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I went over to a speaker on the wall and pushed the button.

When someone asked what I needed, I told them to bring food for the Golden as quickly as they could.

Then I turned and leaned against the wall, waiting impatiently while Rylan and the little dragon had their reunion.

The Golden babbled to him about the enclosure and what he’d been doing, and plied Rylan with endless questions over where he’d been and why he hadn’t been to see him.

Rylan answered him very softly and seriously, managing to calm him down in a remarkably short time.

This had gotten out of hand quickly, and I wondered if I should have ever brought Rylan here at all.

I was pretty sure of the answer. This was only going to make everything so much worse.

When his food came—a shoulder of goral meat—he fell on it quickly and ate so rapidly that we both had to caution him about making himself sick. He ate every bite of his food and drank a whole bucket of water. Then he lay down with his head in Rylan’s lap and fell sound asleep.

“How can I leave him?” Rylan said softly, looking up at me as the dragon snuggled his head into his lap and began snoring.

“I know it’s hard when he carries on the way he does, but it’s really for the best that you don’t let him get even more attached to you.”

“Better? For me or for him? Please don’t make me leave him, Quinn. Besides, you owe me. You admitted that you were out of control at that warehouse on Lycanus 3, and you said you were sorry for the things you did to me. Don’t you want a chance to make it up to me? To convince me to marry you?”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I was shocked by his manipulations. I had never acted the way I had on Lycanus before in my life, and the memory of it was excruciatingly embarrassing to me. I’d been hoping that particular memory of his might fade again, but no such luck.

“You know that was a huge misunderstanding,” I said, my voice stiff. “I don’t think now is the time to discuss it.”

“Then when? We’re negotiating. I’d like to talk about it now.”

“No.”

“No? That’s all I’m going to get?”

“I told you I don’t want to talk about it any further.”

“Quinn Fortina, you held me in your arms, and you growled at anyone who tried to take me away from you. You ripped my trousers off, exposing my naked ass to the world and would have done more if not for the Lycans.”

I could feel my face flaming. “Why are we still talking about this? I-I didn’t mean for you to be hurt, and I’m sorry. Though if you hadn’t fought me, it would never have happened. Not so soon, anyway.”

“I asked the doctor about it, you know,” Rylan said. “About how such a thing could have happened, and do you know what he said?”

“How would I know? And I can’t believe you discussed our private business with the doctor.”

Ignoring me, he carried on talking. He was just like the chatty little dragon, never knowing when to be quiet.

“He said that with Horvathians, sometimes males feel the mating urge so strongly and it’s so powerful and undeniable that they bite the other person to mark them as theirs. Could it be that you wanted to bite me, Quinn? Would you like to bite me even now?”

I glared furiously at him, because damn it, it was all I wanted, and I didn’t know how much longer I could wait to claim him.

“No!” I shouted at him. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

A small voice spoke up in front of me. “Why are you yelling at him? That’s not nice.”

I looked in surprise at the dragon who was looking right back up at me.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.”

“Then why did you do it?”

I was far too exasperated to have this conversation. I blew out a long and furious breath and looked back at Rylan. “Are you ready to go? I need to get back to base.”

“Go?” The little dragon cried out. “But you just got here!”

“It’s all right,” Rylan told him. “You’re coming with me this time.”

“No, he isn’t! Don’t promise him things like that!”

He stood up and faced me. “Yes, he is. You owe me, Quinn and you know it. If you don’t let me have him, right here and now, then as soon as we get back to your base, I’m calling my grandfather and telling him I want to come back home, but you won’t let me.

And then you can work the rest of it out with him. ”

“You’re not going anywhere,” I growled at him.

“I’ll stay if you give me this dragon. I promise I will. Consider it part of my mate price. Only this part will be paid directly to me.”

“In other words, you’re blackmailing me.”

“No other words—that’s exactly what I’m doing.

You give me this dragon, and I’ll agree to marry you.

If not, then I’ll get my grandfather, King Davos, to come and get me.

Don’t think I won’t. I think I can even squeeze out a few tears for him.

I’ll tell him how you beat me and keep me locked up all the time. ”

“This is outrageous.”

“Maybe so, but those are my terms. Take them or leave them. What’s it going to be?”

As I stood there glaring at him in complete fury and astonishment, he nodded with satisfaction.

“That’s what I thought.” He found the little vetami’s harness and slipped it on him. Then he took the end of the leash, came out of the enclosure and began leading him quickly toward the exit, with the dragon trotting happily along beside him.

I hesitated only a few seconds before I followed him.

****

As I imagined it would be, it was an awkward ride back, to say the least. I was seething with anger while Rylan sat with the Golden—whom he had already begun calling Talon —in his lap, smiling happily because he’d gotten his way.

