Jaak.
In a heartbeat, Taevas was a teenager again. He froze in the shadows, horror binding him there, forcing him to watch as his mate attempted to evade a much bigger predator. She didn’t stand a chance. The dragon closed the distance between them in a handful of long strides and clasped her hand, halting her by the edge of the road.
Jaak’s blue face lifted as he eyed the trees. “Where are we? There isn’t even a road here.”
Alashiya’s discomfort was clear to him, but it was obvious she was trying to hide it from the blue dragon. “I don’t have a car, so why would I need a road? Thanks again for the ride, Sergei, but I really do have to go.”
Sergei?Taevas blinked. His panic receded somewhat, slithering back into the dark, wet place it came from. The wards wavered in front of him, warping his view like hot air over blacktop, but if he squinted…
That’s not Jaak.
It couldn’t be, because he’d killed the old bastard with his own two hands.Thisdragon couldn’t have been older than a century and a half, and he hadn’t been prematurely aged by vices and indulgence like Jaak had been. But even so, the resemblance was uncanny. The color of their skin was identical, as was the shape of their noses and horns. And the voice… That was uncanny. The sound of it made Taevas’s hair stand on end.
It filtered through memory, through the distortion of drugs and pain. He recognized it not just from the war, but from his captivity.
Sergei frowned down at Alashiya. Turning so his back was facing the forest, he said, “I’m trying to keep you safe. You don’t know what could be in those woods. There are wild animals and worse out there. You shouldn’t be alone.”
All at once Taevas’s senses sharpened. His focus honed in on Alashiya as his confusion and dread were pushed to the farthest corner of his mind.
That dragon has a hand on my mate.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Taevas wasn’t normallyquick to anger. It rarely served him in his day to day life, and he liked to think he had more control over his baser urges and reactions than most dragons. But when he did get angry —really, reallyangry — his rage was cold and deadly. Precise.
When someone fucked around in his territory, he handled it with swift, merciless action. When a dumbass elf stood his cousin Hele up on a date, he ruined the man’s life with a single phone call and hadn’t thought of it since. But when a dangerous dragon put his hands on his mate…
Taevas wasn’t cool. He wasn’t precise. He was a fucking bomb about to blow.
There wasn't any worry about consequences. Blood rushed in his ears, drowning out any other noise. He lunged for the treeline. Instinct compelled him to shift, but the moment he tried, his body rejected the change with an overwhelming wave of nausea and pain.
He staggered in the undergrowth. Alashiya’s magic rippled across his skin in hot waves, but it wasn’t the wards or the discomfort that stopped him in his tracks. It was the look on her face.
She stared at him with wide, horrified eyes. Her lips wereslightly parted and her normally glowing skin was gray. “No,” she croaked, holding Taevas’s gaze.
“No?”Sergei sounded genuinely surprised, not realizing that she wasn’t even talking to him.
Alashiya’s gaze flicked back to Sergei. She took a step back, away from the trees. Sergei followed her instinctively, his tail coiling around her ankle to keep her from going too far.
Absolutely fucking not.
Dragons didn’t do that casually. It was a deeply familiar touch meant to mark territory and show clear intent to claim. Maybe not seriously — because even dragons could have casual liaisons, despite popular belief — but it didn’t matter to Taevas whether Sergei wanted to Choose Alashiya or not. She wastaken.
It didn’t matter that it couldn’t be Isand Jaak. The sight of his lookalike holding Alashiya…
Nausea swelled in a burning wave up his throat.
All of that rushed through his mind in a searing flash, urging him to act, tomove.But he found his muscles locked. Taevas couldn’t take a single step closer. A deep crawling sensation wormed its way beneath his skin to bore into his bones. Too late, he realized his feet had sunk into the soil. It held him fast as Alashiya’s magic battered him like the waves of a furious ocean.
“N-no,” she stuttered, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on the blue dragon. “That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry. The path to my house is totally overgrown and would be uncomfortable for you. No one ever comes this way but me. That’s all.”
“Uncomfortable?” Sergei cast a suspicious look over his shoulder. He didn’t appear to have any idea that he was looking right at Taevas.
Lips stretching into a thin, nervous smile, Alashiya placed a hand on his arm and drew his attention back to her. “Your wings.”
Sergei’s dark expression eased. “Ah, I see. You’re probably right. I hate hiking.”
Still keeping her gaze fixed on the other dragon, sheasked in a slow, deliberate way, “You must’ve hated your hunting trip with Monty, huh? What were you trying to catch, anyway?”
