Page 32

Rylan

My grandparents hadn’t stayed too long after dinner.

I’d wanted them to spend the night, but Blake insisted they needed to go back to their ship, because he wanted to be on the way home.

He wanted to be there by the next day to meet visitors—my cousin Mikol and his consort.

Blake and my grandfather led busy lives, and my cousin Mikol was coming to them for an extended visit, now that the tensions with the Pton on Loros were finally at an end.

As Mikol was in direct line for the throne one day, it was important that the people of Tygeria saw him regularly, and it had been a while since he and his consort Kalen could leave Loros to visit Tygeria.

After they left to go up to their ship, I was tired from all the excitement of their visit and went to bed right away.

Of course, I wanted some time alone with my husband.

I’d turned to him almost as soon as door closed behind them, draping myself over him as he stood beside me, but to my surprise, he shrugged me off, pulling my arms down from around his neck.

He said he’d promised to spend some time with Sulamon and Talon and that he’d be back in a while.

He was a little stony-faced and cool, but I thought he must have a lot on his mind.

I lifted my face for a kiss, but he seemed not to notice as he turned and abruptly took off outside.

I tried to stay awake to wait for him, but with all the swimming, sun and exercise from earlier in the day, not to mention the excitement of seeing my grandparents, it soon put me out. I never knew what time Quinn came to bed that night, or even if he came at all.

By the time I awoke the next morning, he was already dressed and preparing to head back to his camp in the mountains. He was standing by the side of our bed looking down at me when I opened my eyes.

“I need to be on my way back, Rylan.”

“But you only just got home. I thought you might spend the morning at least and perhaps have lunch with me. We could have a little time together this morning before you have to leave.”

“Unfortunately, no. But I’ll be home again in a few days.”

“Oh, okay, then. I guess I could start working with Talon on some teaching methods in the meantime. To see if he can explain to another dragon how he communicates so easily. You know, explain his process.”

“I think if he could do that, he’d already have done it. He’d have had Sulamon talking like he does. Don’t get your hopes up about this idea. How would he or anyone for that matter teach someone else to use telepathy? Surely, you know that’s never going to work, Rylan.”

“But you agreed to try it when Grandfather brought it up.”

“Did I? I don’t remember making any promises like that.

I did what I always do when some king is talking about something he knows nothing at all about but starts making pronouncements anyway—I keep my mouth shut and my thoughts to myself.

And you know full well exactly what I think about you staying in camp with me.

It’s a terrible idea and it’s not going to happen.

I resent you going behind my back to put him up to it. ”

“Put him up to it? I did no such thing!” I sat up angrily and glared at him. “Though that’s a great idea. I wish I’d thought of it.”

He glared down at me, looking surprisingly hot, angry and frustrated.

“Why? Because you’d like to display yourself to other men? Is that what interests you? There are easier ways to do that, Rylan. Stand on any street corner in the city with all that curly hair down around your shoulders. It’s a good advertisement. They’ll easily take you for some kind of...of…”

“Of what? Prostitute? Whore? Are those the words you were looking for? And now you object to my hair? That’s what you don’t approve of? Gods, how can you be so-so stupid?”

“I don’t think it’s me who’s being that way. We’ve talked about this foolishness before, damn it, and if you have no sense of modesty and decorum, then thank the gods I do! You’ll go nowhere near the camp; do you hear me? It is out of the question! I forbid it.”

I was shocked at all the angry words, and no one had ever spoken to me like that before. For a moment I just stared at him. Who the fuck did he think he was talking to? And was this why he hadn’t come to bed the night before to make love to me?

“We have so little time together and this is how you want to spend the few hours we have? By shouting and calling me names? You’re so stupid!”

Okay, so maybe I’d started the name-calling, but he’d just as good as called me a whore. It had made me furious.

He’d just dismissed the idea of me coming to stay with him out of hand.

Why would he deliberately choose for us to be apart when I could be with him?