Actually, the vetami’s broad backside was sprawled in the floor beside Rylan’s seat, and his front paws were draped over Rylan’s legs.

He had grown that much in the past few days and was already too large to sit in his lap.

Now that he was eating again, he’d grow a great deal more and rapidly too.

This would probably be his last time inside a vehicle, because soon he wouldn’t fit.

He was babbling now about how he just loved his new name and how clever Rylan was to think of it.

I dreaded the uproar that this would cause with the training facility, although, in truth, I felt like some of the trainers had been a little too harsh in their dealings with the vetami.

Perhaps it was time for them to realize they didn’t “own” them either but were simply tasked with their training and well-being.

Some of the top trainers, like that Colonel Bentine, seemed to have grown a bit complacent and a little too comfortable in the job, as evidenced by the way he’d acted when I’d come to see Talon earlier in the week.

On the way back to the base, I decided it would be best to detour away from the hospital and just take Rylan and his vetami both straight to my family home outside the capitol city, in the foothills of the eastern mountain chain called the Kramons.

It was where I’d grown up and where I kept Sulamon, in a large field beside the house.

He had his own attendants and his own enclosure there, fully heated in the harsh winters.

There would be plenty of room for little Talon there too.

And because Talon was so young, I didn’t think Sulamon would try to fight him, even though males didn’t get along too well, as a general rule with other male dragons.

I would have brought Rylan here soon, anyway, which I knew would be a necessity because of his high rank and status.

Perhaps it would all be for the best anyway.

I’d be gone often on various missions and duty related trips, and having Talon here would be good company for Rylan while I was gone. It would help keep him occupied.

“I’m going to take you and Talon to my home in the hills. I’ll have your things brought over to you.”

“I don’t have any things.”

I glanced over at him in surprise. “I’m so sorry, Rylan. I’ve been preoccupied since we got back, but I told the doctors to provide whatever you needed. Whatever you asked for.”

He shrugged and kept staring out the windshield.

“If you’ll make a list of everything you want, I’ll get it for you.

Or I can take you shopping. Just tell me what you want to do.

” Rylan continued to stare straight ahead while I was telling him all this, and I couldn’t read his mood at all.

It irritated me a little that I had to worry about such things now, but having a mate changed everything.

“What do you think?” I prompted him. “Would that work? Will you go there to my home and live with me?”

“I don’t know. Do you intend to marry me right away? You keep talking about a mate contract, but I haven’t seen one yet. I won’t stay there unless there’s a wedding, you know.”

“Yes, of course, I want to marry you as soon as possible. I’m going to inform the queen tonight and I’ll arrange a wedding for us.”

“And I’m not through talking about this camp of yours. It’s silly to think that you can make your men some kind of ‘warrior monks’ who have no lives outside of work. That’s never going to work, you know.”

“Well, I…”

“Have you spoken to my parents about all this yet?”

“No. Not exactly. Not yet. I thought I would do that in person, when your bearer arrives. I did speak to Prince Mikos already, as you know, and he knows my intentions.”

He turned toward me. “Oh, I know. He told me, but he’s not my father. He’s my uncle. That whole conversation was kind of a disaster, anyway, wasn’t it?”

“Was it?”

“You know it was. He makes most people nervous. Not you, though, he said. The two of you argued.”

“It wasn’t exactly an argument. But no, he doesn’t bother me, though I think he wanted to. I tried to make him understand how I felt about everything, but I’m still not sure if he did. He said one of his fathers is coming along with yours.”

“Blake, Davos’s consort, like I already told you. We call them omaks. They’re our bearers, as well as one of our fathers. I don’t think you have those here.”

“No, we do not.”

“I don’t plan to bear children, just so you know. If you have that idea, just get it out of your head right now.”

“No,” I said, looking over at him in horror at the idea of altering his body. “I don’t want that at all.”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with it, so there’s no need for your face to look like that. It’s just not for me. I don’t plan to stay at home all the time and take care of babies.”

“I…see. Then what do you plan to do?”

“That’s something I’ll have to figure out. I’ve decided that I will marry you—though you still haven’t exactly asked me to.”

“Yes, I did.” I said a little heatedly.

“No. We discussed how you told my uncle you planned to keep me and mentioned sending my father a marriage contract. We negotiated a little over Talon. But no, you never actually asked me to marry you.”

“Well, I…”

“You’ll have to send the contract to my other father, King Stefan, or else he’ll be offended. He’s pretty tough, you know. But he’ll probably agree. You should also call him and just be nice and respectful to him. Not like you were with Mikos.”

“Of course.”

I suddenly needed to touch him, but I thought that once I got started with that, I wouldn’t be able to stop. “I’m sorry if I’m messing this up.”

He put a hand on Talon’s head and finally turned to smile at me. “You’re getting a little better at it. And as Blake says, ‘practice does make perfect.’”