Page 13 of Dragon Awakened

A growl escapes me. This man had best hope he never crosses my path.

"Did you..." Malik clears his throat. "Lock eyes with this brother?"

"We've had eye contact, yes," she grits out. "But not the good kind. Any time he looked at me it was to tell me how worthless I am."

She shifts her weight, directing her gaze back to her decimated plate, and it's a good thing. Rage churns through me, even hotter than before.

"So we kill them both," Rafe pronounces.

Ember ignores him. "Fury's the better chance at being my mate, I think." Our bond is awash with conflicted feelings of anger and grief and resignation. "If it had been Storm, I would have known. Right?"

"I think it's safe to say that we are in uncharted waters," Malik tells her gently.

I nod. "An understatement."

"Either way." Ember lifts her head again, squaring her shoulders and trying to hide her pain. But she can't hide it from us. "I need to go to the Air Kingdom and find them."

"When do we leave?" Rafe asks.

"You don't have to come with me," Ember tries.

"Believe me." My words come out more severe than I intend them. "We do."

"We would not let you out of our sight," Malik agrees.

"But..." Ember hesitates, glancing among us all.

"But nothing." With that, I stand.

The electric force pulling me to my mate has been yanking at me since the moment she woke. It lay dormant within my chest while she slept, and it howled the entire time she was in the Shadow King's Citadel. It will not be ignored a moment more.

And it sure as hell isn't going to let her go to a foreign kingdom to find another mate alone.

The fact that her most likely candidates for her final mate are men who were cruel to her, who discarded her...

She gazes up at me with wide eyes, trembling. Braced for the worst. "You can't be happy about this."

And I hate that I'm scaring her. I hate that my intensity is bringing that quiver to her lip, but I can't calm down. I won't.

Not until she understands.

"I'm not," I agree. With that, I shove the table aside, just barely managing not to clip Malik's knee as I do, but I don't care.

Ember sits there, stunned.

"I'm not happy about you having another mate." The words are pouring out of me now. "I'm not happy about having to share you. I'm not happy to have our love thrown to the mercy of the gods, over and over again, or that you have to face the greatest evil to ever stare down dragonkind."

My voice threatens to falter, and I swallow, my throat grating, my dragon growling with possessive heat inside my chest.

"I'm not happy that you need to go into hostile territory to find these men who made you ever feel like less than the goddess you are."

"Jianyu..."

I drop to my knees before her. I cup her face, and the contact of her skin against mine sears me through.

"But I will never, ever let you go there alone."

Fire blazes through my veins, and I pull her in.

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