Claiming the Prince: Book One Read Online Free Page A

Riker only stood there, staring back. Magda could’ve attributed it to some inner courage or even foolish bravado, but the truth was he simply didn’t know any better.
    Finally, Damion turned back to Magda as if Riker hadn’t spoken at all, which wasn’t unusual. Princes were, in some ways, the weakest of the noble Pixie blood. Or at least, they were treated that way. Pawns, in other words. Many were so pampered, coddled, and heavily guarded that they knew little of the truth outside their provinces and rarely needed to fight. Riker would have been bested by the weakest of the Princes back in the Lands. He didn’t have even the most basic understanding of how to fight or how to use his magic. It had been allowed to lay fallow. His parents had insisted that she not attempt to teach him anything. A wish she had respected because she knew how difficult it was not to use magic, especially in this world where every task seemed laborious to the extreme.
    “Who is Python?” Damion asked.
    “An oracle,” she said, nudging Mr. Fuller gently with her foot, though he wasn’t put off.
    “An oracle, here?” he said. “I thought the Throne had them all assassinated.”
    “Why do you think Python came here?”
    Damion seemed to turn inward, but his silence was almost as unsettling as when he spoke. Already, she was starting to think like she had in the old world, strategizing, stretching out of herself to pick up the moods around her. But it was harder here. Too much metal everywhere. A throbbing ache bloomed behind her eyes.
    Riker, always aware of her, moved to her side, rubbing the back of her neck. “Are you all right?” he asked softly.
    “We’ll go to the oracle,” she said to Damion.
    Riker leaned in. “Can’t we go to bed first?”
    She shrugged him off. “No. We leave now. It will take us a while to walk there.”
    “Why don’t we ride our bikes?” Riker asked.
    “Damion has never ridden a bike,” she pointed out.
    Riker sagged. “Do I have to go?”
    “No,” Damion said. “You’d just slow us down.”
    A defiant glare rose up on Riker’s face. “I’m going. Just let me put on some clothes first.”
    “Please,” Damion muttered.
    “Don’t leave without me,” Riker said as he started towards their house.
    Compared to the others it was shabby. A pang of shame struck her. She was the daughter of Vivanna, who had been Radiant of the Eastern Cliffs.Magda had been born in the fortress of Stonehigh at Crystal Falls. This was not the life she’d been raised for, not the life she had imagined for herself. What would her mother have said, if she saw the way Magda lived now? Exiled, living in a tiny squalid house overseen by a knocker, suppressing her magic . . . But then, her mother had fought and killed two of her own sisters and a cousin to assume rights over the family. What kind of life was that?
    Once, not so long ago, Magda had been proud of her mother, but in the years that she’d lived in the human world, she’d begun to question and then to hate what the families did to themselves. When she had entered into combat with Alanna, her older cousin, all those years ago, she had done so because she was arrogant and entitled. She had no thoughts of her people or justice or even the riches and power. She had fought to become the head of the family because she’d felt it belonged to her—that it was her right to rule.
    She didn’t want to be that person again. So maybe Frank had been right. Maybe taking Damion in was a mistake. If his presence only served to bring back those cast-off vestiges of her old self, then maybe it would be better if he left. There were other safe havens in this world, numerous, in fact. Though she didn’t know how welcoming they would be to a Pixie warrior.
    He had taken a silent position behind her shoulder, just as a warrior of a Rae should, stoic and alert.
    “I want to make something clear to you, Damion,” she said.
    His gaze slid over to her, but he kept his