Page 55 of Valor’s Flight (The New Protectorate #5)

Chapter Thirty-Five

Taevas wasn’t normally quick to anger. It rarely served him in his day to day life, and he liked to think he had more control over his baser urges and reactions than most dragons. But when he did get angry — really, really angry — his rage was cold and deadly. Precise.

When someone fucked around in his territory, he handled it with swift, merciless action. When a dumbass elf stood his cousin Hele up on a date, he ruined the man’s life with a single phone call and hadn’t thought of it since. But when a dangerous dragon put his hands on his mate…

Taevas wasn’t cool. He wasn’t precise. He was a fucking bomb about to blow.

There wasn't any worry about consequences. Blood rushed in his ears, drowning out any other noise. He lunged for the treeline. Instinct compelled him to shift, but the moment he tried, his body rejected the change with an overwhelming wave of nausea and pain.

He staggered in the undergrowth. Alashiya’s magic rippled across his skin in hot waves, but it wasn’t the wards or the discomfort that stopped him in his tracks. It was the look on her face.

She stared at him with wide, horrified eyes. Her lips were slightly parted and her normally glowing skin was gray. “No,” she croaked, holding Taevas’s gaze.

“No?” Sergei sounded genuinely surprised, not realizing that she wasn’t even talking to him.

Alashiya’s gaze flicked back to Sergei. She took a step back, away from the trees. Sergei followed her instinctively, his tail coiling around her ankle to keep her from going too far.

Absolutely fucking not.

Dragons didn’t do that casually. It was a deeply familiar touch meant to mark territory and show clear intent to claim.

Maybe not seriously — because even dragons could have casual liaisons, despite popular belief — but it didn’t matter to Taevas whether Sergei wanted to Choose Alashiya or not. She was taken.

It didn’t matter that it couldn’t be Isand Jaak. The sight of his lookalike holding Alashiya…

Nausea swelled in a burning wave up his throat.

All of that rushed through his mind in a searing flash, urging him to act, to move.

But he found his muscles locked. Taevas couldn’t take a single step closer.

A deep crawling sensation wormed its way beneath his skin to bore into his bones.

Too late, he realized his feet had sunk into the soil.

It held him fast as Alashiya’s magic battered him like the waves of a furious ocean.

“N-no,” she stuttered, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on the blue dragon. “That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry. The path to my house is totally overgrown and would be uncomfortable for you. No one ever comes this way but me. That’s all.”

“Uncomfortable?” Sergei cast a suspicious look over his shoulder. He didn’t appear to have any idea that he was looking right at Taevas.

Lips stretching into a thin, nervous smile, Alashiya placed a hand on his arm and drew his attention back to her. “Your wings.”

Sergei’s dark expression eased. “Ah, I see. You’re probably right. I hate hiking.”

Still keeping her gaze fixed on the other dragon, she asked in a slow, deliberate way, “You must’ve hated your hunting trip with Monty, huh? What were you trying to catch, anyway?”

Sergei made a derisive sound. “He’s lucky I still need him, or I’d have ripped his throat out and left him to rot out there. We didn’t find anything we were looking for.”

Alashiya’s eyes flicked back to Taevas. They widened slightly in a silent plea. Go, she seemed to say. But he couldn’t go. He couldn’t do anything except stand there and watch as his Chosen confronted a man from his nightmares. Even if the ground released him, what could he do?

Sergei could shift. Taevas couldn’t. He wouldn’t stand a chance.

“A lot of people feel that way about Monty.” She took a few small steps to one side, away from Taevas. Linked by his tail, Sergei followed her.

Taevas caught a glimpse of his profile again as Sergei glanced at the forest. “He talked a lot about you when we were out hunting. Couldn’t seem to stop himself.

It felt a bit like he was trying to warn me away from his territory.

” A sharp smile revealed Sergei’s pointed canines.

“People never seem to grasp that dragons will take whatever they want — and if someone wants it too, it makes it even better. We love a challenge.”

“Oh. Can’t say I knew that either.”

“You’ve really never met a dragon before?”

Alashiya licked her lips. “No. Never.”

Something in Sergei’s voice changed. “If you do see another dragon, will you tell me? I’m not actually out here on a hunting trip.

My cousin was flying near here recently and we think he went down not too far from town.

We’ve looked everywhere, but there hasn’t been any sign of him.

Or I thought we’d looked everywhere. Monty never said anything about there being a big chunk of land we might’ve missed. ”

Alashiya’s voice was remarkably level when she replied, “I’m sorry about your cousin.

That must be awful. But I haven’t seen him.

I have wards up to keep trespassers out, so he couldn’t have wandered in without me knowing.

Monty knows that, too, since they also keep him out.

That’s probably why he didn’t say anything. ”

Sounding thoughtful, Sergei asked, “How much land do you have? Must be a lot to make him want it so bad.”

She offered him a wan smile. “Not a lot. Just very well taken care of. Lots of game and places for it to hide.”

Sergei looked over his shoulder again, his dark eyes narrowed. “I see. Are those…” He paused, assessing the trees with a sharpened interest. “Why do I feel wards?”

