Otreg and Thelia were silent as they waited for news of Jose's recovery. It's been a week since Switch's attack and still nothing but silence after the agonizing screams that shook the whole castle for hours.
Kesar didn't leave Jose's side, not even to bathe. No, Thelia found out from Zargis that the male took Jose with him into the bathroom and washed her too. She thought it both sweet and disturbing, but she understood the depth of Kesar's love for the female he saved only two weeks before.
Now, hope was dim as it seemed Jose wouldn't wake. Nallu and Verah both said she should have woken by now. The girl was alive, but in a comatose sleep.
They fed her broth which Jose seemed to take only from Kesar. She seemed to sense when he wasn't around. Once when Otreg offered to keep an eye on her while Kesar went to his room to grab clothes, she began to scream and fight Otreg, needing only one male, one person.
No one knew what to do.
Kesar was more quiet than he used to be, but anger boiled beneath the surface. It was palpable. Even Zargis didn't dare say anything that might set the male off.
Thelia knew who that anger was for, knew Zargis waited to interrogate them until Kesar was ready to join. But she worried for the male. She worried for the dragon too.
There was no happy face in the castle as every staff knew what could happen to the female human that Kesar brought home, knew she could die at any moment. Thelia even saw Sayma sniffle, and Sayma never sniffled.
As the castle waited with prayers of hope and baited breath, a male snuck in and down to the dungeons, searching for one prisoner in particular. When he found him, the male sneered. "You can't do anything right!"
"I'd like to see you try to capture her with all the guards around!"
"You poisoned the wrong female!"
"I only did what I could to get close to the queen!" The prisoner cursed. "I was close!"
"Let me guess. You couldn't do it, could you? You couldn't stick the the blade with the extra poison I brewed into the queen's gut, could you?"
The prisoner leaned towards the unknown male, hatred in his eyes. "Get me out of here! I'll kill the queen and the king for humiliating me!"
The male laughed. I don't think so, brother. I'll show you how business should be taken care of. I'll make sure you hear the screams, smell the blood, and taste the fear."
"They were supposed to go to them! To make them hate the dragons they befriended."
"Then that's what I'll do, then take them somewhere safe and far so I can play with them!"
"They're mine! The queen is mine!"
"Oh no, brother. On that point, the queen was correct. She was never yours." With a gleeful laugh, the male left the dungeons, the prisoner screaming vengeance and bloody murder from his cell.