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Apologizing doesn’t work though. He just keeps spanking me, keeps punishing me like he has some right to do it, like I have no opinions or desires that are worth anything outside of fucking him.

And that’s when I get mad.

And that’s when I tell him what I really think.

Ornix

“I hate you! You took my life on Earth. You took my wings. You took my freedom and now you’re knocking me up whether I want a baby or not. You’re a monster and I hate you!” She yells at me like a petulant child.

I want to spank her all over again. I want to take her over my knee and spank her bare ass until she realizes that she is acting like a little brat. There is nothing mature about this behavior. Nothing rational. She is simply throwing a tantrum because she is afraid.

One of the facets of my mate being much shorter than me is the fact that I can see Equinox smirking in the background right now, taking great satisfaction in having his words come out of her mouth. I do not know what power he has over her, but I do not like the influence.

“You do not hate me. You do not want wings, and the only thing you have been deprived of is a boring, pedestrian life that could never have amounted to a fraction of what you now experience. You’ve lived more in the two days you’ve been here than you have in years. Admit it.”

“I admit nothing.”

Oh, she truly is being petulant. Equinox is infecting her somehow. His mere presence seems to embolden her into an absolute brat. When I had her on her own, she was not like this, I tell myself.

“I hate you! I hate this! I want my wings back!”

“They were a bloody mess, and you know it. They nearly killed you. Stop being so emotional. You’re being absolutely unmanageable.”

“I don’t care. I’m giving up. I tried to be good, and all it got me was a fucked-up abduction.”

“You’re tired and you’re emotional, and…”

“I hate this!” She screams the words at me, so loudly and intensely I hear her voice tear as she cries out. “Let Equinox out! He’s the only one who doesn’t want anything from me, and who wants the best for me.”

“He put you in danger.”

“You put me in danger. You want to use my body to breed your dragon army. This is fucked up and you know it.”

She’s going to yell at me until she gets her way. I can already tell that is clearly her strategy. It will not work. Spoiled, shouting little brats only earn themselves another trip over my knee.

“I really thought you had learned,” I tell her. “I am the master of this realm, and everything that happens in it. You have no say in what I do to you, or what I decide you will endure. You are being bred because you belong to me.”

“You’re psychotic. You’re an absolute monster. Equinox was right.”

“Maybe he was. Maybe he is. That changes nothing, Melissa. You are my human mate. Your duty is to bear my whelps.”

Melissa

“Fuck your whelps,” I curse.

I’m going to get Equinox out of the dungeon and I’m going to escape. There’s no way I’m going to stay here and be meekly bred like an animal.

Ornix lifts a brow at me. “Now I know you are being ridiculous. You are just as eager to bear my progeny as I am to have you birth it.”

“How the fuck would you know that? You’ve never asked. You just took me and fucked me and told me I was going to make you babies. Well, maybe I don’t want to!”

He looks truly puzzled, like one of his shoes just grew a mouth and started talking back to him. I’m not supposed to have opinions about this, especially not inconvenient ones.

“Stop being such a spoiled little wretch and accept the blessings that have been bestowed on you.”

His voice is rough and harsh. There is little warmth in it. Only domination. Pure ownership.

I think at some point, I might have been starting to fall in love with him. Now? Now I want to get back to the human world even more than before. Equinox had to talk me through the first time. He won’t have to next time.

And then this all gets considerably worse.

“There is one other thing,” he says, his tone tight. “The seal. Where is it?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I must have dropped it.”

“Dropped it where?”

“In the human world. Or maybe I left it on a bench somewhere. I don’t know.”

“Why did you take it there?”

“I don’t know.” I draw away from him. “Is this where you beat me again?”

He pulls in a breath. “You deserve it. But I do not have time. You want to stay down here and fraternize with the one who nearly got you killed, who caused your body to undergo a dangerous and unpredictable transition requiring surgery, very well.”

With that, he sweeps out of the dungeon.

“That was really impressive,” Nox says.

“It was?”

“Nobody stands up to the old man. He won’t know what to do about that.”

I feel a little spark of pride. “I’m tired of him defining what is good and what isn’t, what I want and what I don’t want. He just stole me and made me a baby machine. Rude.”

Ornix

The missing seal is a crisis like none other in my lifetime.

It’s one thing to have it missing from its assigned guardian.

Something else for it to be out of the realm entirely.

I leave my bratty little mate who is intent on pushing me to whip her beyond sanity to continue to consort with Nox.

I know that removing her from his presence is going to do nothing but make her even more insistent on protecting him.

I intend to let her get to know him. That will provide more of an education than all the warning in the world would.

I go to one of my most trusted advisors instead.

“Arkos, there is a serious problem. My mate’s escape to the human world has not happened without consequences.”

“Oh?”

“She took the seal to the human world and left it there.”

“The fifth seal is somewhere in the human world?” Jak repeats my words to me as he walks in just as I tell Arkos of the matter.

“Yes.”

“This could the Ark of the Covenant all over; remember how mad they all went over that?”

“Yes, we need it back before they start zapping themselves and getting excited about it.”

“Or before they find another world religion on it.”

“Stop. I cannot begin to fathom the absolute chaos if that were to happen at this late stage. They can barely handle the religions they already have.”

“They can absolutely not handle them. That’s why the relics have to stay here, why the true powers were removed from their world.”

“I will go and retrieve it,” I say.

“You cannot. You are needed here, sire. Your mate is recovering from surgery, and is quite unhandle-able by anyone else.”

She is barely handle-able by me.

“I have to go. Nobody else can be trusted with it.”

“Then you should take her.”

“She’ll sprout wings and cause a scene if she goes back to the human world.”

My trusted advisor gives me what amounts to an ultimatum. “Sometimes, in life, one must choose between retrieving an ancient artifact of immense power, and tending to one’s mate. I recommend you send someone else.”

“Who?”

“Equinox. He is still your heir as of this moment, and he will be the keeper of the seals in time if you do not conceive with this human. It is his responsibility.”

“Equinox is in the dungeon for starting this problem in the first place.”

“I could go,” Jak says.

The number of dragons in the human world at any time should never exceed one. It needs to be me. My advisors may not like it, and leaving Melissa here unattended may be less than ideal, but it is unavoidable.

“There are only so many places it could be. I will portal to the human world when she is asleep and return before she wakes. It is likely the seal is still in the house of my business partner. It may only take minutes. The longer I wait to go and get it, the more likely it is that it is taken somewhere and will be harder to find.”

“I don’t think that is a good id?—”

I don’t hear the end of the sentence because I am already stepping through the portal. It is night in the human world now, and the house is dark.

I do not feel the seal. That is an immediate concern. It should be singing to me. But the world is as silent and mundane as ever. I wonder if it isn’t actually here.

I am aware that for every minute I spend here, much more time elapses in the dragon realm. If I am to stay as long as several hours, days will have passed before I return.

A magical needle in a mundane haystack. How hard can this be?