Page 70 of Accidentally a Dragon Daddy

“Everything!” he growled, growing irritated. “Can’t you see? If they knew it was us who killed him, they would have moved him into a different location. Ensuring the war went on for longer. It was my job to help bring him home! I did what I had to do to keep the cops and Rutt-Tayo off our trail! We were at war, damn it!”

“I wasn’t,” I said stubbornly.

“Well, I was. I did what I had to do for my people.” He shook his head in frustration. “I never expected to see you again.”

“Because I would have been in jail,” I pointed out angrily. “So, you just used me for sex to get your cover story. Gosh, that makes me feel so much better.”

“That wasn’t the only reason,” he said. “Not that they will make things any better.”

“What do you mean?”

“I slept with you because you were smoking hot and … and because my dragon was insisting on it. Even then, it knew.”

“Knew what? That I’d make the perfect patsy for you?”

“No,” he growled with more fire than he’d shown so far. “That you were my mate. I thought that was clear by now. I should have listened to it then, but I didn’t. And I hurt you because of it. I apologize for that, Lena, I really do because I didn’t like it. But I also wouldn’t undo it either. At that time, I did what I had to do. I wish we’d never gone to war, that it had never been necessary, but I had a duty to my people. That duty trumped what, at the time, was a random human, no matter how beautiful and intriguing.”

“At the time?” I asked, trying not to let his casual use of my shortened name get to me. But it sounded so perfect rolling off his tongue.

He nodded fiercely. “I would never do such a thing now. I would go to the ends of the earth to protect you and our child. My duty now is to you and the baby. Nothing could come between that.”

“I …” I shook my head. “I don’t know if I can accept that, Damon. I spent two months in prison because of you. Do you know how awful that was? Then, I was shipped here. Because of you and what you did to me. My own people decided I was a traitor and that this was the easiest way to get rid of me. They didn’t want me. You didn’t want me. You just used me. How do I know this isn’t more of the same?”

“You don’t,” he said with stoic bluntness. “Because the only thing to prove it is my word. And right now, you don’t know if you can trust it.”

“Exactly,” I whispered.

His eyes clouded over, swirling seas of deep blue that still threatened to pull me in. How was it that after all I’d just discovered, I wanted to forgive him? To try to move past what he’d done.

“How can I make it up to you?” he asked. “There must be some way for me to show you that I’m not using you now. That I care.”

“That’s the problem,” I whispered, forcing myself to be strong. “I don’t think there is.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Damon

Something reached around my stomach and squeezed hard, slicing its pain deep into me as the heaviness of her tone sank home.

I was losing her.

Things had changed so quickly. From her moving in to utter failure in the blink of an eye. I cursed myself for being stupid enough to hang on to the ID badge and for not even thinking twice about hiding it better. If I’d just done that, things would be fine.

Except I would still be lying to her.

It was hard to convince myself in the moment, however, that having the truth out there would actually make anything better. I’d been about to start truly bonding with my mate. Now I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to hold her again. Finding a route to forgiveness didn’t look overly promising.

“Take me home,” Elanya said into the void yawning wide between us.

“What?”

“Home,” she whispered with the barest hint of a flutter to her words. “Take me home, Damon. To my friends and family. Let me go.”

I swayed backward, my dragon roaring in denial. Let her go? Preposterous. We’d just found her. Now was the time to bond with her, to place our scale on her skin, to make things official. Then no one else would ever be able to claim her. She would be mine. Letting her go was the worst thing to do right then.

From a mating perspective. As a good person, however, it was the wrong move. I couldn’t ask that of Elanya, not right then. And it was impossible to force the bond on her. She had to want it, to accept it.

“Elanya …” I said, stalling for time as I tried to organize my thoughts and come up with a good counterargument. Something to convince her to stay.

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