She had the grace to shrug. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. I got some good shots in.”
He quirked a brow. “Shots?”
Miming a slashing motion with an invisible weapon, she succinctly explained, “Scissors.”
Her ferociousness thrilled him all the way to his toes. The almost instant hardening of his cock distracted him for all of five seconds before the horror of realizing she’d confronted a fully grown, out-of-his-mind dragon with onlyscissorsfor protection eclipsed it.
Taevas’s hand shot out to clasp the back of her neck. She yelped in surprise, but his firm grip held her still when he growled,“Neverdo that again, Alashiya. Never! If you’re threatened, you run.You hide and wait for me or your guard to handle the threat.You don’t fight. Youneverfight! Gods, what if it’d been another dragon? What if I hadn’t recognized— My Shiya, I could’ve killedyou! What could’ve ever fucking compelled you to confront me all on your own?”
Scissors,he internally raged.Fucking scissors.
He wondered if she could’ve successfully dispatched even an arrant with a weapon like that, let alone a dragon, elf, demon, or orc. All his hair stood on end at the thought. It traveled over his skin in an electric current, the acute anxiety of Alashiyafightingcaused him.
He opened his mouth to rail some more, but no words made it through the pillow that walloped him in the face several times in quick succession. Between each hit, Alashiya bit out, “This— is— my—grove!”
Taevas sputtered. It took an embarrassing amount of attempts for him to snatch the pillow from her hands and toss it aside. Sitting up on her knees, Alashiya pointed an irate finger at him. “It was a bad idea, but I’d do it again. You know why? Because running doesn’t always save you. Wards don’t always save you. Hiding doesn’t save you.Youcaught me, remember?”
It was misery to turn onto his back, but he managed it by gritting his teeth and keeping his eyes on Alashiya. “I’m different. You should never run from me. I’m your Isand.”
She gave him a wide-eyed look of annoyance. “So I’m not supposed to run from you and I’m also not supposed to fight you. WhatamI supposed to do, mighty Isand?”
He didn’t think he liked the way she stretched out his title like that. Normally he enjoyed being called Isand, but when she said it, it struck a discordant note in his mind. No, to her he ought to be Taevas, ormy darling,or Adon, if the mood struck her. But never should she address him as all the rest did. But that still didn’t mean she had the right to ignore his commands. Not when she mattered so very much.
Giving her a stern look, he replied, “You will stay under my wing and do as I say.”
“Why onEarthwould I do that?” Alashiya, looking rumpled and increasingly angry, clambered out of bed. Taevas reached forher, cursing under his breath, but she was far quicker than him. Dancing out of reach, she shot him a glare over her shoulder. “I’m not your subject, Taevas. If you think you can boss me around because you pay me to make your clothes pretty, thinking it somehow makes you better than me or— or because of last night, then you should crawl out my door right now.”
Taevas forced his body into a sitting position. “That’s not what I meant?—”
She was nearly to the hallway when she whirled around. Pulling her shoulders back, she snapped, “I’m queen of this grove, Isand. That might mean nothing to you or to anybody else, but it’s all I have left. I’ll defend it with my life if I have to.”
“Youdon’thave to,” he argued, slashing one hand through the air. “You havemenow. This is what I’m saying to you, my Shiya. You never have to worry about defending yourself or your land again. But I can’t do this if you don’t listen to me.”
She gave him such a look, then, but he was helpless to decipher its intricacies. “We just met. You think it was reckless for me to face a dragon on my own? I think it’s worse to put my trust in a strange man who plans to leave at the first opportunity he gets.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to explain, in detail, how he had no plans to allow her to remain here once he’d made contact with his Wing. It was too dangerous, for one thing, and for another, he couldn’t imagine a world where he was separated from her for even a moment. It simply didn’t exist. It could not,would not,be allowed.
But he couldn’t explain that to himself, let alone her, so instead he growled, “We’re not strangers. I’m your Adon. I’m your husband.”
Alashiya turned to leave the room. It wasn’t quite fast enough to hide the staggering sadness in her eyes when she replied, “I’m not married, and Adon isn’t real.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
He understoodthat he needed to give her space, but it wasn’t easy. Taevas could only stew in their nest, his body in open rebellion against him, and listen as she moved in and out of the house. No doubt she was plucking their breakfast from the bounty of her garden. He could smell strong coffee brewing. The urge to call out to her was immense and only got worse as the minutes ticked by.
By the time an hour had passed, Taevas worried he’d begun to truly lose his mind. He stared at the ceiling, his body one great, useless ache, and tried to get his brain to work as it usually did.
Normal Taevas wouldn’t have had the issues he currently did.
He would’ve taken charge of his Alashiya, charmed her into doing exactly as he wished, and figured out how to get home by now. Normal Taevas would’ve had her neck-deep in the marble soaking tub already, her troubles as light as the bubbles covering the surface of the water as he handled the fucks who’d tried to kill him. When that was done, he’d return to find her soft and even sweeter-smelling in the nest he’d built them, ready to greet him with drugging kisses.
They’d have dinner in the sprawling atrium, and when it wasdone, he’d lay his napkin in his lap, finish his wine, and order her to ride his face until he suffocated.
But Normal Taevas, the one in control of all things, was dead in a ditch somewhere. That left Weak Taevas to pick up the pieces. It was a miserable job. The more he thought of how in the gods’ names he was supposed to get out of Birchdale with his Alashiya safely beside him and get back to the territory that so desperately needed him, the more he felt like he was drowning.
My wings are useless,he thought with brutal practicality.They might bepermanentlyuseless. I can’t shift. There’s a dragon around, no doubt hunting me as I lay here. I’m ill and wounded. My Shiya doesn’t understand that she’s mine now, or that she’s in danger every second we linger here.
If he dwelled on the horror of what had been done to his wings, what might’ve been taken from him in those weeks of captivity, Taevas knew he’d lose what little remained of his control.
