Page 22 of Dragons' Mate
There was a note of primal command in the order, and Quinton turned to Cyril obediently.
Cyril had sheathed his sword, his face concerned. “What’s going on inside your head?”
“Nothing.”
“I’d expected you to at least destroy the room by now,” Cyril pointed out, each word digging deeper into Quinton’s shields. It was annoying as fuck and Quinton didn’t bother to respond.
Cyril clicked his tongue. “That you aren’t even trying -”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Quinton snapped finally. “She likes it. Alright? Is that what you want to hear? She likes it. You’d have to be bloody blind not to see it.” The words came through gritted teeth. “If I hurt them, I hurt her.”
And wasn’t that the ironic truth? For as much as the mating bond roared its jealousy, it also made it impossible for Quinton to stop what was happening. How could he attack Hauck, when he was making every fiber of Kit’s body sing with pleasure and trust and a hundred other things that she deserved? How could he rip out Tavias’s jugular, when his scent made shivers of desire rush over Kit’s skin? The mating bond served up all the truths to Quinton, stripping him of his defenses one at a time. Kit had missed Hauck’s teasing heat. Missed Tavias's dangerous touch. With the mating bond between them, Quinton felt Kit’s sensations as vividly as his own just then.
Quinton’s hand curled into a fist, his nails digging into his palm. He focused on the sensation. On his breath. On watching each of Kit’s breaths. The way her lashes fluttered when she shut her eyes. How she made this tiny involuntary sound each time a tendril of pleasure caressed her.
Everything.
“You know, I used to think that she was the weak link,” Cyril said after a few moments of blessed quiet. “A fragile human who couldn’t ride or fight or keep herself out of harm’s way.”
“She still can’t. Especially the latter.” The riding and fighting had improved.
Cyril snorted. “Most certainly not the latter. But she isn’t the weak link, is she?”
“No.” Quinton couldn’t look away from where Tavias’s hand slipped down Kit’s inner thigh, the scent of her arousal now spiking the air.
“We weren’t a pack,” Cyril’s words were softly spoken, as if he’d not been sure whether he wished to voice them aloud. “Not in anything beyond name and custom. Not before her.”
“We are what we’ve been forged to be,” said Quinton. He cut himself off, knowing he was stepping into treacherous territory. Cyril was the most powerful of them, his magic poised to eclipse even Ettienne’s. But something had happened to lock that power up. Quinton didn’t know what it was, only that Cyril came back changed after one fairly minor skirmish had gone awry. Cyril never spoke of what happened exactly and Tavias, who was likely the only person who knew, didn’t either.
Yet on the Phoenix, Quinton had glimpsed sparks of that powerful male once more. He had no doubt that too was Kit’s doing.
“You should go join them.” Cyril pointed his chin at the obvious pulsating hardness in Quinton’s britches. “You obviously want to.”
Quinton turned his head away.
“Quinton.” There was that command in Cyril’s voice again.
Quinton growled. “I can’t.”
“Did Ettienne hurt you beyond —”
He struck his palm against the wall, the last strands of control snapping. “Ettienne has nothing to do with this.” Quinton drew a breath, keeping his voice low, though no less harsh. “Don’t you rutting get it? ShewantsHauck and Tavias—and you too, if you decided you trusted me to not lose my shit. What she feels for you, it’s real. Me, I’m just instinct. A pull of a bloody bond she never asked for. It’s not the same. It never will be.”
Cyril’s brows pulled together. “What kind of horseshit is that?”
He forced his hand to unfurl. He was a shadow. The shit he’d done in the name of the throne, stars, maybe this was the world’s justice. There had to be a reckoning for all the deaths Quinton caused and wasn’t this a much more fitting punishment than to be smitten in return? “Can you assist with my wounds?” Quinton asked briskly, motioning to the bathing chamber.
He didn’t want Kit seeing his back.
“Of course.” Cyril picked up the satchel Kit had put down, the one with the vial of Dragon Tears. The potion was nearly as hard to get as the fertility elixir and it hurt like the fires of the abyss. But it worked like nothing else. Trust Ettienne to have his cake and eat it too—punish Quinton without compromising the pack’s chances at the trial.
“Where do you two think you are going?” Kit’s voice snagged the pair of them before they could get halfway to the adjoining room. She was tangled so deeply in Hauck’s arms that Quinton doubted even a sliver of light could worm between them now. He imagined himself there in Hauck’s place, and regretted it immediately since it made his heart pump so hard that it irritated his wounds.
Kit scraped her teeth along her bottom lip. “This is supposed to be the part where we come together.”
“You came together,” Quinton said. “I didn’t kill anyone. Victory. Now I’d like to move on.”
Kit pushed away from Hauck and Tavias, striding across the large chamber like a battlefield general. Her gown fluttered behind her, the too long skirts swishing about with each movement. Sometime during her reunion with Hauck and Tavias, her hair had come undone—likely with assistance—and now framed her shoulders in snow white locks. Quinton couldn’t decide which he found more distracting, the dyed color or original. Both were magnificent.
