far away from the Dragon King.

  “Them?” The Dragon King followed Gandrett’s gaze. “Don’t count on their aid. They follow my orders now.” He shrugged. “Comes with the powers bestowed by the god of dragons, you know? Immortality. Mind control—” He took another step forward, getting close enough that Gandrett could have easily stuck him with her sword, had she dared. “I could use that on you, my dear,” he said with a velvet tone that sent a shudder down her spine—it could have been from the cold emanating from the Dragon King, too.

  “You are not going to touch her.” Nehelon stepped forward, sword at the ready. “I don’t care if I slice open the Prince of Sives—“

  “King,” Raynar Leyon corrected with a feral grin. “King of Sives.”

  “Whatever,” Nehelon hissed. “If you touch her, I swear to your god of dragons that I will take your head—again.”

  Nehelon’s words sent another wave of shudders down Gandrett’s spine as she realized what Nehelon had just admitted. That he was the one who had killed the last Dragon King—and just how powerful he had to truly be. She couldn’t help but glance sideways at him, awe and fear weaving together as she beheld the male who seemed so harmless under his glamours despite the muscles and the lethal gaze.

  “You won’t touch him,” Brax snarled at the man who had ended a reign of terror with his sword, finally breaking. “This is my brother.”

  Nehelon just growled at Brax with a glance over his shoulder, sword not moving an inch from where he was holding it before his chest. “This is not your brother. This is an evil that will infest Neredyn anew if you don’t let me end it now.”

  “He might still be in there.” Devastation was heavier in Brax’s voice than hope.

  “If you are talking about that weak boy I eradicated from this body,“ Raynar Leyon said with a smirk and ran his hand through the golden-brown locks on Joshua’s head, “you may be disappointed to know that there wasn’t enough space in here for both of us.”

  Gandrett studied the man from top to bottom for a sign—any sign of Joshua.

  And found none.

  “If Joshua was still in there, he would never kill your father,” she said to Brax, hoping that she was wrong, that there was hope for Joshua. Otherwise, the dream of a united Sives would be history.

  “He tried to kill you when he was under Linniue’s spell,” Brax reminded her of those painful hours in the dungeons of Eedwood Castle.

  Brax was right. They couldn’t know for sure if Joshua was gone.

  “Ahhh, my trusted servant who has sacrificed this body for me to inhabit,” Raynar said with something like admiration in his cold voice.

  It all fell into place in Gandrett’s mind. Linniue had been working toward her son becoming the emperor of Neredyn, but—

  “She never wanted Joshua to rule,” she finished her thought aloud. “She was preparing a ruler who would be under her command until—“

  “Until a real ruler takes his place,” Raynar cut her off.

  “Nobody would have noticed until it was too late…” Brax added in little more than a whisper.

  “But someone got in the way,” Raynar hissed, his gaze at her suggesting he knew exactly who that someone was. “Someone took away the last vessel for Shygon.”

  Armand didn’t know how much longer he would be able to hold his breath. He and Prince Taghi had been hiding by the door just within earshot of the conversation inside—a conversation that explained fairly well why the guards of Ackwood palace had fought the order of the chancellor to stand down and attacked the youngest Brenheran son.

  They had heard the noise of the fight and the scream, and when they had seen that the chancellor and Gandrett had the situation under control, they hid to be able to create an extra moment of surprise later if needed.

  His stomach still turned at the thought of leaving the fighting to someone else even if the chancellor would have easily taken all twelve of those guards on himself. It had been seeing Gandrett with two swords, dancing her path through blood and gore until the door was clear. How could he have never noticed … all those week
s she had spent at Eedwood Castle, and he had never once seen her for what she was. A Child of Vala, just like Deelah. Just not Vala-blessed—even if Gandrett’s magic seemed to be way stronger than what Deelah could ever conjure.

  That was why they hadn’t interfered. He had known they could handle themselves. If not with swords, then with magic.

  Armand had used that tactic plenty of times with his men when he had fought the Brenheran mercenaries in central Sives—been an ace up the main party’s sleeve—and much to Prince Taghi’s credit, he played along with it, leaving the lead to Armand.

