Page 57 of Dragon's Honor

“All the fun of figuring out your life and making your own choices, it’s over. You’ve learned who your mate is.”

Ash couldn’t help it, he barked out a laugh. “You think it’s that easy? Fate shows us who our mate is and bam we sail into the sunset?”

Finley frowned. “Isn’t it?”

“If it were, don’t you think you and I would be doing something else other than moving around each awkwardly unsure of what do with ourselves?”Like moving furniture around from the force of my cock inside you.

“Isn’t that just because I’m human and illegal…or whatever?”

Her words were angry. Was it possible she felt something for him? Earlier, she’d seemed jealous of Syrena. Did she not like that more hadn’t happened between them?

He wished he could see inside her head. Maybe she was as confused but desiring as much as he was.

“Hardly,” he said at last. “Is any relationship easy? Whether fate is involved or not? My parents were fated, but it wasn’t as if their heartstones lit up and any conflict between them melted away.”

“Conflict?”

“They hated each other in the beginning. My mother wasn’t born of the Tourmaline Clan. She was an Amazonite princess, brought to our kingdom on a diplomatic mission with her parents. They touched, their heartstones alighted, and Mother stormed out of the throne room, taking flight before anyone could stop her. Her parents acted like it was set in stone, this mating. They wanted nothing to do with each other or the responsibility of what their parents were putting on them.”

“What happened?”

“Fate has this way of making it clear why they were chosen for each other in the first place. There was a huge battle between dragons and vampires. My mother fought by his side. They saved each other over and over again. They’d been married and consummated for the purpose of ritual and tradition, but they didn’t develop feelings for each other until they were fighting side by side.”

Finley looked away toward the ocean.

It drove him crazy not to know what she was thinking about. He wanted to know all her thoughts and dreams and wishes. It was selfish. It was borderline insanity. It was…almost desperate that he find a way for her to open up to him.

But how?

12

Just What the Doctor Ordered

Finley couldn’t get over how he made her feel. She was a jumble of emotions. The more he talked about fate and mates it made her head swirl with possibilities. She didn’t like fate. It seemed cruel, and uncaring. That wasn’t what she wanted for her life.

Was it fate that her father fell out of love with her mother? Was it fate that every man but the one next to her had made her feel less than? Did fate play with hearts? Destroy lives? Or was it not fate at all, and just some weird trick?

Magic was real, she supposed fate could be too.

What was she supposed to do now? Spread her legs, open her heart, and just accept her fate?

Spreading her legs seemed like a fun idea. The heated looks he’d been giving her hadn’t gone unnoticed. Her entire body had lit up from the idea that he was attracted to her. The man certainly knew how to kiss and make her feel like she was about to explode.

Did she ignore fate and just do whatever she wanted? Even if it seemed to be what fated wanted for her too?

Did she run into that demon in the alley when she was a child because she was fated to end up with a dragon shifter?

That seemed preposterous.

But then, so did dragon shifters.

She shifted in her seat, so she was angled toward him. She wanted to see his face.

“You haven’t seemed happy to have a mate. When we first met, you seemed pissed off.”

“I would be lying if I said that finding my tourmaline on a human’s wrist had made me ecstatic. But I wasn’t mad that I had been granted a mate.” He chuckled. “It also didn’t help that my little brother was there to needle me about it the whole time. I was there to stop people from dying and there my mate was in the middle of it. I was pissed off, but not about you. The timing seemed terrible to me. I’m in the middle of a war trying to track down the guy who murdered my parents and attempted to destroy my clan. Finding my mate seemed like a sick joke. Why now? I had too much shit to do.”

“I can see that.”

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