Page 32 of The Forbidden Dragon King
I growl as I throw the linen flap aside and storm out into the night.
The cold air hits my cheeks. The breeze tumbles my hair, fluttering the gleaming Golden Dragon banners that fly above my large tent.
The guards outside snap to attention. I ignore them.
My head is still too filled with a certain red-haired wolf shifter who smells of summer roses in full bloom.
Freya smells like my favorite place in the realms: Mother’s private rose garden.
It’s the only place where I am fully calm, relaxed, and at peace.
It’s the only place that nobody is allowed to visit but me.
Where Maximinus can’t find me.
I have spent the last week tending to Freya, breathingin her rose scent and pheromones, and feeling that same peace.
I’ve spent it wishing that this wasn’t so complicated and I wasn’t royal.
Why couldn’t this be like the stories, where I’ve simply saved an Omega, my fated mate? She’d wake up, smell my scent, and we’d bond.
I wouldn’t be forbidden to bond with anyone.
We wouldn’t be enemies.
Freya wouldn’t also belong to Lanlin Sin…who wouldn’t have murdered my brother.
Yet I am a King and not any other Alpha. I have a duty and responsibility to all the kingdoms and their people. My wants and needs aren’t my own.
Nor is my body or life.
I’ve spent a lifetime being trained, molded, and beaten to learn that lesson.
I ball my hands into fists behind my back.
I know these rules.
I fucking know them.
But why did Freya have to be so fuckingchallenging?
I shake with the conflicting emotions of grief, joy, and a spark of something else that I never expected to experience.
The insolent fae loving thief is so much more than I dreamed she would be. In the candlelight, her hair looked like flames.
My eternal flame.
Vesta.
Goddess.
I grimace, as my cock hardens uncomfortably in my tight leather armor. I slam down hard on the conflicting emotions that are storming through me, shuttering my expression.
Feel nothing. Be nothing. Feel nothing…
“Are we adopting a kitten then, Relius?” A voice drawls from the darkness. “Can I play with him?”
Two figures peel away from the shadows. They are dressed in battle armor.
