Page 26 of Redeeming the Dragon

I discerned by the movement of his glowing, golden eyes that he was shaking his head. “No.”

“That is what I thought,” I replied. “You say I’m your mate. You say I’m your savior. Yet you will not tell me so much as your name. How am I to save you if you tell me nothing? What am I saving you from? You are a mysterious creature, indeed, who claims to need salvation yet offers no hint as to how it is to be enacted.”

“And you are far more plainspoken than I expected you to be,” he observed.

“Oh?” Was he insulted? Did he dislike my plainspokenness? “What did you expect me to be?”

“I suppose…frightened. Cowed. Quiet. Weeping.”

I squinted at him, trying to pierce the shroud of shadows that hung between us. “Is that how youwantedme to be?” I asked quietly. “Did you want a mate, a savior, who was terrified of you? Cowed into silence, or drowning in tears?”

“No!” The mattress beneath us creaked as he shifted his weight. I thought he intended to stand. Instead, I felt a slight rush of air as his hand lifted to my face, touching my cheek, cradling it as he had the night before.

“I want you to know you need never fear me, nor anything else, so long as I live. I will protect you, Lorna, from anything and everything, until my dying breath.”

The odd declaration caused a painful twist in my chest. A curious mixture of irritation and fear, longing and sympathy, wanting to believe while desperately fearful to trust coursed through my veins.

“That may be true,” I whispered, reaching up to take his hand and firmly pull it from my face. “Yet who is going to protect me from you?”

Chapter 16

“Iwill never harm you.” The words came at me swiftly through the gloom.

“Too late,” I responded softly. Sadly. “You already have.”

“Lorna…”

“No.” I jumped off the bed, removing myself from close proximity. “I told you. You terrified my family and my friends. You stole me from my home. You’ve locked me away in a sunless cave. You’ve ruined my reputation by sharing my bed at night. That is harm, Dragon. Whether you intended it or not.”

His golden stare was fixed on me. I could see nothing of him, apart from his golden eyes that gazed, unblinking, upon me.

“Had there been any other way, I would have taken it,” he avowed quietly. “For all this, I will never harm you. Nor will I permit anyone else to hurt you.”

Pursing my lips, I shook my head, allowing myself a moment to breathe out and seek calm.

“You do not hear your own words, Dragon.”

“I do,” he argued. “They sound empty, and yet I ask you to trust me. Trust me awhile longer.”

“Trust?” I laughed harshly, folding my arms over my chest. “Trust is hard to come by when I am locked away in a prison of stone. When I see and speak to no one, except a strange creature who comes, unbidden, to my bed at night. This is a fool’s way of earning trust.”

“I know.” Silence a moment. Then, “I know.”

If he had argued with me, become angry or protested, it would have been easier to maintain my anger. As it was, after another span of silence, I relented, lowering my arms with a sigh.

“I suppose nothing will be solved tonight, will it?” I asked. “I think it best that you go, though. I would rather sleep alone.”

“I cannot leave you,” he answered swiftly.

“Cannot or will not?” I breathed a harsh laugh. “I am trying to be kind, Dragon. Despite what you’ve done, I am trying to be kind. I am asking you respectfully to leave.”

“And I am answering, respectfully, that I cannot.”

“You did the night before,” I pointed out.

“The night before, I slept outside your door,” he rejoined. “You were simply unaware.”

“You are the most stubborn, confounded—I-I do not know whether to call you a beast or a man,” I exploded. I wanted to stamp my foot or punch the wall. Anything to vent my frustration. “Why? Why can you not leave me? Tell me that. Because I do not believe it’s that you can’t. It’s that you won’t.”

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