  Now that they had heard what they had heard, Armand was no longer sure if anyone could help Gandrett, Brax, and the chancellor.

  The last Dragon King. In Joshua’s body. By Vala, how could that have happened?

  He had witnessed the effect of the Dragon Water on Joshua, had seen the temple of Shygon in the catacombs of Eedwood Castle, but had anyone told him that the efforts of the Shygon cult were toward raising the Dragon King—

  He swallowed hard, and a glance at Taghi told him that the prince was going through similar thoughts.

  This wasn’t what he had signed up for when he had agreed to become the King of Sives’s chancellor.

  If it was true that Raynar, the Dragon King, had taken possession of Joshua’s body, then his King of Sives might be lost. Worse than that—all of Neredyn might be lost. They needed a plan, and fast, to capture the man and find a way to drive that demon from Joshua’s body.

  As he listened to the voices inside, he noticed that there was one person missing. One person who was supposed to have been with Gandrett at all times. One person whom he had let wander through the palace alone—

  “I need to go,” he whispered at Taghi, who raised a groomed eyebrow and glanced to the left and to the right, a silent question which direction Armand was intending to leave.

  Armand shrugged in response. He had no clue. Addie might very well be in Gandrett’s chambers. He could see Gandrett tying Addie to a chair to prevent her from following the summons in her mind.

  But the chances were that if Joshua and something to do with a dragon was involved, Addie would be part of the equation. Linniue had intended to sacrifice the girl in order to receive the dragon god’s power for Joshua.

  Armand listened intently, trying to pick up anything that gave a hint about Addie’s whereabouts.

  “Nobody would have noticed until it was too late…” someone whispered. They had been talking about Linniue sacrificing her son to give the Dragon King a new body.

  “But someone got in the way. Someone took away the last vessel for Shygon,” the Dragon King hissed, the sound of a snake slithering over stone and leaves—and the air around them chilled as if someone opened a window in the middle of a winter night. “And tonight, the vessel found me.”

  Armand felt like throwing up. The Dragon King had Addie. It was all he could do not to leap to his feet and run into the great hall and expose himself. As if Taghi knew, he grabbed Armand by the sleeve and shook his head.

  “That’s the woman from the solstice?” Taghi asked so quietly Armand had to lean closer to hear.

  He nodded. And he needed to find her. Gods, if she was still alive.

  “I finished what my servant failed to accomplish—” the Dragon King continued. “Not entirely failed. She did offer her own life to make up for the lost vessel … so I’ve heard.”

  Heard where? Who had told him where to find Addie? Who was he working with?

  And more importantly: finished … did that mean Addie was dead? Armand’s chest tightened, and his fingers, sheathed in sweat, slipped off the hilt of his sword.

  If he only knew where to start, he would go looking for her right now. Hard as it was, Armand ground his teeth and stayed in place.

  “And tonight, the vessel found me.” Raynar flashed his teeth at Gandrett as he waited for his words to sink in.

  Addie. No. All of a sudden, he was frozen to the core.

  She couldn’t be dead. They had done everything right. They had defeated Linniue in Eedwood. They had saved Addie. They—

  “Where is she?” It was Nehelon who asked, voice as cold as the icy air that had filled the room. And Gandrett could have kissed him for doing so, for she didn’t think she had it in her to demand to know whether or not Addie was alive.

  “As if you care,” Raynar said with something more than amusement. “Your people don’t care about anyone else but themselves.”

  “My people,” Nehelon ground out, “are none of your concern.” He took a step toward the Dragon King, his sword ready to swing and his face hewn of stone. “Where is the girl?”

  Gandrett forced herself to stay where she was, Brax still there behind her. It was an impossibility to move even an inch without exposing him. And too many people had become collateral of the Shygon cult—of the loyal servants to the one god who seemed to be the patron saint of the Dragon King. She couldn’t make the mistake of drawing Raynar’s focus to Brax.

  “Well—” Raynar ignored Nehelon’s lethal stare and laughed at the expression that had settled on Gandrett’s face instead as she tried—tried and failed—to smooth it into boredom. “Adrienne is quite a delight.”

  Adrienne … Addie.

