Page 52 of The Dragons’ Eternal Mate

“That explains why my blood felt like it was on fire. Thank you.” As he spoke, he grabbed my hand, beaming at me, his hand coming to rest on the back of my head as I leaned in close.

He was going to be okay.

“I love you,” I whispered, moving forward and placing a gentle kiss on his lips. He stank of sweat and sickness, but I didn’t care whatsoever.

The moment everyone was stable, I retreated to my room, changing my clothes and scrubbing every last drop of blood off my arms. The gloves hadn’t fully protected my skin and I hadn’t thought about the blood while taking care of Orsen. Cleaning myself up would have meant leaving his side, so I did my best to ignore it.

Now my mate was being fussed over by his mother and being forced to eat chicken soup, I could take a few moments to pull myself together. With every passing minute he was getting brighter and more alert.

Knowing the blood belonged to them… it made my stomach turn.

I needed it gone.

My mates seemed to bounce back a lot better than me. As I perched on the end of my bed, finally clean, they all came in, wearing victorious smiles that made me a little pissed.

Orsen was still sporting a bandage, just to be sure, yet he was walking around as if nothing had happened. Dragon healing was an amazing thing.

“I don’t think I can do this,” I whispered, furiously wiping away tears that I couldn’t hold back anymore.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean?” Greylen asked, his hand coming to rest on my lower back as he sat next to me.

I whipped my face in his direction to glower at him. “I can’t take it anymore. Every time you leave, one of you comes back injured! Patching you up, having your blood on my hands… I can’t do that again.”

“I’m sorry, Rowan. So, so sorry.” Orsen approached slowly, kneeling in front of me. “It’ll all be over soon, though. I promise.”

“Really? Will that be before or after one of you gets killed?” I growled, shrugging off their hands and jumping off the bed.

Orsen followed, his voice right behind me. “Cyrus will die, and once he’s out of the picture, I’m sure Byron will slink away as well.”

“No! I can’t take it. I can’t watch the people I love constantly running off into dangerous situations, not knowing if they’ll come back!”

“Love?” I looked up to find Nix with a dopey grin.

Behind him, Bastian was smirking, a knowing look in his eyes. I’d admitted how I felt for him a few days ago, but I hadn’t told the others yet. Judging by the way they were all staring at me in awe, however, they were thrilled with the sudden, if welcome, development.

“Yes, all right. I’m in love with all four of you dumbasses!” I hissed, raking a hand through my hair. “You are mine, and yet you keep running into stupid situations. I can’t take it! Every time you leave, I feel like my entire world is collapsing. And healing you… What if I do something wrong? What if I’m the reason one of you dies? Poison, a random stabbing, fires—What’s next? An explosion? How am I supposed to deal with that? For years, I protected myself by not allowing anyone close to me, then you four came along and totally demolished all my carefully built walls!”

My tears were falling fast and furious now, my entire body shaking.

Greylen wrapped his arms around me from behind. “We love you, Rowan. I know this is stressful. It feels like there’s no end in sight, but we cannot allow someone to hurt the woman we love. Cyrus won’t stop until someone stops him.”

Those words cracked something inside me. Sobbing, I buried myself into Greylen’s chest, pounding a fist against it as the others circled around me.

“I hate this,” I admitted.

“We all do,” Orsen assured me. “All we want is to be here, with you. Our mate.”

I looked up at him, sniffling as my eyes burned. Orsen reached out, taking my cheek in his hand as he whispered, “I love you, too, Rowan. You’ve saved my life in more ways than one.”

A tearful laugh slipped out, and Nix rubbed his hand down the back of my head. “I’ve been saying I love you to your sleeping face for a while now, dying to say it for real. I just figured you should be first.” Everyone laughed, and I turned, pulling him toward me for a kiss. “And how cool that you told us all at the same time.”

My gaze flicked to Bastian, cheeks heating, and Nix’s mouth fell open as he gasped. “You didn’t!”

“She did,” Bastian confirmed, looking far too pleased with himself. “A few days ago, in fact.”

Nix feigned being insulted, and we all chuckled. Quiet settled in the room as my mates surrounded me. I breathed them in, their scents reminding me that they were here and okay, that we were together.

“You know” —I giggled to myself—“it’s too bad you’re injured. I think this is the first time all four of you have had a moment with me when I wasn’t ready to pass out.”