Free Claiming the Prince: Book One by Cora Avery Page A

try to claim me and I will heal you, and then we can both escape this cesspit.”
    “I swear,” she said.
    “That was quick.”
    “Someone has a high opinion of himself.”
    “Every Rae wants a Prince.”
    “And every Prince wants a Rae,” she retorted. “Or maybe there are exceptions.”
    He huffed. “You must move closer. The iron will prevent me from healing you completely, and I am weak, but I should be able to stop you from dying.”
    “I can’t move,” she said.
    “If you want to live, you must. Just lift your arm above your head, and I should be able to reach your hand.”
    Both of her arms were limp as dead snakes. She shut her eyes.
    Move, damn it .
    Inch by aching inch, her arm slid across the floor and upwards.
    “You have to straighten it out,” he said.
    “I’m trying.” Pain tore through her as she pushed her arm straight and even managed to scoot her body closer. Blackness cut across her vision. And then his hand closed around hers.
    She flew, soaring out of her pain and high above it. Strength surged through her, firming the flaccid muscles, lighting up her sluggish mind, purging even the iron weakness, so much that her stomach actually growled with hunger.
    Only when he ripped his hand away did she realize that she was taut with exhilaration, sparking from head to toe and deep down, gasping for breath, as though she’d been running for days. She rolled over and pushed up to her feet.
    Flat on his back, Kaelan panted. He was pale and wide-eyed.
    “Are you all right?” she asked, edging closer. The force of the iron pressed against her, but she felt temporarily inured to its malignant power, as if he’d given her some kind of shield against it.
    “I’m fine,” he said, raking his hand back through the thick shag of his light hair. Another Prince with blond hair, though his was dark gold where Endreas’s had been platinum. “I’ve never healed a Rae before.” His emerald green eyes met hers. “Is it always like that?”
    The only time she’d been healed by a Prince was when Endreas had done it. The two experiences could not have been more different.
    “I don’t know,” she said, crouching down by the grate. That’s when she noticed that the brand scars on her arms were gone. Not just healed, but vanished. She ran her fingers over her skin. She hadn’t known it was possible for the marks of iron to be healed.
    “What is it?” Kaelan asked.
    “Nothing,” she said, focusing on the grate again. “Are you going to be strong enough for this?”
    He sat up, gazing at her. A thin scar hooked under his left eye and traced along his cheekbone. Rather than detracting from his Princely good looks, it somehow made him more beautiful.
    “You look strong enough for both of us,” he said. “You look . . . I didn’t think I’d be able heal you so much.”
    She tapped her nails against the floor near the grate in a short pattern. “You may not wish to be claimed by a Rae, but you were made to heal them.”
    The big black rat reappeared at her summons, poking his twitchy little nose between the holes of the grate. Behind him, dozens of beady, glinting eyes peered up at her. She smiled. Her message had gotten through. He had brought his friends.
    She pressed her fingers to the top of his skull and imparted the image of the gloves into his mind, followed by a mountain of bread.
    As soon as she took her fingers away, the rat zipped out of the grate and squeezed under the wooden door. She watched him go and then reached down to press her fingers to the next rat. She glanced up at Kaelan, who was watching her guardedly.
    “I don’t suppose you have any more bread,” she said.
    His lips pressed.
    “We’ll just have to find some other way to reward them,” she said, sinking into the rat’s mind, “if we survive.”

A S THE ROOM filled with the din of dozens of rats gnawing and clawing at the soft shale floor, she fixed on Kaelan again.
    “How did you end up here?” she