Page 37 of Valor’s Flight (The New Protectorate #5)

She’ll need her own Wing. Six men, at minimum, just for right now. Well, maybe even after we find the assassins. It couldn’t hurt to be extra safe. I should assign Radek as Wing leader. He’s a crazy old fuck, but he’s the only one who will truly understand what’s at risk.

Radek had lost his mate in the war, though to this day he refused to accept she was dead.

Every chance he could, he scoured the UTA for her.

They all knew it was no use. The internal compass all dragons possessed had simply malfunctioned in him, its needle pointing to a woman long-dead, making him believe she might still be out there somewhere, just waiting for him.

Poor, mad Radek, people whispered. Better to be dead than to outlive a Chosen.

Nausea swelled up his gullet to splash acid against the walls of his throat. Taevas promptly wiped that thought away. He wouldn’t think of it. He wouldn’t.

“Are you hurting?”

Startled by the sound of her sleepy voice, he looked up from where he’d been experimenting with her hand to find her gazing at him. Soft brown eyes gleamed beneath a dense fringe of lashes, and a frown puckered the skin between her dark brows.

“I’m fine,” he lied, now free to pet her outright.

“Then what’s with the look?”

“What look?”

She lifted a finger off the pillow to wiggle it in his general direction. “That one. You look like you’re in pain.”

“I’m only thinking of how to care for you, metsalill,” he answered smoothly, trying to cover up how uncomfortable his own thoughts made him. “I love how delicate you are, but it concerns me. I don’t think even an army of guards would take that worry from me.”

The audacious woman had the gall to roll her eyes at him. “Yes, yes. Nymphs are weak. I know.”

Taevas narrowed his eyes. “Did I say that word? Being delicate is not the same as being weak. A weak creature would not have stood her ground in front of an injured dragon.”

Alashiya scrutinized him like she couldn’t be sure he was telling the truth. After a beat, she whispered, “Thanks, I guess.”

His gaze lingered on the scab and fading bruises, nearly unnoticeable now, that marked her forehead. He’d never meant to hurt her, not even to scare her, but that was the side-effect of losing the tightly held control he valued so much.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped, stroking the backs of his claws over her brow. Alashiya’s lashes fluttered. “I was out of my head with pain and drugs. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I hurt you. It upsets me to think of it. I would never hurt you, minu metsalill. Knowing I did anyway shames me.”

She had the grace to shrug. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. I got some good shots in.”

He quirked a brow. “Shots?”

Miming a slashing motion with an invisible weapon, she succinctly explained, “Scissors.”

Her ferociousness thrilled him all the way to his toes. The almost instant hardening of his cock distracted him for all of five seconds before the horror of realizing she’d confronted a fully grown, out-of-his-mind dragon with only scissors for protection eclipsed it.

Taevas’s hand shot out to clasp the back of her neck.

She yelped in surprise, but his firm grip held her still when he growled, “Never do that again, Alashiya. Never! If you’re threatened, you run.

You hide and wait for me or your guard to handle the threat.

You don’t fight. You never fight! Gods, what if it’d been another dragon?

What if I hadn’t recognized— My Shiya, I could’ve killed you!

What could’ve ever fucking compelled you to confront me all on your own? ”

Scissors, he internally raged. Fucking scissors.

He wondered if she could’ve successfully dispatched even an arrant with a weapon like that, let alone a dragon, elf, demon, or orc. All his hair stood on end at the thought. It traveled over his skin in an electric current, the acute anxiety of Alashiya fighting caused him.

He opened his mouth to rail some more, but no words made it through the pillow that walloped him in the face several times in quick succession. Between each hit, Alashiya bit out, “This— is— my— grove!”

Taevas sputtered. It took an embarrassing amount of attempts for him to snatch the pillow from her hands and toss it aside.

Sitting up on her knees, Alashiya pointed an irate finger at him.

“It was a bad idea, but I’d do it again.

You know why? Because running doesn’t always save you.

Wards don’t always save you. Hiding doesn’t save you. You caught me, remember?”

It was misery to turn onto his back, but he managed it by gritting his teeth and keeping his eyes on Alashiya. “I’m different. You should never run from me. I’m your Isand.”

She gave him a wide-eyed look of annoyance. “So I’m not supposed to run from you and I’m also not supposed to fight you. What am I supposed to do, mighty Isand?”

He didn’t think he liked the way she stretched out his title like that.

Normally he enjoyed being called Isand, but when she said it, it struck a discordant note in his mind.

No, to her he ought to be Taevas, or my darling, or Adon, if the mood struck her.

But never should she address him as all the rest did.

But that still didn’t mean she had the right to ignore his commands. Not when she mattered so very much.

Giving her a stern look, he replied, “You will stay under my wing and do as I say.”

“Why on Earth would I do that?” Alashiya, looking rumpled and increasingly angry, clambered out of bed.

Taevas reached for her, cursing under his breath, but she was far quicker than him.

Dancing out of reach, she shot him a glare over her shoulder.

“I’m not your subject, Taevas. If you think you can boss me around because you pay me to make your clothes pretty, thinking it somehow makes you better than me or— or because of last night, then you should crawl out my door right now. ”

Taevas forced his body into a sitting position. “That’s not what I meant—”

She was nearly to the hallway when she whirled around. Pulling her shoulders back, she snapped, “I’m queen of this grove, Isand. That might mean nothing to you or to anybody else, but it’s all I have left. I’ll defend it with my life if I have to.”

“You don’t have to,” he argued, slashing one hand through the air. “You have me now. This is what I’m saying to you, my Shiya. You never have to worry about defending yourself or your land again. But I can’t do this if you don’t listen to me.”

She gave him such a look, then, but he was helpless to decipher its intricacies. “We just met. You think it was reckless for me to face a dragon on my own? I think it’s worse to put my trust in a strange man who plans to leave at the first opportunity he gets.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to explain, in detail, how he had no plans to allow her to remain here once he’d made contact with his Wing.

It was too dangerous, for one thing, and for another, he couldn’t imagine a world where he was separated from her for even a moment.

It simply didn’t exist. It could not, would not, be allowed.

But he couldn’t explain that to himself, let alone her, so instead he growled, “We’re not strangers. I’m your Adon. I’m your husband.”

Alashiya turned to leave the room. It wasn’t quite fast enough to hide the staggering sadness in her eyes when she replied, “I’m not married, and Adon isn’t real.”