Page 7 of The Dragon's Mate Proposal

“Fuck,” I muttered as I fell through the hole, bouncing off the jagged walls until I hit the bottom and blacked out.

An unknown amount of time later, something toeing at my shoulder woke me.

“It hasn’t been thirty days, damn you,” I mumbled woozily.

“Hello, Cade,” a different voice said.

A voice I knew. I looked up into the eyes of Vicek, heir to the sovereign who ruled all dragonkind.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

Chapter Four

Cade

“Well, you found me,” I said with about the same energy as my first sentence. “Somehow.”

“It wasn’t hard,” Vicek said calmly. “I just followed those two.”

“That’s a lot of work for someone like you to do just to find someone like me,” I said, still not getting up from the cold floor. Heir to the dragon kingdom or not, my body was not in any shape to move. Not yet.

Apparently, I hadn’t been unconscious for all that long after all.

Vicek just stared at me, his expression betraying no emotion.

“Right. Well, what the fuck do you want?” I asked. “I haven’t set foot on the Dragon Isles in decades. I owe the sovereign nothing.”

“We know,” Vicek said, not reacting to my tone. “But the sovereign has an offer for you.”

I laughed, coughing up a bit of blood. In a minor bit of deference to his position, I made sure not to let it land on his boots.

“That’s wonderful,” I said, taking a deep breath in, wishing dragon healing worked faster. My broken bones were already healing, and the cuts had all begun to heal over, but it would still be several days before I was fully restored.

“I knew you would think so.”

“That was sarcasm, Vicek,” I said. “I don’t give a fuck what she has to say.”

“You should,” the heir said just a bit coldly.

I sagged onto the floor of the empty gold vault. “Unless you’re here to offer me a shit-ton of money, I don’t want your offer. I have enough going on as it is. I don’t want to owe anything to her. I’ve done just fine without in my life.”

Vicek looked me over. “I can see that.”

He added nothing else, not responding to my first point. I stared up at him, my eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“Are you here to offer me a lot of money?” I asked.

“In a way,” Vicek said.

I shoved myself to a sitting position, ignoring the protests of my muscles and bones that didn’t want to move that way.

“Forgive me for not standing and bowing,” I said, a little more respectfully—but not too respectfully.

“Given the circumstances,” Vicek said with a wry smile, “I think I can let it pass.”

“So, just what is it you want from me?”

“To help.”

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