Did he really dislike me deep down? Did I get on his nerves?

It was infuriating, and I felt as if my head were about to explode.

I just gaped at him for a moment or two though, because I thought it was better than what I wanted to do to him.

“You’re not my father. It’s not your place to teach me morality.”

“Somebody needs to, and it seems like it has to be me.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

His face turned red, and he clenched his fists by his side.

“Do you want to hit me now? Go ahead. I dare you.”

“Stop acting like a damn child. We’ve had this discussion about the camp so many times,” he said, his face stern and cold.

“Did you really think that getting your grandfather to tell me to let you come to camp would work? I don’t need his input, Rylan, and I don’t need yours, for that matter.

I make my own decisions, and I resent you putting me in an awkward position last evening. ”

“Once again, fuck you!”

His face flamed and he looked shocked and angry, but my temper was always ready, willing and able to come to my aid at a moment’s notice.

I jumped out of bed, naked, because I’d been waiting like an idiot for him to come to bed the night before.

I saw him react to that, and his face get even redder.

He probably thought even that was a deliberate ploy on my part.

I snatched up some clothes from a chair next to my bed and stormed into the bathroom to get dressed, slamming the door behind me and locking it for good measure. But he was right behind me.

“Rylan, get out here!” he yelled, pounding on the door. “We need to talk about this!”

“Go to hell!”

“Rylan, open this damn door.”

“Why? You’ve made up your mind about how things are, and that’s unlikely to change. If you need distance from me so much, then take it! Go and never come back! Or maybe I should. Either way, I don’t care!”

“I’m not going anywhere until we talk about this. Stop being such a child and get out here and face me.”

“You should know what my answer is by now!’ Just leave, damn it. Go on! Get out! And I won’t be here when you get back!”

If I’d ever thought that would work, I was sadly mistaken. I heard his heavy boot slam against the door once and then twice, and the door suddenly sprang open. He charged in, hauled me into his arms and kissed me like he owned me, which in both our minds, I guess he did.

“You’re mine ,” he growled at me. “Don’t ever lock yourself away from me again, damn it!”

He threw the clothes I was holding in my hand violently across the room, swept me up in his arms and carried me into the bedroom to throw me down on my back in the bed.

He stood there over me for a long moment, his chest heaving with emotion, and I could clearly see what he wanted to do to me.

But this had nothing to do with love. It was pure, furious possession.

I think he knew he was way too out of control, and he was trying desperately to rein himself in before he touched me.

Well, fuck that too, because I wanted him as much as he wanted me, and I was just as angry as he was.

I was also craving his body. Besides, I knew he would never hurt me.

But just like him, I was too stubborn and too mad to make up, so I deliberately taunted him by putting my hand on my typpid and stroking it lazily up and down, staring into his eyes the whole time.

“What’s the matter, Quinn? You want some of this?”

His eyebrows shot up, and I could see it enraged him for me to say such things and taunt him this way.

No doubt it slightly scandalized him too, because one thing I’d learned was that the Horvathians were prudish and rigid as hell, especially when it came to their sense of “propriety” or what was appropriate behavior and what was definitely not.

He reached for me and flipped me over onto my stomach, because I guess he couldn’t stand to keep looking at me stroking myself.

I began calling him names over my shoulder, because I was so angry and he clapped a hand over my mouth, so I licked his palm and looked back up into his eyes as I did it. That’s when he seemed to lose his mind.

I was never afraid of him. He was about to make love to me, because lust and the mating urge had overtaken him, but it would be making love and nothing more, because for one thing, I was more than willing for him to do whatever he wanted to do.

I was a man, and I wanted him as much as he wanted me.

Whatever he was feeling, I was feeling it too.

It began coming over me in waves, a strong desire to have him inside me and thrusting against me.

He was the only man I’d ever made love to, and we had “practiced” often in the weeks since we got married. I craved him now like a drug.