Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 61041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
I let go of Wink, but she stayed in my arms and stared at me, her bright eyes boring into mine with such understanding now that it was unsettling.
When I tried to push her away she pulled her legs up and linked them around my waist, locking herself in place so I couldn’t stand up and leave unless I took her with me or forcibly pushed her off. Something that I wouldn’t do, and she knew it.
“I’m not a good person,” I said. “I’ve never been a good person. The one and only good deed I ever did was make sure that she was okay. That she wouldn’t suffer like I had.”
She smiled at me sadly.
“Mattie knows that,” she whispered, pressing her lips against mine. “She knows that you only want to protect her. Apparently, you made a lasting impression the last time she saw you.”
“And what did I do?” I asked, hoping she didn’t know.
“You killed the man who offered to help you raise her and then tried to force himself on her. Then you got her placed with someone who you trusted to ensure that whatever threat you perceived that was still out there couldn’t touch her. Paid for her private school, and then for her college education. You send her money once a month, and still refuse to see her, even though the danger that was there is gone.” Wink stroked my beard as she spoke, her eyes filled with barely contained pain. “Why do you do this to yourself and her?”
All my hopes were dashed when I realized that not only did she know most of it, she knew all of it.
“Because the threat that I’ve been hiding her from is still here. And now you’re involved in it with me,” I explained. “It’s even more dangerous now than it has been.”
“Blythe and Brooklyn told me that the threats to their lives were eliminated.”
I shook my head.
“There’s a whole organization of purists. We cut off the head, but it’s the type of organization that, when you kill one, two more pop up in its place willing to do the job.” I shook my head. “Seriously, that’s why I stayed away from you as long as I did. This isn’t a safe place. Not for the dragon riders; especially not for their mates.”
“There hasn’t been a damn thing that’s happened in the time we’ve mated,” she countered, angry now.
I pushed her off my lap during her moment of anger, and stood up.
My dick came to a stop directly in front of her mouth, but neither one of us took advantage of it, both of us too mad to consider that at the moment.
I stepped out onto the thick white mat and reached for a towel that hung on the back of the bathroom door while I spoke angrily.
“I don’t really know how to tell you anything about what’s going on,” I said. “I can feel it, though. In my bones. So fucking deep that, sometimes it’s like an ache that never goes away. Then shit like today happens, and I am sure.”
“Shit like today?” she asked, standing now, too.
I nodded.
“Yeah,” I said. “Dead carcasses left at the borders to our sanctuary.”
“Why would you think that’s bad?” she asked at my back. “Maybe it’s just an accident. A product of nature.”
I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “They’re testing us.”
“What?” she asked as she followed me out into my room. “How?”
“When something’s forced across the border, which is protected by Nikolai with a ward, then whatever it is that crossed dies,” I explained.
Her eyes widened.
“I crossed that border!” she said. “And I’m fine.”
I nodded. “Each of Keifer’s men gave a blood oath to him the moment we swore fealty to him. That blood oath extends to our mates.”
She breathed a sigh of relief.
“A little warning would’ve been nice,” she muttered darkly.
I grabbed a pair of underwear from the top of my chest of drawers, only for them to be ripped from my hands the moment I raised my foot up to step into them.
Wink pushed me from behind, and I went to one knee in the bed, her weight taking me down.
She landed on my back, and I tried to buck her off me.
“Get off,” I said harshly.
“No,” she said, tightening her legs around my hips and sitting down until her bare pussy was sitting snug against my ass.
I sighed and decided to lay there, waiting to see what she’d do or say.
She didn’t disappoint.
“I want you to say hello to your sister. She deserves it,” she informed me haughtily.
I sighed.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I lied.
“We’ll get there,” she promised.
I snorted.
“No, we won’t,” I promised right back.
She dug her fingernails into my back, and I flinched.
“Get off me before I make you get off,” I said through clenched teeth.