Page 54 of Protecting His Treasure

It was? Since when? “I haven’t changed my name.”

“It changed when we realized we were mates.”

“Says who?”

She was interrupted from saying anything further, by the guy in the tower. “Kaede, you can enter. But, we have a different name on our list for your mate.”

“Give me a second,” Kaede called out. He turned his back to them and faced her. “When I signed us up for training, I put your name down as Sinclair Oshiro.”

“You didn’t tell me you did that.”

“I did it because that’s your name.”

Sin sighed. How could she say this without seeming petty? It wasn’t that she didn’t want to take his name. It was just that, they hadn’t even had a wedding yet. He hadn’t proposed. There was no ring. And while all of that wasn’t necessary, she still kind of wanted it, maybe. Shit, she didn’t really know why she was irritated right now.

It was just a name. All her life, her name had been Sinclair Rose. Rose was her family name. Her family that she’d been separated from for the past two years. Maybe it was childish or maybe it was strange, but she wasn’t ready to be separated from that name. It was part of her connection to them. Kind of the only connection she had left.

“You don’t want my last name?” The hurt he was feeling was evident in his voice.

“It’s not that. It’s just…. you should’ve asked me.” Even as she talked, she felt like she was being a Petty Betty. “If you had, I would’ve told you I’d like my name to be Sinclair Rose-Oshiro.”

“Kaede,” the tower guard called out.

Kaede didn’t reply. He kept staring down at her. There was a tick in his jaw. He was mad, but he was trying not to let it show. Shit! She was doing it again. Pushing him away when there was no reason too

It was just a last name. People around here could call her Sinclair Oshiro. She didn’t care. In her heart, the Rose was still there. Sin sighed. Here I go, giving in, again. This was becoming a trend that she wasn’t down with.

“Okay,” she finally said. “I’ll go by Sinclair Oshiro.”

“I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I’ll go back Sinclair Oshiro,” she repeated.

“Sin…”

She stepped aside and looked up at the guards. “Sinclair Oshiro, reporting for training,” she yelled out. The gate to the facility creaked then slowly opened. She looked over at Kaede and said, “Come on, leader of the household, let’s go punch on people.” She stormed off heading toward the building.

Yes, she was pissed. The anger she was feeling felt irrational. Knowing that didn’t drive it away. It remained in her, festering. It had probably been festering for some time. Since accepting him as her mate, it felt like she was constantly giving in to what he wanted, what he expected.

And the things he wanted, expected, weren’t bad things. It wasn’t wrong for him to want those things. It was just…. Shit. She didn’t even know what it was. And that made her angrier.

“Wrong way,” Kaede called from behind her.

She stopped and looked back. He was heading down a different path. For a second, she stood there and watched him instead of following. He was heading down a different path. Why did those words make her feel some type of way? He was heading down a different path. And he wanted her to follow him.

But it wasn’t a path she’d ever pictured herself taking. Was it even the path that she wanted to take? No. Yes. Maybe. Honestly, she didn’t know. This whole mating thing had happened so fast. Last month, she was single Sinclair Rose who was trying to survive on this frozen tundra.

Now, she was a mated Sinclair Oshiro, who was living in a compound with creatures she didn’t know and a mate who… she didn’t know. What did she really know about him other than he was a dragon, he was sexy as hell and he had a big dick? Oh, and he’d been banished her but she didn’t know the full story.

And he was a big man on campus around her, but she didn’t know the full story on how he came to be that either. There was more that she didn’t know about him than what she did know. And vice versa. There was a lot he didn’t know about her. And some of it, she wasn’t ready to share yet.

They’d developed the mantra, together we can do anything. When they were in bed, she felt like they could do anything. Alone in their home, the love was strong. When it was just the two of them, all was right in the world, everything was perfect. They were a match made in heaven.

But when they started to talk about real life and all that came along with it, that’s where they developed problems. That when she noticed that what she wanted and what Kaede wanted was two separate things. He was headed down a different path than her, literally and figuratively.

He stopped and looked back at her. “You coming?”

Pushing her wayward thoughts to the back of her mind, she replied, “Yeah.”