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“If I did not want to bond with you, I would have let you die on that table and felt sad for your loss like I have felt sadness for the Dragons who have been lost, but I would have moved past it. I claimed you as my mate because I wanted you, and I did not give a fuck about asking you for your permission when all I wanted was for you to live alongside me.”

Rurik had finally found the one female he truly wanted. He would do anything to keep her, to protect her, and the world would rue the day it ever tried to harm her because he would finally turn his unyielding rage upon it with an uncontrollable vengeance.

He would set fire to the world around him, but never let a flame touch her.

Rurik pulled his head back to bore his gaze into hers.

“Do you understand me now?” With her lips parted, she hesitantly nodded her head. “Do you still not want it?” She shook her head.Good.

He had one last question. He released the pull he had on her hair to gently cup her head so he could ask it softly.

“Do you feel for me?”

Did she return his feelings?

“Yes,” she answered, and he swiftly leaned forward to take her mouth, to kiss her with hard and unyielding need and force and the deep passionate heat he held for her.

She kissed him back by moving her lips over his own. He gave a silent groan when she gave a loud one. He reluctantly broke from the kiss before he got swept up and forgot she wouldn’t be able to take him right now.

“Good, because you are the only female who seems to know how to handle me.”

His words got her to laugh, but he knew it was the truth, and he had a feeling so did she.

Nobody, and he really meant nobody, male or female, human, Witch, or Dragon, knew how to calm him from his frequent bouts of rage. He was volatile and ill-tempered, and instead of barking back, she often redirected or replaced his anger with something else.

“There is one last thing I wish to show you.”

But he didn’t let her walk since he didn’t truly want to separate from her. He scooped her into his strong arms so he could take her to the entrance of his lair.

They both embraced the sunshine that shone bright and bathed them.

“Why are you taking me outside?” she asked when they were in the middle of the clearing in front of his lair.

She reached her hand up to place it over her brow to shield her squinting eyes from the bright light.

“You are no longer a prisoner in my lair,” he answered, turning his head down to look at her in the sun and see her dull hair springing to life. “With my mark on you, my wards will not be able to hold you back anymore. They will see you as an extension of myself, and you will be able to pass through them without thought in the same way I do.”

“I can go outside?”

He nodded.

If Rurik wanted to keep Amalia inside, he would have to concentrate on a shield at all times. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to waste energy or magic on doing so, he just no longer wanted to keep her trapped.

She reached up to cup his face with both hands, giving him the smile that always made his chest feel tight. Yet with the meaning behind it from his words, it also made him feel unbelievably heavy.

Now that he’d shown her she could go wherever she pleased, he took her back to her room. When he placed her on her feet, he pulled the tub to the centre and began to walk around it thoughtfully.I hope I remember how to do this.He also didn’t let her fill it with water when she tried.

“What are you doing?”

He pointed to it. “I am not letting you in this alone when you are unwell. I fear you will fall asleep and drown yourself by accident.”

He remembered the last time he healed her and had to bathe her while she was unconscious. She kept slipping inside it to the point he had to hold her up.

“It is too small for both of us, it will be fine.”

She tried to step forward, but he grabbed the rim of the porcelain tub and crinkled his brows in concentration. Rurik hadn’t tried to change the size of something in a very long time.

The reason he’d never changed the size of his travel pouch when he’d fallen from the sky and eventually found himself in her cottage was because it was a difficult spell to do.