Page 54 of Accidentally a Dragon Daddy

“This wasn’t a part of saving me,” I said, shaking my head. “You could have stopped at any point. He wasn’t going to get back up. You wanted to kill him.”

“I wanted to keep you safe!” he shouted in anguish. “You don’t understand.”

“Then make me!”

“Dragons don’t give up. If I’d let him go, he would have gone off, healed, and then he and Jaklin would have come back. Perhaps with more dragons. All because of you. I couldn’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen, Elanya. Can’t you see that? I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

“Don’t you dare make this because of me!” I bit back a cry. “You did this because you wanted to.”

He shook his head, looking at the ground. “No, I didn’t,” he said softly. “You’re wrong, you know.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.” He stared at the bloodstained palms of his hands.

“How?”

“I didn’t do this because I wanted to. I did it because I had to. Because that was the only way to keep you safe. But I was able to do it because I’m good at it.”

“You’re good at it? At killing?”

Damon looked up at me, and my chest tightened. I’d never seen such pain on his face before. It twisted his features and made me long to go to him. To hold him and tell him it would be okay. But I couldn’t. I shouldn’t. I …

“This was my job,” he said. “It’s what I was trained for. To fight. To be a shadow, to do what other dragons couldn’t. What they weren’t willing to do, even if it needed to be done. And I was good. Not just good. I was the best. I am the best. I am the sovereign’s shadow. I do the things she can’t be seen doing, and I am good at it.”

“I can see that,” I whispered, unsure of what to say.

“Then you must see why I had to kill Dayvin,” he said, gesturing limply at the corpse behind him. “She can’t protect you. Not yet. Humans are still too new among us. There’s too much resistance. So, we have to protect our mates any way we can.”

“You keep saying that word,” I said. “About me. Are you sure?”

“My dragon is,” he said.

“I see.” What did that even mean?

“Yes.” He stood there, waiting for me. To say something? To do something? What was I going to do?

“You don’t seem too happy about this,” I said, sharing my observation with him. “If you’re good at this, why does it bring you down?”

“It didn’t use to,” he admitted. “Not that I reveled in it, mind you. It was simply just what I did.”

“What changed you?” I asked, nervous about the answer.

“You.”

Damn.

“You and our child,” he said, drawing a shuddering breath. “When you told me it was mine, I realized I was going to be a father.”

“Yes, that’s how it works,” I said.

He looked at me, and my heart broke a little more at the pain in those eyes, the sense of fear, which didn’t belong on a face like his.

“How?” he asked, voice ragged and torn, lifting his hands for me to see the blood. “How can I be a good father when this is the only thing I can teach them?”

“Oh, Damon,” I whispered, my resolve weakening. “You’re not evil.”

“I never—”

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