Page 26 of Claimed By the Sinful Dragon
My gaze found him as my dragon made the observation, and I was grudgingly forced to admit he was one of the few creatures in this room whose mere existence didn’t make me wish to end mine.
Despite the lake?
I bit back a growl.I prefer it when you’re thinking about rutting, beast.
We’re not the only ones thinking about rutting.
‘We’ is an exaggeration by at least—Wait, what?
Because that was when I sawher, and knew exactly what my dragon was talking about. The human. Lurking in Onyx’s shadow, acting the demure little Tribute that I knew could never have caught my old friend’s eye. But that was exactly what she’d done, if the tension running across his shoulders was any indication, and the possessive gleam in his eye.
Fuck me. Must be something in the food. I stared at the half-eaten leg of lamb in my hand and tossed it to the corner of the room.
I scrubbed my hand through my hair with a scowl and strode over to take the empty seat next to Onyx, then snatched up an abandoned goblet of some kind of shit wine someone had left on the table. I downed half of it in one, grimacing. No wonder the fucker had left it. No-one could have poor enough taste to think that wine was anything other than rank. Not even myDhoca.
Shit. I shoved the thought aside. I wasnotwasting time thinking about my Tribute. My beast had enough trouble keeping things straight as it was.
“Surprised to find you in the same room as that lot after everything,” I said to Onyx, before my dragon could get any ideas about the female we’d left behind and my errant thought. Deciding I ought narrow it down, given the current company, I nodded towards Drey and his generals.
“Anything I should know about, mate?” he asked, sidestepping my observation with all the finesse of an elephant attempting to tap-dance.
“Impatient bastard,” I said, not bothering to hide my amusement. “You know these things take time.”
Alotof time, seeing as I preferred not to leave my territory more than once a decade, given the choice.
“No bites yet?”
My dragon sent an unhelpfully vivid image of myDhoca’s teeth biting into my shoulder, and I lifted the goblet to my lips before anyone could see me almost choking on air.
“None worth mentioning.”
Fuck this. I needed some air. I abandoned the goblet to its next victim and slunk off through the room. I never should have let Gaheris talk me into coming here. Might have been easier to go to war. Certainly less painful.
Someone clapped their hands, and I briefly considered removing them at the wrists. My eyes landed on the head prick from the assholes who called themselves ‘Tres Blades’ of all things. Santiago, I was pretty sure he went by.
“Thank you for coming on short notice. I know many of you have been dealing with your own faction issues, many stemming from the Borderlands, but it’s important we maintain our promise to the Dragon Border Alliance. First and foremost, we are comrades and allies.”
I bit back a snort. Comrades and allies? Could have fucking fooled me. It’d be a miracle if everyone made it out of here without spilling blood.
As the fool droned on, I eyed the assembled dragons, half-expecting someone to leap across the table and start ripping throats before Santiago could finish his self-important speech. If only. Instead, I settled back against the wall behind me, arms folded, and let my gaze wander. Onyx looked ready to gut the next idiot who glanced at his human. Dreythos and his little family cluster were drawing more than their share of glances, not all of them envious. Seemed like some in this room would rather our species died out than take a human mate. Didn’t matter much to me either way. This world had dragons enough, and I didn’t much care for it. But if it came to a fight…well, there were worse men to stand alongside than Drey. Plus he’d killed more dragons than he’d bred, so I was pretty sure that put him on my side of the equation.
“We should increase Tributes,” one moron to my right called out, presumably in response to whatever bullshit Santiago had been spewing.
“Aye,” another agreed. “Stake a claim on the Borderlands and keep them in line.”
I snorted. “I’m sure you’ll be volunteering your faction to handle that, Sigrar?”
He glowered at me, but fell silent, turning to the bodyguard by his side, because Sigrar never left home without someone holding his hand. “Heard Uther sent his lackey because he was too busy playing with his toys to come himself.”
The bodyguard sent an uneasy look my way, clearly torn between kissing up to his boss, and not having his head ripped clean off his shoulders by me. Little did he realize I didn’t give a fuck about Uther, or anyone trash talking him. Besides, it was probably true.
“Heard he’s got his eye on a new one,” Sigrar droned on like the fuckwit he was. “Says she’s ‘special’. Not like the rest. Probably means she has the right number of eyes, unlike everything else in that territory.”
Fuck, I hoped not. The king’s ‘special’ interests never ended well for anyone—however many fucking eyes they had. But I did make a note to dump a three-eyed deer on Sigrar’s house next time I flew near his territory. Maybe I’d make a trip out that way sooner rather than later.
“…and end the rebellions once and for all,” Santiago concluded. He might just as well have said we were all going to eat mud and shit gold for all the belief I could see on the faces round the room.
What a shock. Another meeting of the Dreary Bastards Association that was going to achieve the sum total of fuck all. I glanced over at Dreythos though, and then Onyx, and wondered if this trip hadn’t been a little more useful than I’d given it credit for.
