He was wearing me down.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he came through the doors, frustration lines etched around the corners of his eyes.
I stirred from my spot on the couch, sitting upright as he plopped himself into the recliner across from me. My dragon pouted. She wanted him here, beside me, where I could crawl into his lap and be held by his arms. Those long, muscle-packed arms were so gentle with me yet rough with anyone else.
There was no denying that I felt protected with him. At least, that’s what I assumed that feeling was. I’d never experienced it before. No clippy could allow themselves to be that careless.
“It’s okay,” I said, my hand aching to reach out, touch his leg, and give it a squeeze.
“No, it’s not,” he growled. “I said I would find your friends, and every lead we come up with turns out to be a dead end. It’s been three days.”
“You’ve been trying,” I said, craning my head back as he stood up to pace angrily. “You’ve got people looking for them everywhere. I haven’t seen Florian at all.”
“He and Dirk are running some operations using our contacts among the hunters,” Caz admitted. “You probably won’t see them for a couple of days unless things go south.”
He looked at me, and the pain in his eyesstruck me like a cave-in. There was no stopping my dragon this time as she took us to him.
He needed comforting, and in her eyes, that was what a mate should do. Support their other half. So, regardless of everything else, I wrapped my arms around him and hoped like hell I wouldn’t regret it.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his arms coming up slowly.
“Hugging you. You need it.”
“You haven’t touched me the entire time you’ve been here,” he said.
“Would you like me to stop?”
“No,” he said, squeezing me tightly.
He pulled me hard against his chest. His arms were strong, but when I pressed against him, a tiny tremor rippled his hard muscle against my face. Was he nervous? The big bad ice tyrant, nervous?
I thought back to his cousin’s words.
“Caz?” I asked softly.
“Yes?”
“What did your cousin mean?”
Caz rumbled angrily in the back of his throat, unhappy at the topic. “About what?”
“He was going to say that you had finally found a palace whore good enough for you. Right?”
I took his silenceas agreement.
“And your uncle was very surprised to see me with you. At first I assumed it was because I was a clip—grounded—but now I think it’s because I was a woman at all. Isn’t it?”
His dragon growled.
“Are you gay?”
“No,” he said, with the firm confidence of someone who wasn’t offended.
“Then why would they be so surprised?”
“Multiple reasons. But I suspect mostly because they’ve never seen me with a woman.”
“Why not?”
