Lerin's Bride (Crystal Glass Dragons 3)

Why did seers have to act like such assholes?

“Your child will be like me,” she said with a smile.

Could seers read thoughts as well?

“What do you mean?”

She stayed quiet, torturing me while her middle and index fingers swirled little paths on the table. My children were to be seers? There was only one way that was possible.

“So she’s a witch.”

“With long dark hair, straight and thick, and dark eyes freckled with gold,” she answered.

I tried picturing her, but the images that formed in my mind weren’t as clear as the ones she seemed to see.

“She’s just barely shorter than you.”

Happiness flared in my stomach before I could stop it. Dragon-shifter women were all tall, and I wouldn’t know what to do with a woman as small as the one my cousin brought home. Reminding myself this wasn’t for pleasure, it was for the kingdom, I fought down the feelings.

“Her name?”

“Olive,” replied the seer.

Olive. It sounded strange. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but “Olive” wasn’t it.

“Tell me something about her.”

The seer smiled, and I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes at the dramatic pause that followed. She was still drawing it out to torture me, I swear. I shouldn’t have shown my disinterest when she first arrived. Storming out like that wasn’t wise. If it wasn’t for my father and older brother convincing me otherwise, I never would have agreed to this meeting today.

I didn’t need some mythical matchmaker telling me who I needed to be with. If I needed a woman, I’d find one on my own accord. In my own kingdom.

It was disgraceful that she was forcing us with nonshifters in the first place.

Then again, if my children were with a witch, they’d be seersanddragon shifters. That could bestow them with incredible power, magnetism, and abilities no other shifters or seers had. Just thinking about the possibilities was heady.

Maybe this could be worth it.

“She’s working in a bakery right now,” she murmured, looking into the middle distance. She’d told my cousin and my brother where theirs had worked. Maybe it was easier for her to identify than the nondescript inside of a house.

“Springfield is a giant city, there have to be dozens of bakeries.”

She laughed, seeming to snap back into the present. “Her apron there has a green swirl on it, go after that.”

I nodded, and as I stood, she added, “You’ll miss being here, but be glad to go.” There was a depth in her voice that I didn’t like—it was as if she was posing a riddle.

“I’ll be back again at nightfall tomorrow,” I said with a frown.

She bowed her head and then watched me go with those eerie black eyes of hers.

If I did become king, though, I’d have that seer thrown out immediately.

On shifting, I took flight into the night sky without anything besides a bag of clothes and some money to keep me afloat. If I was going to meet this woman, it wouldn’t be to win her affections with fancy trinkets.

And if she was rotten, I’d just have to come back empty-handed.

I didn’t need anyone interfering in the kingdom any more than they already had.