Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 117336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
I have forgotten how lonely such isolation can be.
Even so, I did not come here to befriend everyone. I came here with the goal of carving out my own kingdom if I could not go home. And while the chance of me going home seems slimmer by the day, I have found other things here that make me happy.
One thing, actually. Melina.
I enter our bedroom, expecting to see her in bed or readying to go to her clinic. She is not. She is seated in a chair by the window, wearing a beautiful pale dress covered with shimmers across the breasts. The sleeves are wisps of material over her shoulders, and her gorgeous cleavage is on display, plump and brown and resplendent over the low neckline of the gown. She is wearing her armor today, her hair pulled up in a high ponytail and the thick curls cascading down the back of her head. Heavy earrings glitter from her ears, and her lips have a hint of pink to them, the scent of her makeup in the air. Her posture is calm, but the moment she catches a glimpse of me, her nostrils flare and her back stiffens.
She has plenty to say to me, my Melina.
I sigh heavily. "You are angry and I am exhausted."
"Fuck yes, I'm angry." Her jaw clenches and she glares at me from her seat. "What the hell was that, Azar? Of course I'm mad. You talk a big game of how these people are sheep and how you can rule with your eyes closed and the moment there's a snag in your plan, you lose your fucking mind!" She shakes her head at me in disbelief. "How do you think anyone is going to want to follow you if you act like that?"
"Act like what, precisely?" I ask, tired and frustrated. "Someone stole my dragon out from under me and yet I am the enemy here?"
"Azar," Melina says, her voice clipped and as icy as her expression. "You threw plates in the dining hall for everyone to see. You pitched a temper tantrum. And you slapped a woman! You fucking backhanded her!"
I'm shocked. My mate is livid that I slapped the other female, not that I ignored her advice? Not that I told her she was my property? "I was testing the drakoni. If she was his mate, he'd sense that she was hurt and react—"
Melina gets to her feet, her dress swirling about her. She looks as regal and beautiful as the drakoni queen…and as remote. "So are you going to slap me around now? Is this what I have to look forward to?"
"What?" I blink, surprised. "Never. Why would I slap you?"
"You slapped her!"
"But I just told you, the drakoni—"
She advances toward me, a snarl on her face. "You do not hit people because you're having a bad day, Azar. And you sure as shit don't hit someone smaller than you." She crosses her arms over her chest. "How can I trust that you're not going to have a bad day again and start hitting me instead?"
I'm baffled as to why she could think that. "You are my mate. I would never—"
"How do I know that?"
"I'm telling you," I bellow. "I'm telling you right now!"
She clenches her fists, shouting back at me. "And I'm telling you, that if you hit one woman, who's to say you're not going to hit another? How do I trust that?" The look she gives me is defeated. "How do I trust you?"
I stare at her. Distant memories of the past flick through my head, of my people, of the way we treated the drakoni. Of the pits they slept in and the way we used them as hard labor. Of the resentment in their eyes toward their Salorian masters. I think of that, and then I think of the humans here in the fort. I have memories of the nomads I have spent time with in the past, but I know they were lawbreakers and they treated everyone cruelly, male and female. I think of the fort humans instead. The smelly, filthy humans who do not listen, who rarely obey, and who drive me to the brink of madness. I shuffle through my memories and yet I do not recall a single person at this fort hitting another person like I did.
The look in Melina's eyes is wary and on edge, like the drakoni when around a Salorian. Like Vaan and Jurik when they spot me.
I have made my mate…afraid. Of me. Self-loathing ripples through me. "Melina, I would never…"
"No, you wouldn't," she says in a soft voice. She tosses her hair back, regal, and gives me a hard look. "You wouldn't, because I would never, ever forgive you. This is your warning. You pull this shit again and I don't care about our bargain, or how I feel about you. I won't stay with an abuser."