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“What the hell is wrong with you?” Damon yelled at me. “You’re young, you’re a prince! You’ve waited ten years for your fated mate, and now that you finally have a chance with her, you’re giving up?”
Finally, I uncurled and managed to push myself up enough so that my belly ached with the muscle strain. “I don’t have a chance with Veronica! She hates me.”
Damon laughed, the noise a stark contrast to the voice in my head. “She doesn’t hate you, Iain. Quite the opposite. You’re a fool if you think that.”
“You’re wrong,” I spat back. “She won’t forgive me for what I had to do to her when she was a kid, to keep her at a distance. She thinks I’m an asshole.”
Damon’s dragon flashed in his eyes and my breath caught in my throat at the sudden ratcheting up of tension in the room.
“My daughter is the best thing that ever happened to you, you sorry son of a bitch. She’s dragged you back from the brink of death! Twice! And if, after that, you’re not willing to even try to live... then damn you, Iain. Damn you to hell!”
Damon stalked out of the room as regally as his injured body would allow him.
I fell back against the pillows, my exhaustion bone deep. A soft knock at the door made me turn my head, and there she was, my mate.
Veronica stepped into the room, twisting her fingers around like she was nervous, but a tentative smile played on her lips. “And I thought I had a temper.”
I snorted. “We’re all a product of our parents, I suppose.”
“You still hate me?” she whispered.
I shook my head, forcing myself to take slow, deep breaths. “I told you before. I’ve hated myself, Veronica. But never you.”
She took another step forward. “I spoke to the healer. He said the poison’s spread.”
I ran a hand through my hair, trying hard not to scream. “I can’t... my thoughts. My God, Veronica, I can’t... this lethargy, this deep depressive state, where I can’t seem to pull myself free... Hell, this isn’t me.”
I finished more quietly, “I think it’s the poison. It has too strong a hold. I can’t seem to shake it off.”
She rushed the last few steps to the bed. “There’s this place Mom and Dad took us as kids. There are hot springs and Mom always said there were healing powers in the waters.”
“Hot springs?” I scoffed half-heartedly. “Here?” In the North? The Winter Palace.
She nodded, her eyes flashing with the wrath of her dragon being challenged. “You know, if you don’t pull yourself together, I’ll just fly back to the human realm for another couple of years. It was fun. Dancing and working and sunbathing on the beaches there. I have years before my unrequited mate instincts begin to drive me crazy.”
I narrowed my eyes at the dragon daughter, opened my mouth, then shut it again before I spat something nasty at her.
She was right. I was the one fast approaching the age where I would start going crazy, needing my mate.
She wasn’t. She was young. She’d run from me before. She’d do it again.
“You want to leave me?”
She widened her eyes and gave me an annoyed look. “No! Are you gonna come with me to the hot springs, or not?”
I rolled my eyes and groaned. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“Nope.” She grabbed the bedcovers and dragged them off me. “Now get up. Before you die, again.”
She stormed back to the door and then flicked her hair over her shoulder, glaring back at me. “Or would you rather that, Iain? Die? Then I can hook up with any man I want. No mate. Just humans... maybe some dragon shifters, too.”
I was on my feet before I’d made the decision to follow her.
“Over my dead body,” I growled out. No one else would touch my mate. Mine.
I was her first. I’d be her only.
“That’s kinda the idea,” she said. “You coming?”
