Page 17 of The Dragon's Mate Proposal

Which only left me with one option.

“You won’t be living on the streets,” I said softly.

She brightened. “We aren’t? Who is going to take us in?”

“Nobody,” I said. “They only do that if a dragon has nowhere else to go.”

“Oh?”

I nodded. “And I have somewhere else for us to go.”

I just didn’t want to.

Chapter Nine

Samantha

“Hey!” I shouted into the wind, finally giving voice to the alarm that had been slowly building inside me.

“Yes?” Cade didn’t turn his head, keeping his long neck stretched out in a straight line as the two massive dragon wings beat with a steady precision, propelling us toward our destination.

Or so he said.

“That’s water up ahead!”

A ripple ran through the dragon body underneath me, and a second later, an explosive snort could be heard as Cade turned his head back to give me an unreadable look with one dragon eye.

“You don’t say.”

My eyes were already narrowed against the wind rushing along his scaled neck and over me, but I did my best to turn it into a glare anyway.

“Yes. It’s called the ocean,” I drawled back in my best mocking tone. “And in case you haven’t noticed, that over there is what appears to be a storm. Which is getting closer.”

I pointed off to the left flank—port? Did dragons use nautical terms, too? What did planes call it? I wasn’t sure—where dark black storm clouds had been building for some time and were now rushing in our direction.

“So I’d noticed.” Cade didn’t seem particularly concerned by any of these details.

“Perhaps you can explain to me, then. Why you’re going for an ocean cruise instead of taking us to where we’re supposed to stay.”

“I am taking us to our destination,” he said. “Or did you forget you’re in the Dragon Isles?”

I clamped my jaw shut. I had forgotten, though I didn’t know the name was literal.

“How far is it?” I asked. “I assume you’re confident we’ll outrun the storm?”

“Yes.” The dragon turned his head back forward, focusing on flying.

I stuck my tongue out at his back and crossed my arms. What a frustrating man. He jumped back and forth between rude and irritating to a protector who spent his last coin on me. There was a lot to unpack with Cade. Just who was he really?

“If I ask you, will you tell me where we’re going at least now that we’re on our way and I can’t exactly leave?”

Cade was silent. I knew he’d heard me because his hearing was beyond excellent, even with the wind rushing past and pulling my voice with it. So, either he wasn’t going to respond at all, keeping me in mystery, or—

“A family estate,” he said without looking back at me.

A family estate? So, we were going to stay with relatives, then. Why would he be so reluctant to talk about that? I wanted to ask more, but his gruff reply made it clear doing so would not produce any helpful results.

So, I was left to stew in my own curiosity as we flew on over the water, outracing the storm as it passed behind us, and then over the coast as we reached one of the other isles. I wondered how many there were in total.

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