Border Lair by Bianca D'Arc Page A

family was targeted by Lucan. Even back then, he had designs on the throne of Skithdron and worked to throw your country into chaos. You were too close to King Jon and his sons. Too protective. Too smart. Lucan needed you out of the way. He succeeded when he ordered his assassins to kill your family. You left the king’s service and his way was clear.”

    Jared was as near to tears as he’d come since that day he had learned his wife and young son were dead. To learn finally who was responsible was both a terrible shock and, oddly, a relief. Jared felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders. It focused him. As did his anger.
    Jared’s anger was slow to build, slow to burn, but once it got going, it was an unstoppable inferno. He felt the fire rising in his veins, but he needed to have all the facts before he would decide on a course of action. The wisdom of his years had taught him to think before loosing the rage within him. While it was still possible to reason somewhat clearly, he needed to hear everything Darian knew.
    “Are you sure? The Lucan I met years ago was a sweet child.”
    Darian scoffed, “He’s a maniac, Jared. I believe he killed his own father.
    Do you think ordering the deaths of an innocent woman and child would bother such a demon?”
    “Sweet Mother of All.”
    Jared staggered to his feet, emotion overwhelming him. He fought down the sizzling anger, but it bubbled up from within, threatening to break him into a million pieces, never to be reassembled. All the years he’d wasted, blaming himself for something perpetrated by an enemy.
    Certainly, he still felt remorse over not being there to defend his family when Lucan’s assassins came to call, but knowing their deaths hadn’t been random violence somehow made it easier to bear his own guilt. The assassins would have waited until he was gone from home to hit their targets, no matter if he were down the road or in another country. When Skithdronian assassins targeted a person, they didn’t miss.
    Now Jared knew where to place the blame for his family’s demise, the anger and shock of it boiled through his veins like acid. Lucan had won. He’d succeeded in taking Jared from the work he loved for his king and his land, and nearly succeeded in taking Jared’s life too. If not for Kelzy, he would have killed himself in his grief long ago. Only the dragon had saved him, bringing him a new purpose.
    But Jared’s family wasn’t the only one to pay the price for Lucan’s political designs. No, the old king and his wife had been murdered too. Soon after Jared left the court because of the tragedy in his life, King Jon and his Queen had been killed, forcing young Roland to assume the throne long before his time.
    Like patterns in the sand, the lines of deceit were becoming clear. Jared’s mind spun as he realized the depths of Lucan’s treachery. His family’s destruction was just the beginning of the devastation Lucan had visited upon the people of Draconia. Jared had felt terrible guilt at the deaths of the king and queen, thinking if he’d only stayed at court, he might somehow have prevented their murders.
    But Jared had been in too much pain at the time. He’d carried his grief with him every day—for his wife and son—but also for the king he had served and loved as a brother. So much death. So much treachery!
    Jared’s hands balled into fists, his thoughts boiling up until he thought he might explode. Blindly, he moved toward the door. He didn’t know where he was going, but he had to do something. He had to loose the anger, grief, sorrow and overwhelming pain in his soul for all that had been lost. So damn much destroyed! So much pain. So much waste.
    Suddenly, Kelzy was there, her warm breath bathing him in comfort as the years of sorrow engulfed him. He reached out to the one living being he’d allowed himself to care for and wrapped his arms around her neck. Jared buried his face against her gleaming