I wokewith a start, fully believing that the room was burning down around me. The woodsmoky-man-musk was beyond strong, permeating everything, including my clothes and probably my skin.
Becoming alert and realizing that there wasn’t actually a fire should have been reassuring. My pulse should have slowed and my breathing with it. Adrenaline should have flowed out of me and left a peaceful calm in its place.
None of that happened, though, because my brain reminded mewhyit smelled so much like man. I was sleeping in a man’s bed. Not just any man, either, but the one who might be my mate.
My dragon growled in irritation. It had no doubts.
Good thing you aren’t in charge then. There’s a reason maturity has an age limit, Scales, and you’re only a day old. So remember that while I run the show for the next fifty years.
The beast huffed in annoyance and curled up around its tail, clouds of frosty air billowing from its nostrils.
I rolled my eyes, thankful it didn’t have the strength to take charge. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have slept in the bed alone. The Ice Tyrant would have joined me because it was his bed.
The leader of the Ice Kingdom, and he’d forced me into it. Wouldn’t let me sleep anywhere else. Had sworn to stand guard all night. To keep me safe.
“Fuck me,” I moaned as nausea cut through everything, sending me dashing from the ridiculously opulent bed to the just as luxurious bathroom in search of the toilet.
I was going to be sick.
This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. Three nights ago, I had been sleeping on a cheap bedroll, wearing rags that were falling apart and practically see-through. I had spent my nights hunched around a campfire, roasting anything we could catch that had meat on its bones, unsure of where our next meal would come from.
Last night, I’d had a personal chef make me a meal, a tailor supply me with clothing that could have bought and paid for half the clippys at the market, and then I’d been “forced” to sleep in the most comfortable bed I had ever been in. And it wasn’t close. The mattress, the sheets, and the thick, cozy comforter had knocked me out instantly.
It was perfect.
And all so, so wrong.
“Are you okay?”
Caz’s voice from the other side of the door was full of concern as I moaned and bent over the toilet, reveling in the cold porcelain against my knees.
“No,” I called back between stomach-churning clenches. “No, I am not o-freaking-kay.”
I wasn’t sure what to expect. Caz to come flying in, breaking down the locked door to get to me? A calm reassurance that it would pass or similar comforting words?
What I did not expect was the few seconds of silence followed by theclickof the door unlocking and Caz coming in. He stopped sharply, issuing a very sexually fraught growl.
The rumble shook the entire room.
Realizing the cause, I reached back, trying desperately and far too late to tug the sleeping shorts back down to cover my ass. “Now is not the time.”
“Here,” Caz said, setting something down with a clink on the counter next to the toilet. He didn’t even acknowledge the fact he’d been staring at my ass. Completely ignored it.
That should have been a good thing. So why was I disappointed?
“What is it?” I asked, the worst of the nausea beginning to pass as I grounded myself in thereality of the situation.
I was actually here. In the bedroom—well, bathroom at the moment—of the Ice Tyrant. I had slept in Casimir Dvorak’s personal bed. At his insistence.
The nausea came crashing back in.
“For you,” he grunted, pushing whatever was on the counter toward me.
I forced myself to look up and saw a mug on a little saucer, hot steam pouring over the rim. “What is it?”
“Ginger tea.”
He got the words out a moment before the smell hit me. It was ginger all right.
