He frowns, and I shake my head again. Auri and I clearly have alotwe need to talk about. I look one way down the hallway and then the other, trying to orient myself. Would it kill him to post maps in the hallways with helpful little You Are Here stickers on them? Luckily, my dragon’s sense of direction is a hell of a lot better than mine, and he gives me a little nudge towards the left corridor.
I shrug Drax’s hand off of my back and straighten my shoulders. I’m going to march down to Auri’s office and demand some answers. Maybe his other mercenaries are happy to just shut up and do what he says, but he’s going to see that he picked a dragon without a compliant bone in his body. Maybe if I’m enough of a hassle, he’ll decide to break the contract after all.
Or kill me, a little voice in the back of my head whispers. I shake off the thought and start down the hall. Drax reaches for me, grabbing my bicep gently.
“Mac, you can’t just march into Auri’s office.” His voice is full of worry.
“Watch me,” I huff.
His frown deepens and his grip on my arm tightens, sending little sparks of awareness skittering across my skin. I can feel the oppressive weight of his worry tugging at our bond, and I grit my teeth against the urge to crumple to the floor and hyperventilate all over again.
“At least let me come with you,” Drax says, but I can still feel the anxious tug in the center of my chest. He’d rather we not go at all. But I have to.
I’ve already made a huge fucking mess of things. This mating bond, my fuckup with this contract, it’s all too much. I jerk my arm, trying to get it out of Drax’s grasp, but he just holds on tighter.
“No,” I growl. “You’re not my mate, and even if you were, I would still need to do this alone.”
Drax’s expression goes slack with surprise, like I slapped him, and his hold on my arm loosens. This time when I tug out of his grasp, he lets me go, his claws dragging gently over my skin before his hand falls away completely. Guilt roils in my gut, but that’s just one more thing I can’t deal with right now. I’m fucking drowning and my dumb ass keeps reaching for glasses of water. I just need to get a handle ononething before I lose it.
I spin away from the confusingly sweet demon and ignore the tugging of our bond as I hurry down the hallway, trusting the directions my dragon gives me along the way until I start to recognize the artwork on the walls. I march up to Auri’s office door and pound on it.
“Come in,” he calls out pleasantly.
He has to be a lot more reasonable than Drax is making him out to be. Right?
I open the door and step inside. It’s almost jarring how normal Auri seems, sitting at his desk, typing on his computer like he’s any average businessman and not a literal demon with a compound and a team of mercenaries in hell.
He laughs to himself as his clawed fingers fly over the keyboard.
“You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve just spent the morning amusing myself by giving absolutely horrible advice to strangersin online forums.” He cackles again then looks up from his computer screen.
His eyes flicker with surprise, dropping to my chest before returning to my face. He laughs again, but this time it’s less jovial.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I knew I should have had all of my pets neutered to prevent accidental mating.” He sighs.
My balls clench at the threat and I put both hands in front of my crotch for a meager amount of protection.
“I really can’t even deal with this whole mate issue right now,” I mutter.
Auri makes another bored noise and gestures to the chair in front of his desk for me to have a seat.
“Fine, but you only get five minutes for whatever complaints you have, and I reserve the right to tear you open and use your intestines as a jump rope if you annoy me too much.”
“What? No, I’m definitely not agreeing to the jump rope thing.” I shake my head vehemently. That is one deal I’m not about to make accidentally.
His lips twitch in what almost looks like a smile. “What do you want, dragon? I’m a busy demon.”
My march down here took some of the wind out of my sails. Or maybe it was his comment about having me neutered. Either way, I don’t feel half as confident as I did two minutes ago when I was being an ass to Drax for no reason.
“I…” I swallow hard and shift in my seat. “Drax said you’ll never let me go. Is that true? Is that what I accidentally agreed to? To belong to you for the rest of my life?”
This time he actually does smile, showing off the gleaming row of sharp white teeth as he leans back in his chair.
“Shouldn’t you have asked that before you agreed, dragon?”
I nod and grip the arms of the chair. “I want to see the contract now.”
“Of course,” he says agreeably, snapping his fingers. A stack of parchment appears in the air in front of me then drops onto the desk with athunk. I stare at it with my mouth open and dread settling into my gut. This is at least several hundred pages and it’s written in a language I don’t know how to read.
