Page 69 of The Dragon's Mate Proposal

My dragon roared its thoughts.

PROTECT. MATE.

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” I growled to the empty air.

Reed hopped down from his spot above the cave entrance. He eyes me speculatively.

“Now, I have to wonder, what’s changed since we last spoke? Why are you suddenly so confident you can actually pay?”

“I was always confident,” I said, standing tall. “I just didn’t see the need to pay it off early.”

“No,” Reed said, shaking his head, watching my face sharply. “No, that’s not it. Something’s changed. Something new. You think you actually have the means to pay it off.”

“I do.”

Reed snorted. “I hope you factored in interest. Twenty percent.”

I couldn’t stop my jaw from falling open. “What?”

Kalann’s goon sighed. “It’s simple. The longer you take to pay, the more interest there is. It’ll be near fifty percent if you wait until the end.” He sneered. “Still confident you can pay?”

“Yes,” I growled defiantly. There was enough gold in the mine to cover my debts and then some. I hoped.

“Now, why are you so sure of yourself?” Reed mused. “Could it be because of your little deal with the sovereign about the human?”

I froze.

“Cade, what are they talking about?”

“Nothing,” I growled, lifting a finger to point at Reed. “Get off my property. Now.”

“Not until we deliver the message we came to present,” Reed said, striding forward.

“Message received,” I said warily. “Time is running short. Interest added. Now, get out of here.”

“But that was only part of the message,” Reed said with a false smile.

Alarm bells were already ringing in my head, so when he tried to sucker punch me, I was more than ready. Blocking the blow with a forearm, I leaned in and drove my forearm into his jaw.

Reed staggered backward in surprise, but he was a pro and quickly recovered.

“Run!” I yelled at Samantha as the other two dragon-men leaped at me, their wings spreading wide to control their leap.

I inhaled sharply and sent a burst of fire at Lincoln, singeing his wing and sending him tumbling away. The other attacker banked wide. I turned to attack him as well, but by then, Reed had recovered, and he tackled me to the ground.

A bolt of lightning zipped through the space I’d just occupied, courtesy of the unknown third dragon, and I gave thanks it had missed, even as I hit the ground. Reed and I bounced, and I managed to toss him away with a kick of my legs.

He soared in a high arc, his wings sprouting and catching the air before he began to descend. With a flick of his shoulder muscles, they swooped him forward right back at me.

I turned and batted him from the air with one of my wings just as Lincoln hit me hard in the knees, sending me back to the ground. I reached down and slapped a cupped hand over his ear.

Howling in agony as I burst his eardrum, Lincoln reeled away. At the same time, I rolled, just missing another blast of lightning brought down from the brilliant blue sky. It hit the rocks and shattered them, but my wings took the brunt of the attack.

Reed came back in with a dropkick straight to my back, which slammed me into the rock. I bounced back, twisting to the side as another lightning blast came at me—that time, from the mouth of the other dragon-man as he shifted into his dragon form. The electrical charge sped past me, and I grinned, throwing myself forward and slamming a fist into his face.

A blast of fire caught me in the side, the force of the flames knocking me into the rocky wall rising around the cave entrance.

“Enough of this,” Reed snarled as I struggled to get up, my left side and arm blackened.

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