Page 78 of Fated to the Grumpy Dragon
“You’re not,” he said, kicking aside the broken pieces of his coffee table. “But we don’t have time to talk about it.”
I glanced at the door. “Why? Are we in danger?”
“I don’t think so.” He shrugged. “Although, I suppose anything is possible.”
“You’re lying to me,” I said.
He paused his search, looking at me then his house. Then me. Then his house. His ransacked house. “There’s always the potential for danger, Emma.”
“I feel like that potential goes up if I’m living on the streets of a dragon town where I don’t know a damn soul!”
“You really don’t like listening to me, do you?” he grumped, finally happy with everything in the bag. He zipped it up and thrust it at me. “Come on. It’s time to go.”
“I don’t want to leave.” Why did he so suddenly want me out? I hadn’t even begun to think about what I would do with my life now that I knew everything and had all my memories.
Going home didn’t seem like much of an option. The country was still under dragon occupation. How would that be any different than life here? At least here I had Rhyse. Whatever we were, there was a link between us that couldn’t be broken. It was complicated, hence my request for time to think.
Now he was trying to get rid of me? It was a rejection I hadn’t seen coming. As far as I’d thought, Rhyse wanted me to stay.
Apparently, I didn’t know him as well as I’d thought. He’d kept this from me without a hint. Any hint. Now, he was agitated. Unsure.
So, why, underneath the turmoil boiling in his mind, was I able to detect a current of protectiveness. It made no sense.
“Rhyse.” I stood my ground, ceasing to follow him around the house. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He sized me up, arching an eyebrow at my stance but nothing more. “You’re going home. That’s what’s going on. But we have to go now. Time is running out.”
Home?
I drew in a breath, taking my time, using those seconds to try to organize my thoughts.
“No time for hesitation, Emma. The ship leaves in forty minutes, and you need to be on it.”
Rhyse put a hand on my back and propelled me toward the door. I sort of stumbled along. Home? What did that mean. Where would I go? Back to Maine wasn’t an option. The entirestate, as far as I was aware, was under dragon control. My house might still stand, given the remote nature and tiny size of Caledon, but living there was out of the question.
So, where would I go? Mom and Dad were dead. I was an only child. There was nothing left for me there.
Unless Rhyse meant the refugee camp. And Bob.
“Rhyse,” I said as he hurried me outside and toward the path that led down to the village and docks. “Rhyse, wait.”
“It takes twenty minutes to get to town,” he said. “Rikell doesn’t have any sort of set schedule. He comes and goes when he feels like it. That’s cutting it entirely too close.”
“So, send me off tomorrow,” I suggested, trying to prod at him, see why he was suddenly so insistent.
“Rikell doesn’t run a ferry service. He’s a trader. He generally goes once every week at most. Now, let’s go. I need to get down there in time to make arrangements and apologize.”
He strode off, leaving me to hurry along after him. “Apologize? What do you need to apologize to him for?”
Ifeltthe wince even if I could only see the back of his head. “You know the boat I set on fire the first day we met? It may be that it belongs to his brother.”
“Peachy,” I muttered, shaking my head. “Great. And you’re going to trust him to get me safely to … where?”
“The Florida Keys.”
“Florida? Rhyse, I don’t know anyone in Florida! What the hell am I supposed to do there?”
He shrugged—but the indifference on the outside waswildlydifferent from the inner turmoil he was trying so desperately to hide. “I’m not sure. There’s $20,000 in cash in there and a few bits of gold and gems Killian missed. That should be enough for you to figure it out.”
