Page 214 of Gift from the Wing

“Feisty, blunt, yes. I wouldn’t say mean, though.”

We both laugh a little at that, and she runs her hand around the rim of my mating mark through my shirt as I sigh. The tender touch of her fingers and eyes as she gazes at exactly where she knows her teeth imprints are calms my rising nerves.

“Come on then, little wanderer. Let’s get this over with,” I say, standing us both up.

“I’ll walk you to the garden, dragon, but that’s as far as I go.”

Damn. It was worth a shot.

“Everything’s going to be okay. I think this will go a lot better than you think,” she says, squeezing my hand as we make it down the hall.

Then her ass pulls a Caspian and whisks me through the shadows with no warning, and I grumble as she spits us back out right at the gardens.

“You said you’d walk me to the gardens.”

She laughs, shaking her head at me before pressing up on her toes to give me a kiss on the cheek. “You’re stalling. If I had let you walk all the way here, you’d have found a way to distract me.”

Yes, yes, I would have.

I know, ridiculous.

Blowing out my breath, I lay my lips to her forehead. “I needed the push. Thank you.”

“Anytime, Draken.”

Her hand grips my arm as she turns to walk away, and her smile speaks a million words. If she believes this is going to go better than I think, then I’ll just think it’s going to be great.

Forcing my feet to work, I walk around the bend in the garden and chuckle as Tanith and Keeper come into view.

He most certainly is moping.

He’s kicking at grass, pacing back and forth, and Tanith huffs, rolling her eyes every few steps he takes. I wonder if that’s what I look like when I sulk.

Probably exactly like that.

“Oh, thank goodness, young lord. You’re here to rescue me from this imprisonment,”Tanith says and I hide my smirk behind my hand when Keeper whips around, glaring at her.

“Are you comparing my company to being locked away?”

“Obviously.”

“Ungrateful dragon,” he sneers and I do chuckle then. So does Tanith. “Draken, I thought you and your beloved were discussing our new plans for tomorrow?” he asks me, way nicer than he spoke to Tanith.

The reply to his question runs through my mind, and I tell myself to say we did, then start a conversation from there and easily lead into what I want to talk about, but that’s not what my mouth does.

“She was your beloved. You loved her. Willow just showed me.”

His whole body falls statue-still and he doesn’t hide anything as his face crumbles. I mean, just flat out falls apart. Gone is the happy, cheery, teasing personality that I know I get from him, and in front of me stands a shell of that man.

“Oh, this would be my cue to leave,”Tanith says, and with a few beats of her wings, she’s gone, but me and Keeper never break eye contact.

“I wondered when the Adored would tell you. I’m surprised she waited as long as she did,” he says mournfully.

“She’s pretty proficient with timing. She always knows when it’s the right time, or at least something tells her when. So…it’s true? I mean, I kinda saw it with my own eyes, but I’d like to hear it.”

He closes his eyes and his head bows low. “Yes, it’s true.”

“You didn’t want it?”

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