Chapter 22

An exhausting, agonizing, terrifying two hours later, she was finally free. After making a show of kissing Kallaar goodnight, she let her bodyguards fall around her and headed back to her suite.

But once they were alone in a small hallway, one of them grabbed her by the hair, sending her diadem clattering to the stone floor.

Shanna screamed, but the guard clapped a hand around her mouth and scooped her up like a pile of sweetgrass to be dropped in a dragon's trough and carried her away.

She wasn't remotely surprised when he eventually dropped her on the floor of her stepfather's study. He and the other three guards remained close. "You could have simply had them escort me here."

Her stepfather said nothing, merely jerked his head toward the fireplace, where three guards restrained a stone-faced Penli.