Page 10 of Dragon Prince of New York

He smiles fondly at his wife. “And soon, we shall have a new heir to the throne!”

Another loud cheer, and I can’t help but smile. There was a day when I hoped Midas would never have an heir and the throne would pass to me, but I don’t want that now. I only want Finley.

As the noise dies down, Midas motions for the priest to join him on the dais. The man makes his way forward, carrying a bowl of liquid gold taken from the ceremonial pool during the last Week of the Goddess Celebration, the one where Jeslyn became a dragon.

He stands in front of her, parting the sheer fabric around her to reveal her belly. She’s the only one clothed, though really it’s just a swath of fabric draped over her shoulders and strategically tied with a sash. Midas is more jealous and possessive than any dragon I’ve ever known and after the initial ceremony where she transformed, he’s refused to let anyone see his wife nude, despite how it bucks with tradition and is difficult to accommodate after transformations.

Personally, I’d rather have everyone see my mate and know exactly what they’re missing, what they’ll never have, what’s mine and mine alone.

“Tonight, we ask the goddess to bless this mother.” The priest dips his thumb in the gold and smudges it in a line across Jeslyn’s forehead. “This child.” He draws a golden circle around her belly button. Then makes a line straight down from the top of her belly to the underside. “This birth.”

Midas’s jaw is tight, and it’s clear he’s trying not to rip the man to shreds for touching his mate.

The priest turns and looks for me in the crowd. “Step forward.”

I walk to the dais and kneel in front of him.

“As the current heir, do you pass on your right to the throne or would you like to challenge the child’s lineage?”

“I make no challenge.” The expression I find on my brother’s face is one I can’t read, but I hope he sees how much I regret the challenge I made before. “I gladly accept this child as the future of our horde.”

The priest dips his pinky into the gold and draws a triangle on my forehead and each cheek. “You will reign in your brother’s stead while he accompanies his mate to the hatching grounds, and then no more.”

“By the goddess and the gold.”

The crowd cheers and the drums begin. The horde celebratesthe way we always do. Music. Dancing. Sex. Lots of sex. But I have no stomach for it now and quietly sneak away.

There’s only one person I want, and she’s not at the temple.

Chapter 7

Cyrus

As soon as thesun is up, I’m in my car and heading to Midas’s penthouse. I just want to get back to Finley. I need to be in her orbit, even more than I need to put distance between us. It’s a dangerous game I’m playing. Too close, and we could both get burned. Too far, and I feel like I’m drifting into a dark void.

Before I can raise my hand to knock on my brother’s door, it swings open. Finley is standing in the doorway, wearing running shorts and a pink sports bra. Her hair is up in a ponytail, begging to be wrapped around my hand and pulled.

She stares up at me with big, icy blue eyes, the color of glaciers in the middle of spring.

This is exactly how we met the first time, when Finley turned my world on its axis. After only a few minutes together, I knew she was my mate. I also knew she was seventeen. Noteven of age by human standards.

I left and went straight to the High Temple archives. A year later, I still couldn’t find a record of a dragon meeting their human mate before the human was twenty-three. Not a single one.

No one knows exactly what causes one dragon to recognize another as their mate, but it never happens before a dragon reaches maturity. With our longer life spans, puberty doesn’t happen until a dragon’s twenty-third birthday. And always, for every dragon, it happens on that exact day. Not like humans, who reach puberty at different times all throughout adolescence. When I met Finley, she was nearly of age by human standards, only two months shy of eighteen, and definitely not a child.

I considered taking it up with the priests. But Finley isn’t just any human. She’s my queen’s sister. And even if she was of legal age by human standards, she was still young. It just felt… wrong.

The one priest I confided in encouraged me to trust the goddess and wait. So, I did. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but it shaped me into the man I am today. A better man, I think, than I was six years ago.

Hopefully, a man worthy of the beautiful hellcat glaring up at me.

“You having déjà vu as much as I am right now?” I whisper.

Finley lifts and lowers one shoulder. Her beautiful lips quirk to one side. “Nah, you were cuter back then.”

“You weren’t.”

“Excuse me?” Her hand goes to the curve of her hip, and my gaze follows. “Are you saying I wasn’t attractive? Did I repulse you? Is that why you cursed in my face and wouldn’t even walk me out of the building? You didn’t want to be seen with me?”

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