Page 1 of Dragons' Mate
CHAPTER1
Kit
Quinton shoves me into a shadowed corner. I land hard on the wooden floor, my body ringing at the sudden impact. My quilt falls from my grip, leaving me naked. Twisting around, I see Quinton on his knees, blood welling up around the arrow shaft that now protrudes from the dragon prince’s chest. The arrow that had been meant for me. A shiver runs through me, one that has nothing to do with cold.
Breathing in a lungful of dust, I watch as Quinton grabs the shaft and yanks it out of his flesh in a quick motion that makes me blanche. In the sliver of light coming through the open window, I see blood dripping from the wound and staining his shirt.
"Stay here and stay down,” Quinton orders. Moving faster than anyone should be able to—much less someone who has just been shot—he streaks toward the window and goes through it in a fluid motion. We are on the second floor and I try not to think about the jump down. Not that I'm dumb enough to go look. No one knew Quinton was in my chambers, so I know I’d been the archer’s intended target.
I don’t know why. I’m no one. A human slave taken for a dragon’s hoard and then sent away by the Massa’eve king. I’m irrelevant. At least I was until the world turned on its head in the past hour and tied me forever to a dragon prince.
Heart pounding, I stay where I am in the shadowed corner, not even daring to pull the quilt toward me. Seconds tick away, turning to minutes, and my thoughts start to order themselves. As good as darkness is for concealment, it won't do much if someone decides to lob another arrow through the open window. Even a blind shot would landsomewhere. A bit of shielding would not be amiss just now.
Pulling myself together, I crawl from the corner to the space beneath the bed. It’s stuffy and even dustier than the bare floor was—but it would protect me from any more arrows at least. I'd not thought twice about having left the window open earlier in the evening. Would things have turned out differently if I took care?
Pillowing my head in my arms, I curl up as much as the space under the bed allows. I hate being helpless, unable to do anything but hide under a dusty bed. But I'm a human in the realm of immortal fae, dragon princes and ancient magics. It isn’t exactly a fair playing field.
And yet I'd just signed myself up to wade right into the middle of that immortal mess. Suddenly, the notions of sneaking back to the palace, infiltrating the pledge ball, and getting myself accepted into the Equinox Trials all seem like very bad life choices. Especially since attaining the precious dose of the fertility elixir, which is the trials’ prize, will mean some poor human becoming the pack’s brood mare.
The bite on my breast tingles, the new bond between Quinton and me reminding me of its existence. Because on top of everything else, a dragon prince had accidently lost control and claimed me as his mate less than an hour ago. A dragon prince who I don't even like, and who likes me even less. Neither of those things are likely to change. Quinton dislikes weakness—and being human in the immortal realm is about as weak as it gets. Worse, being shackled to me makes Quinton weaker. My very existence is a vulnerability to him.
Which he will never let me forget.
The tingling sensation around my breast intensifies, like icy-hot tendrils curling around the mark. I’ve no idea where Quinton is or what he is doing exactly, but it’s something intense. Intense good or intense bad, though? And according to what measure? Dismembering someone would probably begoodin Quinton's book, so I couldn’t trust the bond to be objective even if it were more obliging with information.
At least I know Quinton is alive.
I'm not sure how much time passes before there is a muffled thump in the room and soft footsteps approaching my hiding spot. I know it's Quinton even before he lifts the bed from above me and shoves it aside as if it weighs no more than a heavy chair.
In the band of moonlight coming through the window, Quinton’s preternaturally beautiful features are taut with displeasure. His broad shoulders and chest heave with heavy breaths, his blood soaked tunic clinging to his skin. The scent of blood coming off him is so intense that I want to recoil. But then Quinton’s silver eyes catch mine and everything inside me twists into a knot. No part of me wants to go near the dragon right now, and yet every part of me needs to. Not just near… My body longs for something a great deal deeper thannear.
Remembering that I’m still curled up naked on the floor, I scramble up and grab the fallen quilt, pulling it around myself. “The blood,” I say, fighting down my body’s unwelcome reaction. “Are you alright?”
Quinton doesn’t move, but the way his whole attention zeros in on me feels like a physical act. His fevered gaze scans me from head to toe, his hands opening and closing at his sides. The singular focus is at once intimate and disconcerting.
I swallow. Now that we are close, the need to feel his body inside mine is washing over me in a heated blaze that is more than inappropriate.
“Quinton,” I repeat. “The blood. Are you—”
"It’s not mine,” he says roughly. “Not most of it, anyway." He looks down at himself as if seeing the mess for the first time. Gripping the hem of the soaked shirt, the prince strips it off, the material falling to the floor in a wet plop. “Better?”
That’s a loaded question right now.Glad as I am that he is no longer standing in blood-drenched clothes, I wish he had something else to put on because damn it—I can't think over the pounding primal desire suddenly seizing my chest and my sex and everything in-between.
The run of Quinton’s silver scales traces an intricate pattern over smooth skin and chiseled muscles. One column of scales, the one running down his sternum, through the groove of his six-pack abs and down into the flaps of his leather britches, makes it near impossible to focus on anything but desire commandeering my senses. The scales shimmer in whatever scraps of light they can find.
My sex pulses. My breaths quicken. My mind fights for clarity with every fiber of its being. "What... what happened?" I ask him. The wound on his chest, which I finally find, is raw but not nearly as bad as it would be on a human.
"Yirel and Jared. Your guards. Got drunk. Got stupid. Got dead." Quinton runs his hand through his hair. The blond strands are hanging loose and brushing his shoulder. He pants as he speaks, though I don't think it's entirely from the fight. Whatever is happening to me, is happening to him too. "They wanted to end their assignment early. They got their wish."
My guards. The ones who I’d started to believe were no one to be concerned over.
"Are you sure?" I ask, trying to clear my head. “You don’t think Salazar or Geoffrey found out about me and -”
"I’m certain." A muscle ticks along Quinton's jaw and I suddenly notice that there is blood on his boots as well. Quinton raises his chin, and I catch a flash of icy harness flicker across his features. "We had a chat. They acted alone."
Oh stars. Did he...
"Yes. I did," Quinton says to the question I never spoke aloud but one that must have been evident in my eyes. There is no apology or even regret on his face. “Plus, if my uncle or cousin were behind this, they’d do better than lob blind arrows. As it was, the drunk buffoons’ arrows barely had enough force to wound a human.”
