Page 70 of Dark Prince's Captive

I hug his legs tighter.“Please, Aruan.Please.If you care even one iota about me, please don’t harm her.”

An internal battle rages in his eyes.

Sensing the shift in him, I stare up at him with my best pleading look.“She knows me.See?”

“How the dragon would it know you?”he asks through gritted teeth, breaking his stare at the perceived danger to glance at me.

Yes.My begging has the desired effect.His expression softens a fraction.

“She flew past your window,” I say.“Sheknowsme.”

“You’re dreaming.It’ll gobble you down whole.”

“Give her a chance.”I climb to my feet, holding Aruan’s gaze.“She’s not going to hurt us.”

He doesn’t seem convinced.Staring down the pterosaur again, he says, “I’ve seen what these dragons are capable of with my own eyes.”

“Aruan,” I say in a no-nonsense manner.

He glances at me again.

I cross my arms.“If you hurt her, you hurt me.”

He works his jaw from side to side, but the killing rage inside him diminishes.It hovers there, just in case, but apparently, he does care enough to listen to my plea.

When I sense his power retracting, I blow out a sigh of relief.

“Not so fast, mate,” he says with narrowed eyes.“If it shows any signs of aggression, it’s dead.”

“Yes, I know.It’ll take you a millisecond to vaporize her.So just relax for now, okay?”

Despite my flippant tone, I’m worried for Betty, even though she won’t be aggressive toward me.I can’t explain how I know it, but I do.

Betty comes closer.

And closer still.

Aruan tenses behind me, and I sense his power welling up again.

“She won’t hurt me,” I reiterate, my gaze glued to the prehistoric creature that’s now standing over me, staring into my eyes.“Please, just give her a chance.”

Aruan’s power crackles in the air around us, potent and deadly, but to my relief, he doesn’t unleash it.Maybe it’s because he knows he can kill Betty faster than she can do me harm, or maybe it’s because she’s not showing any signs of wanting to rip me to pieces with her claws or to grasp me in her beak and fling me through the air.

I hold my breath as she lowers her head and sniffs me.

Aruan stands like a lethal weapon behind me, ready to vaporize the five-hundred-pound pterosaur if she dares to step out of line, but all she does is tilt her head and… rub against me.

Aruan goes still.It’s more than the mere quiet that defines an absence of sound.His whole being freezes in the way that follows in the wake of disbelief and miracles.

The creature closes her eyes as if in ecstasy and rubs her fine-haired head against my neck.The tuft of feathers on her crown tickles my nose.

A giggle bubbles over my lips.

Aruan clenches my shoulders in his big hands, his grip like an iron vise.But Betty continues to rub herself against me, dragging her chin over my hair.She nudges me softly and gently runs her barbed, prehensile tongue over my hand before returning to caressing my face.

“Dragons,” Aruan says, his voice not sounding like his own.

Carefully, he pulls me away from the pterosaur, walking us backward toward the path, the black flowers forgotten where he dropped them on the ground.

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