  “Such a shame she won’t last long as a bridge—” Raynar gazed to the northeast as if lost in a memory. Northeast—the tower where Gandrett had found Joshua before. She had to get out of here and get to Addie… But not without Brax and Nehelon. “Those rose-petal lips are quite something.” Raynar turned his focus back on Gandrett as if he had noticed her momentary absence. “I wonder if I should taste them before I dispose of her.”

  Hot boiling rage shot through Gandrett’s core, blasting the cold out of her system. “If you as much as come near her lips, I swear to Galloris I will end you.” She chose the god of war to swear to, for he should be the one she served from now on. If they couldn’t find a way to get Joshua back, Neredyn would be under war. And she would be in the middle. Fighting for everything she held dear. For Addie and Brax, for Mckenzie, for Armand, and for that Fae male who was eying her with lazy eyes. And she would not stop until the world was free of any trace of the Shygon cult and the Dragon King. “I will end you,” she repeated, “and I promise it will be a death worthy of everything you have done.”

  She more felt than saw Nehelon go rigid and hold his breath at her words.

  Provoking the monster, that was what she was doing. Intimidating an immortal Shygon-blessed bringer of death and destruction. And yet, her pulse was slowly returning to a steady pace, her fear ebbing as she channeled her rage into a killing calm. Inside her chest, her powers stirred and flexed, searching their way along her arms into her palms.

  “Quite a woman you chose, Nehelon,” Raynar said to the Fae, his eyes—Joshua’s emerald eyes—glinting with excitement.

  “I didn’t choose shit,” Nehelon growled, and Gandrett felt his words stinging as if he had pushed a thorn into her chest. “She’s more like a stray dog.”

  Gandrett’s magic answered to the pain of his rejection, to how he denied he cared even the tiniest bit. Of course, her fighter mind, her trained warrior-self, knew that he was saying it to protect her from the Dragon King. But it didn’t make it hurt any less. It didn’t make the heat of her magic boil any less as it burst from her in a spray of flames, making the icy air that filled the space between them and Raynar sizzle and steam.

  Brax gasped behind her as if he had awoken from minutes of petrification, and Gandrett knew that she had made a mistake.

  Never let your temper rule your decisions. The Meister had hammered that into her head for years and years. And now that it counted—

  She schooled her emotions into non-existence, watching her fire give way to the Dragon King’s ice as her breath clouded before her face once more.

  “Interesting,” was all he said as he turned and walked back to the dais with the guards closing the corridor behind him, swords out and ready.


  Neither Nehelon nor Brax spoke. Nehelon seemed to have turned into a statue again as he watched the Dragon King climb over Lord Tyrem’s corpse and back into his makeshift throne with preternatural grace. Gandrett shivered and was about to grab Brax and shove him out the door while Raynar was adjusting the crown on his head.

  “Nice to be reunited with this crown after seven hundred years … so many memories,” he said in a honeyed voice that made Gandrett sick.

  Yeah. Memories of blood and death and terror.

  “I would have just killed you,” he said, his head turning to Gandrett with the same feral smile, “but you know, now that I have seen just what you are capable of…”

  Nehelon was in front of her before she could even think. Too fast to pass for a human. By now, everyone in this room had to know what he was. The hint that Raynar knew him meant that Nehelon had to be at least seven-hundred years old. Brax had to have noticed, too. But he had also seen her use her magic—

  Gandrett risked a glance over her shoulder and found Brax staring back at her with eyes so shadowed that it was hard to tell if he was shocked or angry. He studied her for a moment then glanced at his dead father, his expression showing the same devastation. She had to get him out of here before anyone could harm him—harm him more than he had already been harmed.

  What had happened here tonight would leave a mark on him.

  “Take her to the tower,” Raynar ordered, and the guards started marching toward them, all but Kyle fashioning dead, expressionless faces that did not indicate the slightest fear of the fae that stood between them and her.

  Nehelon growled again, swinging his sword in anticipation.

  The Dragon King had crossed an ankle over a knee and was watching with a bored face as the first guard fell under one precise blow of Nehelon’s blade. Then another as the rest of them attacked, determined to make their way around the Fae.