Chapter 29
Kaylee
We should catch our mate a deer.
The voice in my head had been growing ever more insistent, and right now I was about ready to wish it away and go back to my old life.
Liar.
Alright, yeah, that was fair—nothing on this earth could ever make me want back to go to the way I’d been. Weak. Helpless. Standing there with my hands bound, watching Uther’s army about to destroy Rook…
Never again.
We were in agreement about that. I would destroy anyone who so much as looked at him the wrong way.
Because now I could. I wasn’t the scared little null anymore.
I was the first female dragon shifter in this territory in over a hundred years.
The thought was still a little overwhelming—there was so much about our world I didn’t know.
I had planned to do some research, but before Rook had gone away on his ‘business trip’ he’d made me agree to stay out of the library.
I never would have agreed, but he’d seemed genuinely concerned about something in there upsetting me—as if books could do that, or at least, not in a way I didn’t enjoy—and I wasn’t used to people being concerned about me.
Also, he'd brought out several of the romances I’d been looking at in there to keep me occupied while he was away.
I’d been tempted to rush through them all in an afternoon, but there was only a small selection in the library, and I wanted to savor each one, taking my time over each and every perfect sentence.
Which would have been much easier if I didn’t have a dragon inside my head making suggestions about slaughtering a herd of deer, or hunting down a dozen wild boar—whatever the fuck one of those was—or anything else equally unpleasant.
But if we—
No.
But—
No, I repeated firmly, and then set my book aside with a sigh. Rook had said his dragon didn’t start speaking to him until after the war, and most dragons never spoke, so I couldn’t help wondering how I’d got so…lucky to have mine speaking to me from before I even shifted.
I believe it was the trauma that gave me a voice, she said, after a moment of contemplation. As it did for our mate.
Trauma? Like the trauma of you interrupting my reading three times this chapter?
She huffed, but settled to the back of my mind as I continued reading. She seemed to enjoy it as much as I did, apart from when she was obsessing over impressing Rook. I, on the other hand, was definitely not obsessing over him. Much.
The book was almost finished by the time I felt what was becoming a familiar restlessness, an almost anxious sensation in my chest that had me lifting my eyes to the skies.
Will it always be like this? I asked my dragon. Will my body always be so... obsessed with him? With where he is?
Perhaps.
Well, that was a helpful answer. Guess she didn’t have any more idea about this whole mate business than I did. Which, honestly, seemed a bit unfair, seeing as how she was the one who decided Rook was our mate.
You were attracted to him long before I awoke and pointed out the obvious, she said primly inside my mind. I scoffed.
Just because he was less of an asshole than every other man I’ve met doesn’t mean I was attracted to him.
No, she replied tartly, but the fact you couldn’t stop thinking about him was a clue. I would have thought your more... physical reactions would have been a clue, too.
Yeah, I really missed having my head to myself right about now. I closed the book—it wasn’t like either of us was focusing on it anymore anyway—and got to my feet just as Rook stepped out of the house.
I narrowed my eyes. Why was he coming after the house, and not flying over it? And why did he look quite so... smug? Not that said smugness wasn’t hot as all hell, but that was totally not the point. A smug Rook usually spelled trouble. For me. Not that I didn’t enjoy some of that trouble...
I shook my head and crossed the grounds to him. Before I could say a word, he caught my waist and pulled me against him. His lips claimed mine with a furious need, and for a moment I allowed him inside, tasting his need, his desire, his perfection.
Then I drew back.
He reached for me and I stepped back again. A low rumble of frustration slipped from between his lips.
“Oh no you don’t, you overgrown lizard. You don’t get to come in here after being away on some mysterious business trip without even telling me how long you’re going to be gone—” which was way longer than I thought otherwise I’d have objected more, “—and then growl at me when you don’t get your own way. ”
He growled again and the sound did unholy things to me.
“Someone got a little big for her boots in my absence,” he said, his voice rough with need, and this time when he reached for me, my legs didn’t move. He pulled me against him again, and I felt his hardness jutting at me. I swallowed, heat pooling in my core at his nearness. Fuck, this man was hot.
And an asshole. Couldn’t forget that part.
But if he kissed me like that again I’d forget my own fucking name.
“Mine,” he growled against my lips.
“Yours,” I agreed, my voice little more than a breathy whisper. Fuck. I was in so much trouble.
He kissed me hard and slow ,and the combination turned my legs to jelly. Fuck, if he kept doing that, I was going to climb him like a tree ,and it was getting harder by the second to remember why I shouldn’t.
He is our mate. We should.
Not. Helping.
I will not help you with stupid decisions.
I groaned, half of the sound for her, half for him and the delicious, decadent, torturous way his tongue was playing mine. The whole world could burn down around us, and it wouldn’t be enough to make me break this kiss.
Then he retreated, taking his mouth from mine, and leaving my lips cool in his wake. A growl of frustration burst from me before I could stop it, and he chuckled low and short.
“Beautiful, feisty mate,” he praised, his eyes roving my body as he spoke. “But that growl will become a scream before the night is out.”
“Promises, promises,” I muttered, reaching for him again. He caught my hand, and tutted with a smirk.
“Patience, Dhoca. There’s something I need to show you first.”
My eyes flicked down to below his waistline and he let out another of those all-too-erotic chuckles. “Keep looking at me like that, little one, and that’s the only thing you’re going to be seeing for a month.”
“Fine by me,” I agreed, swiping my tongue across my lower lip. Fuck. What was it about this man that made me constantly horny, even when I was supposed to be pissed at him? Hell, especially when I was supposed to be pissed at him.
Mate.
“Don’t tempt me,” he rumbled, but I was shit at following orders so I reached for him, my hand cupping his cock through his pants. He sucked in a sharp breath around a muttered curse, and I couldn’t help the stab of satisfaction that I affected him so much.
He dropped his lips to my ear.
“And to think,” he murmured, “I spent all that time arranging your present, when I could have just come home and fucked you raw.”
I stiffened, then jerked my eyes up to meet his. “A present? For…me?”
“I don’t see any other gorgeous dragon shifters I happened to be mated to around here,” he said with a shrug, a hot, arrogant smirk lilting the corner of his mouth.
No-one had ever brought me a present. Not since my mom had passed.
And before then, it wasn’t like we’d had much money for anything that wasn’t necessary to keep up appearances.
My marriage to Dean had been supposed to fix things…
but I didn’t want to think about that right now.
About him. Not when this incredible man was standing in front of me, telling me he’d gone to trouble to bring me a present.
My eyes scanned his pockets greedily, excitement buzzing through me and splitting my lips into a grin.
“Where is it?”
He shook his head. “Think bigger.”
“Bigger?”
He ducked his head next to mine again, this time his voice conspiratorial. “What I brought for you won’t fit in my pockets, Dhoca.”
“Is it…another deer?”
He threw his head back and laughed at the exact moment my dragon voiced her approval of any deer-related gifts.
Rook had brought a couple already, although I hadn’t really thought of them as gifts…
more as less than subtle encouragements to work on my cooking skills.
But I didn’t want to appear ungrateful, so I kept my smile in place.
Rook winked, and his voice dropped to the husky rumble again. “Bigger.”
I drew in a breath, torn between my curiosity, and my desire to do something very intimate with his lips that I didn’t seem able to tear my eyes from. I hadn’t spent much time with this playful version of Rook, but I liked it. Liked every facet of him, even the ones I didn’t.
I was so fucked.