Scorched by Darkness by Alexandra Ivy Page A

predictably puzzled. “What’s it?”
    “Why she disappeared.”
    “Why who disappeared?”
    “Your mother, of course.”
    His eyes narrowed. “Are you delirious?”
    “No.” She released a rough sigh. She was making a mess of this. “I just remembered something my mother told me.”
    “Rya—”
    “Please just listen.”
    “Fine,” he muttered, his tone flat.
    Rya ignored his less than encouraging attitude. She was beginning to suspect that beneath all his grim control was a male who harbored intense emotions.
    “Fire imps live deep in volcanoes. Many spend their entire life never traveling away from their home,” she said, trying to recall as many details as she could about the elusive fey. “That’s why so few people know about them.”
    Torque snorted. “Obviously my father did.”
    “Yes.” She gave a lift of her shoulder. There was one obvious reason a fey would have attracted the attention of a dragon. “They must have petitioned for a favor.”
    “And I was the payment.” The sapphire eyes darkened. “I’d already figured out that much.”
    She slid her hand up to lightly touch his throat. “But you assumed that your mother abandoned you.”
    Smoke curled from his nose. “She did.”
    “She didn’t have any choice,” she told him. “A fire imp has to be near lava to survive.”
    He scowled. “What?”
    “From what my mother managed to discover, the creatures have a magical dependency on the lava.”
    Torque looked far from impressed by her revelation. “If that was true she would have died in the harem,” he scoffed. “The last time I checked there was no lava there.”
    “Any fey can survive for a short length of time even if they are separated from the source of their magic.”
    “Just as they can easily be separated from their child.”
    She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She couldn’t blame Torque for being reluctant to consider the idea that his mother might have a legitimate reason for leaving. Hope could be a dangerous thing.
    Still, she wasn’t going to let him turn his back on a potential explanation. It was important to her. Why? Hmm. Not because she was coming to care about him. Of course not. But…she simply couldn’t bear the thought of anyone living with the belief his mother had never loved him.
    Yeah. That was it.
    “Don’t you see? That would explain why your mother had to leave so quickly after your birth,” she insisted. “She must have been desperate to get home.”
    His expression remained hard. “Even if that is true, she could have returned to visit me.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Sure about what?”
    She clicked her tongue. He was being deliberately obtuse.
    There were times when he was so…male.
    “Are you sure she didn’t try to see you?” she said in slow, concise tones. “You would have been the property of your father, which meant he would decide who could or couldn’t visit the nursery. She might have returned only to be denied entrance into Pyre’s lair.”
    Something flared through his sapphire eyes before he was giving a sharp shake of his head.
    “I don’t want to discuss my mother.”
    “But—”
    He rudely overrode her protest. “I want to discuss your suicidal tendencies.”
    “Stop saying that,” she snapped, wondering if he was deliberately trying to piss her off. What better way to distract her? “I’m not trying to kill myself. I was just trying to find a way out of here. I didn’t expect to be caught in a maze.”
    “That’s why you don’t rush into unknown places without making sure you won’t be trapped.”
    He had a point. She’d impulsively used her shadow without a full understanding of the prison surrounding them.
    That didn’t mean, however, she was going to admit she had been reckless. Not when he was doing his best to annoy her.
    “Since when did you become my father?” she instead muttered.
    “Father?” he snarled, horrified shock rippling over his lean face.
    She sent him a chiding frown.