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Dressed in a simple pair of shorts and a thin T-shirt, I ducked out of the suite, knowing it would have consequences but not caring.
I got out of the mountain and breathed out one full breath of fresh air before a hand landed on my biceps. I’d been caught.
“Where are you going?” Jude’s voice actually soothed me. Yeah, I would probably be berated for leaving the mountain, but he would never be cruel to me. “I saw the note. Are you going somewhere because of that? Are you running from us again?”
As I turned, I expected anger but instead there was hurt written all over his face. “No, of course not. I was going to warn Hilda that they know. The high council knows about the rebellion. They have to be warned, Jude. The high council will have them all slaughtered before they tolerate an upheaval.”
Jude scanned the area and nodded. “Okay, but I’m coming with you. I don’t trust anyone with your safety with all this happening.” When there was a pause, because I was shocked, he chuckled. “I said I’m coming with you, mate. Now, lead the way.”
Jude held my hand the entire time around the side of the mountain and into the lesser valley. We were about halfway to Hilda’s cottage when a dragon guard came from seemingly nowhere and stopped us in our tracks, his arms folded over his chest and a smug grin on his face.
“What do we have here?” Oh gods, I didn’t have time for this. I already knew this type of guard. They would stop lessers and give them a hard time for no reason and, some of them, the more grandiose bullies, would beat and sometimes violate lesser females just because they could. I hated power trips. We were all one species. It was the council who decided some of us were lower on the social and power scales than others.
“What’s your name, guard?” Jude asked, and his arrogant tone caught me by surprise.
“I’ll be asking the questions here, sir. Why are you on this side of the mountain?”
My heart raced, and it wasn’t out of nervousness. Jude was purposefully releasing some of his inner dragon’s power to prove to this jackhole that there was no power struggle here—Jude had already won the fight. A tingle ran up my body, charging my veins while Jude stepped in front of me slightly. “No, that’s where you’re wrong. You don’t ask a royal dragon questions, rent-a-cop.”
The guard was visibly shaken. He stumbled back a few steps before regaining his composure quickly. “But you are here with a lesser.”
Jude’s chest puffed out, and another wave of inner power burst from him, nearly knocking both of us over. “She’s mine. The lesser is none of your concern. You have real security issues to deal with, don’t you, guard?”
I hated to admit it, but I was terrified of Jude in that moment. His power was nothing like I’d ever experienced from a royal dragon. It was overwhelming but not directed at me. I could only imagine the terror this guard was feeling.
“Yes, sir. I apologize.” The man couldn’t get away fast enough, and the farther he ran, the more Jude’s intensity eased. Who knew the guy who loved football and cookies could be so damned terrifying.
“Wow,” I said, breaking the tension.
Immediately Jude whirled and picked me up, clutching me against his chest. “I didn’t mean it, I swear.”
“What?” I said, pulling back. “What are you talking about? You just saved me from a beating or worse. What are you apologizing for?”
His heart was thrumming so hard that I could feel it in my own chest. He held me so tight and looked in despair. “I called you the lesser. I acted like you were my property. I just did it to make him go away. I swear I don’t think of you that way. I would never think of you any way except the person I…”
He stammered, trailing off, but I knew what he wanted to say. If I knew Jude like I thought I did, this mighty, dynamic, strong dragon of mine was about to confess his love to me.
I cupped his face in my hands and kissed him, trying to pour everything I felt about him into the connection. “I know. I know you didn’t mean those words. You were protecting me, and I’m grateful, Jude. I trust you.”
He relaxed as he still held onto me. I was safe and secure in Jude’s arms, and I hoped I always would be. “Okay.”
“By the way, that show of power was something else. I mean, I know you are sexy when you cook, but damn, I barely contained myself.”
Jude grinned from ear to ear, his light-brown eyes shimmering in the sunlight. “My dragon is strong, stronger than I let on. He could demolish this entire clan in one breath.”
I shuddered, knowing it was probably true. We stared into each other’s eyes, coming to an agreement but not speaking it out loud.
Chapter Twenty
The guard stepped aside and we hurried on our way, but before we had gone very far, something occurred to me that I had never thought of before. It was kind of becoming my life. I had apparently lived with blinders on all these years.
But this was something kind of big. “Jude…you and the others are royal dragons.”
He didn’t slow down, and neither did I as he answered, “Right, you have always known this.”
“If you’re royal, then why aren’t you in charge? Why is the high council, who so far as I know are old but not royal at all, making all the rules and even going so far as to summon you as if, well, as if you are lessers. How did this happen?”
He came to a halt and took my hand, leading me over to a flat rock at an overlook. I sat next to him, my gaze taking in the view of the valley below with its rocks near the mountains then the grasslands and, farther away, the forests. We lived in a beautiful if somewhat forbidding place, here in our caves. Dragons, from what I’d been given to understand, did not always live in caves, but many did. As to who ruled them, I had no idea.
