I knew her better than Dorran. She was ruthless, cruel, and would do anything to get what she wanted, and she did not want me to be happy.

Perching on the edge of the couch, I bounced my knees up and down, my fingers dancing against my thighs. Toby snorted. “Dorran is not going to give you up, Amara. Don’t worry. He’ll find a way to stick it to your stepmom. Chill out. You’re gonna give yourself a stroke.”

Sliding my hands down my thighs, I leaned back and closed my eyes. Toby was right. I was safe up here on the mountain, tucked away in a cabin with my mate.

My stepmother couldn’t reach me but could take the restaurant and burn it if she wanted to. Nerves sprinkled down my spine as the front door opened.

I jolted to my feet.

Toby groaned as he stood up. “Thank God, Dorran. She’s about to have a stroke. Can I leave?”

Dorran waved him away. I tried to read Dorran’s face with no luck. His shoulders were tense, and his hands shoved down into his jeans pockets. “How did it go?”

He stopped a few inches from me and cupped my face in his hands. “Your stepmother is a nasty cunt.”

“This I know,” I said.

Dorran rubbed the corner of my mouth with his thumb. “She’s adamant that you can’t live without a guardian. She also doesn’t want to give you the restaurant or the house if you don’t stay. I think she’s lying about the medication to keep you as a live-in maid.”

A knife twisted in my stomach. I hadn’t expected her to but hearing it out loud hurt. I’d grown up in that house. My parents and I lived there back before they passed. Would she sell it? There was so much of my mother that still lived there. My room was once her sewing room.

I couldn’t let Helena touch it.

Dorran wiped away a stray tear from my cheek. “Don’t cry, Little Mouse. I won’t let her take a damn thing. The first thing we need to do is get you evaluated and prove that you don’t need her guardianship. The second thing we’re going to do is run her out of the kingdom. I’ve asked my father for help.”

“And he agreed?”

Dorran sighed and ran his fingers into his ebony locks. “Yes, but there is a catch.”

I shifted nervously. “What’s that?”

“He wants us to come to dinner tonight.”

As if my stomach wasn’t already in knots. I had no intention of meeting his family right now. His mother had clearly shown her distaste for me. I didn’t want to go eat with them.

“Dorran, your mother hates me. I don’t want to go—,”

“Neither do I,” he said. “But I need my father’s help to get Helena out of the kingdom. I can’t do it without him. He knows the laws, he makes them, and he can show me how to get her out. We need him on our side.”

Dorran must have sensed my anxiety because he slid his large palms down my neck to my shoulders. “I will never let anyone hurt you, my family included. I’d rather saw off my dick than go eat with them and The East Kingdom.”

“We don’t want that, you may need it.”

Dorran’s dragon skimmed the surface, a shiver raced down his skin and his eyes danced a dangerous color. “Oh, I’ll need it all right. Now, I’m fighting my dragon to keep my hands to myself. I know you’re sore. I want to give you time to heal, and then I’ll take you on any inch of this mountain you want.”

Flames licked at my insides. White-hot lust raced through me. He was right, we needed to wait, but my body felt ready for rounds two and three.

Dorran chuckled. “We need to prepare for our dinner tonight, Little Mouse. And didn’t you need to answer emails?”

Reality smacked me. I’d neglected my work since Dorran came into my life. My focus turned to him and everything I thought I would never have. “Yes.”

Dorran walked toward a desk in the corner of the den and brought out a laptop. “I can have Toby get yours tonight, but this one is newer, and probably faster.”

“Thank you,” I said, running my palm over the smooth top. “What am I going to wear tonight? I don’t have anything that's dinner at the castle worthy.”

Dorran stretched his arms above his head, which made his biceps look huge. “I’m sure we can come up with something. Why don’t you do some work, and we’ll head down to the kingdom for lunch, and then we’ll grab you something to wear.”

I’d never been stared at so much in my life. I knew being with Dorran would toss me into a life unlike my own, but I never expected this kind of attention.