I hadn’t been with anyone in… longer than I cared to admit. That was all.
Then she swayed against me with the rhythm of the carriage and I stopped thinking at all.
“He feels so good,”I heard her think. "Stars, why does he have to feel so good?”
I chuckled and brought my lips to her ear. “I can make you feel even better if you’ll let me, but you have to ask nicely.”
“Don’t toy with me, Rhys,” she moaned in protest.
My name on her lips was the sweetest benediction. “I’m not. I’m trying to give you what you want.”
She trembled so hard I could hear her teeth chattering. “You’re trying to make me beg. A princess never begs.”
“There’s no princess here. It’s only me and my mate, and I want to hear those words from you.”
Elena leaned closer, her head dropping until our breath mingled. I ached to be inside her, with her heat constricting around me. Her lips brushed against my ear, and my breath caught in my chest.
Something was wrong. I sensed the change in the air and whatever Elena was about to say died on her lips. I wrapped my arms around her in a vice and braced my legs on the opposite bench seats. There was a riot of sound—horses baying in protest and pain, the shouts of men and battle cries of enemies, the clash of wood against wood before rending into splinters—but I had ears only for Elena.
She wrapped her arms around my waist and pressed her face into my chest. My senses attuned to the conversation around us and in a split second, I shifted to my half-Dragon form, my wings spreading around us as the carriage crumbled into nothing.
“What in Goddess’ name was that?”Elena shrieked through her thoughts. She twisted in my arms to look down at the onslaught. Swords clanged and sparked as blood stained the snow red.
“Put me down,” Elena ordered as soon as she realized what was happening. “I can’t leave them.”
“No chance in Slaine,” I answered, scanning our surroundings for a safe place to leave her while I went back. My dragon seethed, wanting blood, wanting vengeance. His mate was threatened, and he’d turn bone to ash before he let any harm come to her.
“We have to help them,” she shouted above the roaring wind. “We can’t abandon them.”
“I don’t plan to,” I said. “I’ll find somewhere safe for you to wait and then I’ll come back for you.”
As I said the words, I spotted an outcropping of rock in the cliffs that led to the docks. The scent of salt and rotting seaweed met my nose. I released Elena, who shoved ineffectually against my chest.
“Take me back, damn you. I won’t abandon them.” The haze of desire that had brought a flush to her cheeks was now a flush of anger.
I leapt into the wind. “Don’t move from this spot until I come for you, Elena, I mean it.”
Knowing I had about as much a chance that she would obey as I had to turn into a trout, I flew back to the fray, hoping for once in her life she would obey a command. There were more than twice the number of human attackers this time. I could scent their poisoned swords and wondered if I hadn’t been so distracted with Elena if I would have sensed them. Could I have prevented the attack?
Swooping in from above, I took out human after human with my bare claws until the blood lust had me thick in its clutches. A roar filledmy ears, consuming me. All I knew was the scent of blood and the rending of flesh.
My nostrils flared from the overwhelming reek of the poison: dragon’s bane. One slice from a sword would have a Dragon-Clansman at death’s door, with no hope of a cure from the poisoned blood that would take them from the inside out. They’d learned they couldn’t best us with weapons alone, so this time they were going to make sure to take as many of my people down with them as possible.
Even as I was in the throes of battle, I knew what that meant. They knew we were coming and had been waiting for us.
I saw one, two three, of my clansmen go down with daggers protruding from their torsos by the end. Their bodies lay, barely breathing, amongst our faceless attackers.
One of my clansmen, Berrick, stepped to my side and wiped a forearm over his face. “It seems a waste.”
“What does?” I asked through heaving breaths.
“They know they’re no match for us, let alone you. Why attack us this way if they know they’re going to die?”
“Let’s not stick around to find out. Gather the men and the wounded. I must find my mate.”
“Yes, my lord. What about the humans?” Berrick asked.
I considered ordering them to leave their bodies to rot for carrion, but decided against it. “Load them on a litter. We’ll give them to the ocean and have done with it.”
