Page 38 of Claimed By the Sinful Dragon
I stared at him, shock warring with hatred and something that was definitely…not hatred.
He released my chin abruptly, but I could still feel every tingling spot his fingers had touched.
“You will go to your room and remain there. We’ll discuss this further when I return.”
“The hell I will,” I said, gaping at him. “I’m not a child. You can’t just…just send me to my room.”
“I am a dragon lord. I can do whatever the hell I want.”
“No, you ca— Hey, what are you doing?”
His hand wrapped around my arm made it perfectly clear what he was doing, and I tried to yank it back, earning nothing but a sharp pain for my effort. He stalked out of the kitchen, dragging me with him, my feet scrabbling uselessly on the stone floors as I tried to resist.
“Get off of me!”
“No. If you cannot obey, I willmakeyou obey.”
He didn’t even sound out of breath, and I was pulling back with everything I had. Fuck. I was so outmatched it was laughable, or would have been if it wasn’t so gut-twistingly terrifying.
By the time we reached the stairs, I’d given up trying to free myself, since it was clearly pointless and fighting back would have been suicidally stupid. The only one getting hurt in that scenario would be me—which didn’t make it any less humiliating to be towed meekly to my room, but between humiliated and dead, I knew which I was choosing.
He shoved open my door, and then pushed me through it.
“Ow! Watch it.”
“You better not eventhinkabout trying to leave this room until I come to get you,” he warned me, then pulled the door shut before I could retort, leaving me gaping after him. And then I heard a key turn in the lock.
I lurched forward, grabbing at the handle and rattling it, but he’d done it. He’d locked me in.
“Rook!” I lifted one hand and pounded on the door furiously. “Rook!”
Un-fucking-believable. He’d locked me in. I kicked the door in frustration, earning myself a sharp pain in my foot, then stalked around my room, fuming. He couldn’t just lock me in here. I didn’t give a shit who the hell he thought he was, dragon lord or not, he didn’t have the right to just lock me in a cage. He couldn’t treat me like this!
Fucking psychopath.
My eyes fell on something sitting by the wall. A bag. The one he’d brought in here this morning, then abandoned, when he’d decided to kick me out, right before he’d decided I was too weak and pathetic to survive on my own. That he’d be stuck with me here for the rest of my life. An unwanted burden.
Well he wasn’t the only one who didn’t want this, which he’d know if he actually listened to me. Aboutanything.And sure, maybe wolves weren’t meant to be on their own, maybe they were meant to run in packs, but as Rook had taken great pleasure in reminding me, I wasn’t a wolf. And if I wasn’t a wolf, then it didn’t matter that I didn’t have a pack.
I glanced over at the window, watching Rook’s form slowly shrinking into the distance. The door wasn’t the only way out of this room.
He wanted me gone?
Fine.
Chapter 19
Rook
“You’d better havea good reason for dragging my ass out here, Gaheris.” I didn’t bother waiting for him to invite me inside, simply stalking through his open door. If he had a problem with it, he’d say. And then maybe he wouldn’t insist on me coming out here again.
“How about impending war?” he said, closing the door and following me along the hallway. I led us both into his study—I’d been here often enough to know the way, though granted not for the last fifty years. It hadn’t changed much, aside from looking more faded than the last time I’d been here.
He lacks pride in his territory,my dragon observed, unimpressed.
“You should redecorate before someone assumes your territory is uninhabited and claims it. And I fail to see whyyourimpending war is any concern of mine.”
“It’s always such a joy seeing you, Rook,” Gaheris deadpanned, striding over to his drinks cabinet. He raised a brow in question and I dipped my chin in answer, the simple gestures all the communication we needed after knowing each other for as long as we had. He set out two glasses and splashed a generous measure of whiskey into both. “And need I remind you, it’s not just my war. If the rebels rile Uther enough, he’ll make sure the whole region is dragged into it. I know you like to pretend you live in a whole other world, but you are in fact part of this one.”
