Page 73 of The Dragon's Mate Proposal

“Wait!” he shouted as my temper flared. “Not because I don’t respect you.”

I calmed, sensing his truth. “Then why not?”

He bowed his head. “Because once a scale bond is made, to remove it will kill both parties.”

My mouth fell open. “Well, that’s certainly another interpretation of ‘till death do us part.’ So, you’re telling me I’m stuck like this, with a part of you in my head, no matter what I choose for the rest of my life?”

He nodded slowly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But if I hadn’t, the ‘rest of your life’ would already have passed us by. You would be lying here dead in my arms. I … I couldn’t.”

“Who were those men?” I asked instead, stalling for time as I tried to process the staggering enormity of the change that had just been done to me.

“Lackeys,” Cade said quietly, perhaps sensing a sliver of my inner turmoil and giving me a break. “Of a man named Kalann.”

“He’s the one you owe all the money to,” I said.

“Yes.”

“I see.” I breathed in and out, slow and steady, working to remain calm, thinking back over everything that had just happened. One thing in particular drew my attention. “What did they mean about your agreement with the sovereign involving me?”

Even before I’d finished asking the question, the anxiety emanating from Cade increased.

“Sam …”

I frowned, pinning him in place with a stern look. “You can’t lie to me, Cade. Not anymore.”

He sagged. “I know. It’s just … context is important.”

“Context is important,” I repeated in disbelief. “This is going to be bad, isn’t it?”

Although he refused to meet my gaze, he no longer had to. Perhaps there was at least one positive about our bond. A flicker of irritation answered my thought pattern as he reacted to it.

“Yes,” he said bluntly, coming to his decision. “It is.”

“What’s the agreement?”

He shook his head, angry but not seeing any way out.

“The sovereign came to me with an offer. If I would volunteer to be one of the dragons who mated with a human, she would settle my debts with Kalann.”

I stared at him in shock. “You’re fucking joking.”

But I knew he wasn’t.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Samantha

I shook my head, trying to rein in my mounting fury.

“Sam.”

“Shut up!” I shouted, not wanting to hear him say my name. No matter how good it sounded, even now, through the haze of red settling over me. “Don’t say my name. You can’t talk your way out of this one, Cade. You used me! For money. That’s all I was to you. Another path to restoring your fortune. You never cared, did you? You just wanted to convince me to fall in love, then you were going to leave me.”

The words ran out, and I saw the truth of it on his face, even as I felt it deep within me.

When he spoke, it was a ghost of a whisper. “At first. Yes. That is what I intended.”

Regret poured through our link. I tried to close it off. The intensity lessened, but never went away.

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