Chapter 26

Battleground

**

Dracul

I felt my heart pounding in my chest, thundering against my ribcage. My breath came in quick gasps as I ran.

Something was off, something was very, very off. I knew it from the moment I opened the bedroom door and found Elena gone.

She was out there, somewhere in the wildlands of my kingdom. She was out there in a place where dragons roamed freely and did not suffer fools, or humans very well.

As far as many of my kind were concerned, humans were food and nothing more. And if one stumbled upon their path, they would not care if she was royalty. In fact, no one knew that she was under my protection.

Without my protection, she was vulnerable.

She was prey.

I felt a shudder move down my spine and I picked up the pace.

I couldn't remember the last time that I had run wild through the trees of these forests. I had been ruler for so long that the simplicities of the hunt had long eluded me.

I had been ruler for so long that it was easy to lose sight of what