Page 65 of Fated for his Flame

More things clicked into place. Including her nervousness. She was looking to figure out a way to leave. To leave me.

What was worse was I couldn’t blame her. The greeting she’d been given from my family, the other dragons we’d encountered, and the shitstorm Caine and his family had thrown our way, simply because I’d chosen her over his daughter, was not the sort of welcome anyone deserved.

But Chloe also knew she couldn’t just up and leave. That would be a violation of the truce. I pondered what the sovereign would do if that happened. Accept it? Look past it? Go on the warpath? I wasn’t sure. The truce was such a flimsy thing, enforced almost entirely by the sheer force of the sovereign’s will. All it would take was one incident for the warmongers to latch onto and use as a reason to renew their attacks.

I knew what I would do, however, if she were ever kidnapped. Even if it was faked. Until I knew better, I would go on the warpath.

Things had gone too far. I cared too much.

I would destroy anything to get her back. She would have to tell me to my face she didn’t want to be with me. But until then …

“We should pack up,” I said with a sigh.

“Why?”

“Because we’re going back to the Isles.”

The vacation had been a mistake. I saw then.

It had only made things worse.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chloe

They were waiting for us when we pulled the small motor yacht into its slip at the marina. Four men, all dressed in the livery of the palace guard.

“What’s going on?” I asked as they walked tightly down the dock. There was no doubt they were coming right for us.

“I have no idea,” Silas muttered as he killed the engine and tossed a thick rope to the nearest guard. “I was wondering the same thing.”

Even before everything was secure, two of the guards vaulted over the gunwale and headed for the stairs that would bring them to the upper level to the controls area.

I watched them come, thinking furiously. There was no way they could know. Was there? I’d been quite careful. Nobody had followed me.

So, why were the guards there?

“Maybe something happened with Caine,” I suggested. “An attack? Perhaps they’re here to protect us.”

“Maybe.”

Silas didn’t sound like he agreed. I glanced over at him, noting the troubled look in his light blue-gray eyes.

Eyes that hadn’t looked at me the same since I’d come back. There was a wall growing between us. I knew as soon as I gave him my excuse for why I hadn’t been in the villa that he knew I hadn’t been telling him everything. It ate at me, gnawing away my stomach as we ventured home until my insides churned with stress-related acid reflux.

I hated it. Hated myself. Everything.

Why couldn’t I just lie to him like I had to a thousand others before?

The answer was obvious, and I knew it. I just didn’t want to face it. Didn’t want to face the truth about my feelings. The truth about Silas and what he’d come to mean to me.

“What’s going on?” Silas asked as the two guardsmen reached the top of the stairs.

I noticed how he moved to put himself between them and me. He disguised it as a step toward the top of the stairwell, yet he also moved sideways. Still protecting me. Even then. I chewed on my lower lip, a fresh wave of nausea overcoming me.

You don’t deserve him.

“Step aside, please,” the lead guard said politely but very firmly.

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