I needed to find out more about that.Somehow. No way could I be the first to go through this sort of thing—maybe not to quite the extreme of being mated to the ruler of the entire realm but a grounded whose dragon awoke because of its mate? Surely someone else must have experienced that.
The library seemed like a logical place. I would ask Florian to take me there tomorrow. After the terrarium, it was my favorite place to go in the parts of the citadel I’d been allowed to see.
Need to remember to tell Caz I want to go back down to the dungeons to check on those who stayed.
Caz. The ice tyrant who didn’t want to be known as the ice tyrant.
“You certainly are an enigma,” I said to the empty skies. “What shall I do with you?”
“Leave him. That’s what you’ll do if you want to live.”
I scrambled to my feet, backpedaling to keep my distance, as someone else entered the grassy center of the terrarium.
“You hear me, whore? You will do as you’re told and leave this place,” Andrik snarled, pointing a finger at me. “You don’t belong.”
I fought a shiver, trying not to appear scared.
Andrik was a spitting image of his father—tall, fit, and muscular but without the broadness of shoulder that Caz possessed. He was still intimidating, though. The lack of prominent birthmark on his face like his father did nothingto reduce that.
“Why are you here?” I asked, watching the young man’s face twist with further fury.
The bright silvery, almost-but-not-quite-white hair had to be a genetic thing. Caz, Mirko, and Andrik all possessed great manes of it. But while Caz left his free and Mirko sported a casual braid, Andrik’s was coiffed and primped on top of his head, like a wild bird spreading its feathers to attract a mate. That was all I could think of when looking at him.
“Don’t you speak to me!” he hissed. “You are nothing. I am Andrik Dvorak, rightful heir to the Ice Throne! You don’t speak to me.”
“If you take one step closer to me,” I said in a voice that wasn’t mine, ringing with authority and power, “Casimir will eviscerate you. He will rip your balls off and stuff them in your mouth before freezing your lips solid. Then he’ll put you on display in front of everyone for a month until they decay in your mouth and you choke on your own vomit. If he’s feeling merciful, he will let you die.”
I leaned a little closer. “But I will not let him be merciful. I will demand suffering.”
Andrik’s eyes practically popped out of his head by the time I finished. Which was good, because it helped me disguise my own shock. Where hadthatcome from?
“He’d have to know it was me,” Andrik hissed,spittle flying from his mouth as he shrugged off my unexpected command. “And since there won’t be a body …”
Fear rolled over me as he took a step toward me. He was going to kill me.
“The throne is my father’s,” Andrik added, the icy-blue of his eyes alight with the power of his dragon, even as ice formed in the air between us, freezing the moisture and dropping it to the ground in tiny pellets, like ice-rain. “Not that usurper’s.”
Presented with a threat, I did what I did best. I used the openness of my position to my advantage and fled deeper into the terrarium, using my knowledge of the terrain as best I could.
I just had to hope I could find help in time.
Twenty
Casimir
I hunchedagainst the tile as the last of my second load was swept away, erasing any evidence of my shame. My inability to be stronger.
Seeing my seed so wasted like that felt wrong now that I had a mate. I had jerked off many times before. Many,manytimes. Resisting the call of willingly given flesh was not easy, regardless of the reason behind the false desires of the various women. The longer I’d gone without a mate, the harder it had become.
But I had. Time and again, I had not caved. I had sought refuge in the shower or tissues. Then it had seemed normal, natural.
Now my seed belonged toher. My mate. Anna. I did not want to waste a single drop of it, as if there was suddenly a limited amount. It was stupid. I knew that, and I punctuated that frustration by smashing another tile.
Damn. More repairs.
I needed to get back to the gym, and soon. Already the antsy tingles were creeping into that little crevice between my shoulder blades. It wasmade all the worse by the fact that I wasn’t with her right then. She was with someone else. I trusted Dirk and Florian with my life. But this wasAnna’s lifeI was giving to them. The thought of her with any other male, even my closest friends, was not a pleasant one.
The glass shook from my angry growl, echoed by my dragon. She was ours. Not theirs. We should be by her side at all times.
