Page 237 of Of Masks and Fury

Cyril’s whimper fueled the monster inside me, but it was Isi’s steady gaze that tamed it. My fierce minx stood with her father’s blade in her hand while blood trickled down her throat like war paint.

“You touch her again,” I snarled at the king, “and I’ll make thrones from your bones, crowns from your teeth, and I’ll build whatever kingdom she wants from your ruin.”

The earth shook as the dragons landed with thunderous impacts, their scales gleaming gold and green and deep crimson in the sunlight. Their wings folded in at their sides as they settled around the square’s perimeter. The villagers stared at them in awe.

I caught Isi’s eye, and her lips curved in that secret smile that always undid me. “You brought a storm for me.”

“Always.”

Maddox moved through the crowd with his companion herding people toward the dragons. Coralee’s companion strode ahead of them, scouting for threats while Naveah organized the loading of supplies and people.

The crowd’s mood shifted. Villagers who’d come to watch an execution now rushed forward to help, steadying friends and neighbors, helping them climb up onto waiting dragons.

Guards watched Isi’s father for orders, their blades half-raised but uncertainty clear in their stances.

“Attack,” he sputtered from beneath Pherin’s paws. “Stop them!”

Several guards lowered their weapons. Others stepped back entirely.

“The princess speaks the truth,” one muttered.

“I won’t kill innocents for a magical harvest,” another said, loud enough to carry.

The king’s authority was falling apart like wet paper, and he knew it.

“Told you dragons make everything better,” I told Isi.

Her grin widened. “Careful, rebel king.” Her voice had gone husky from the fight, but her eyes were sparkling with that fire I craved like breath. “Or I’ll start expecting grand gestures every time I face down a tyrant.”

I strode over and pulled her close, whispering by her ear. “Every day with you is grand, Minx, but I’d happily save the world-ending ones for another time.”

Pherin grumbled as Isi called her away, the firecat’s reluctance to leave the king clear in every movement. She shifted back into her minxpip form and flew over to land on Isi’s shoulder.

I could kill him. The thought was clean and simple. One command to Gavelle and it was done. But Isi had just stood in front of that crowd and shown them Cyril was deceived, not evil. Killing him now would make her a liar and me a tyrant, and we needed neither today. A dead king was just a martyr. A humiliated king who’d been disarmed by his own daughter in front of his own people was something the crowd would remember forever.

Let him live with it.

Isi’s father scrambled to his feet, brushing off his ceremonial robes in a futile attempt to restore his dignity. “You’ve destroyed everything.”

“I’ve freed our people,” Isi simply said, standing tall with his blade in her hand, every bit of her the amazing woman I’d seen in her from the start. “There’s a difference.”

She was glory incarnate, my blade-hearted love who’d faced down her nightmare and won. I stood at her side, her equal in the chaos we’d unleashed together.

She didn’t need me for her victory. She’d won this battle on her own.

“When I return,” she said, her voice carrying across the square, “it will be to end this farcicalmercypermanently.”

Her father’s face twisted. “Come back, and I’ll have an army waiting.”

Isi’s smile turned sharp. “Good. Because I’ll have one with me, and mine has dragons.”

Damn if I didn’t fall harder for her right then and there.

The last prisoners were loaded, and our team mounted dragons as well. Bags hung from the dragon spikes; food for our journey.

Companions shifted and settled on their bonded’s shoulders or laps.

When Isi turned away from her father, it was a dismissal, not a retreat.