Bonding Fire: A Clean YA Dragon Shifter Romantic Fantasy Adventure With A Unique Magic Spin (The Throne of Dragons Book 1) by Ava Richardson

Author:Ava Richardson [Richardson, Ava]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

GWEN

“W-we should return to the sickroom,” Gwen managed to stammer when she pulled back from the kiss. If she stayed here in the garden—with Tagaris standing there, looking so absurdly handsome and noble, like a hero out of the fairy stories Nesta still liked to read—she might do something foolish like kiss him again.

She turned back toward the queen’s quarters, gathering her skirts up to allow her to move swiftly toward the door. But of course, she could never move as quickly as a dragon. It was only a moment later that Tagaris was at her side, offering her his arm to escort her indoors. She accepted it, even as she felt her blush deepen a little more.

Why did this feel so right? Her arm in his. Leaning into his side for support. Gwen tried not to look at him as they crossed the courtyard toward Eupraxia’s private quarters. If she caught his face in the sunlight, she might never be able to stop staring, wondering about this man and the kiss and the way she caught him looking at her sometimes.

She took a deep breath and tried to clear her head. The situation with Tagaris was confusing, but that wasn’t where her focus needed to be anyway. She wasn’t there to be courted by the prince. She was there to cure the princess. She needed to focus on the healing task at hand, which was unraveling the truth of Comnena’s illness. Now that she’d convinced herself that Strake’s suggestions had been ridiculous, Tagaris was no longer a suspect. So who was?

“Those nobles who were speaking to you… Do you think there’s a chance they could be behind the poisoning?”

She snuck a peek at his face and saw him frowning thoughtfully, clearly taking her question seriously. “No,” he finally said. “I don’t consider it likely.”

“But they made it clear that they’d prefer it if the princess died.”

“Oh yes, that’s certainly true,” he agreed. “And yet, I think they’re more opportunistic than actively murderous. They’d be happy to take advantage of a weakness in the reigning family, but if they had the audacity to make this kind of strike, they’d have done so years ago. And they wouldn’t have gone after Comnena. Eupraxia is the one they want to be rid of. If the queen died and Comnena inherited the throne, she is still young enough for them to try to manipulate. No, nothing about this scheme sounds like them.”

She nodded, accepting his reasoning. “Then we still don’t know who could be responsible. I know that losing the apothecary has made that more complicated, but perhaps if we were to return to his shop⁠—”

“That’s likely been cleared by now,” Tagaris said. “Word of his death would have spread, and the contents of his shop would have been up for grabs. I wouldn’t be surprised to find some new, illegal haunt had already popped up in its place, with every trace of the previous shop erased.”

“Then we’ll interview his neighbors. We’ll find someone who has some idea of who might have killed him.

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