She waved the question off. “Nymphs always ward their land.”

“And you’re really the only one who lives out here?”

Alashiya cleared her throat. “Yes. It’s just me.”

“No clan? No visitors?”

“I live alone and I don’t get visitors.”

Sergei didn’t sound entirely convinced. “I thought nymphs lived in big clans. I don’t understand why you’d be out here by yourself.”

Alashiya took a real step away this time.

The dragon’s tail slid down her leg to rattle quietly above the packed earth that lined the shallow ditch in which they stood.

Her expression was shuttered when she bluntly explained, “My grove was small to begin with, but not long after we moved to Birchdale, a rogue shifter pack tried to take our land. Most were killed. Some left. It was just me and my grandparents until they passed away.”

The air squeezed out of Taevas’s lungs. It didn’t matter that he’d heard the story before. It still hit him like a punch to the gut.

My Shiya, no wonder you’re so afraid of the world.

And yet she stood there, staring into the eyes of a ghost who could tear her apart with so little effort, as bold and dignified as the queen she was born to be.

Moving toward his SUV, Sergei warned her, “Well, then it’s clearly not safe for you to be alone in these woods.

You have no idea who could be wandering your land.

You’ll pack a bag and be ready for me to pick you up tonight.

” Circling the front of the vehicle, he cast the woods another sweeping look, unaware that Taevas stared back at him.

Alashiya turned stiffly to face him. With her back to the woods, Taevas couldn’t make out her expression, but he could hear the barely hidden revulsion in her voice when she asked, “Why would I need a bag?”

Sergei’s smile was slow and full of heat. It was a look Taevas had never seen on Jaak’s face, and instantly shattered the link between the two men in his mind, freeing him at last from the child’s fear that held him prisoner.

This was no old, cruel despot who used the vulnerability of his people to control them. This wasn’t the man who’d tortured and executed his isa. This wasn’t the monster who kept his mother in solitary confinement for years, just to make sure she felt the death of her Chosen every day.

This was just a man. A dragon of no standing, no rank, no honor. His size was impressive and his horns were gilded, but Taevas had never heard of him. If he was related to Jaak, then that was his only claim to notoriety. And what a pitiful one that would be.

Fire replaced that bile that had scalded Taevas’s throat when Sergei dared to give his Chosen that lustful, indulgent look. “Pretty thing, don’t you want to get out of this shithole? I’m going on a trip and I plan on taking you with me.”

“Where?”

Sergei winked. “That’s a surprise.”

“And if I don’t want to go?”

He opened the driver’s side door and shrugged dismissively. Climbing in, he replied, “It’s not about what you want. It’s about what you need.” He gave her a stern look. “Pack a bag, Shiya. I’ll see you tonight.”

The roar of the engine was the only sound after that.

Taevas stood there silently, shaking with rage, as the SUV pulled back onto the road and drove off at a reckless speed.

Neither he nor Alashiya moved until it was completely out of sight.

Even then, they waited until not even the sound of the engine reached them.

As soon as it died off, the potent magic that held him in place eased. “Shiya!”

She whirled around, her boot heel kicking up dust, and ran for him. It was only a handful of steps before she crashed into him, her arms curled tightly around his neck. They were pressed so close together, he could feel her heart racing against his own.

“How could you do that?” she croaked, beating lightly at his shoulders. “What if he’d seen you? What if he’d smelled you or heard you or—”

Taevas’s gaze roamed over the road as he hurried them back into the shadows of the trees, out of the blazing sun.

Half dragging her and half stumbling himself, he walked them deeper and deeper into the woods.

It didn’t matter where they were going, so long as he got her as far from that dragon as physically possible.

If he could’ve, he would’ve flown away with her right then and there.

“What was that?” he demanded. “That’s one of the men who kidnapped me, Shiya. How did you end up in a car with him? What happened in town?”

“I don’t know! One minute I was asking Mike to borrow a car, and the next he’d caught up with me in the street and started talking like— He just grabbed me and told me he was going to drive me home.

I didn’t know how to shake him off without making him more suspicious.

I—” She cut herself off with a hard shake of her head.

Peeling herself away from him, she grabbed his wrist and began to pull him down a path only visible to her.

Her voice was pitched high with panic when she continued, “It doesn’t matter!

None of it matters! We have to get you out of here, Taevas.

Now. I don’t know what that man wants with you, but he is looking for you.

And I saw the news when I went to Debbie’s!

I’m so, so sorry. I’ve been keeping you here and the car—”

Taevas grabbed her arms, halting her frantic trek through the undergrowth. They were deep in her woods now, and had stopped in a small gap in the trees. Sunlight filtered in through the leafy canopy in streams that created abstract shapes on the forest floor.

It was a beautiful place, but he didn’t see any of it. All he saw was Alashiya’s pale face tilted up to look at him.

“Did he hurt you?”

Her lips parted with surprise. “I… What? What does that matter? Taevas, he’s hunting you! And the ‘Riik—”

Feeling like he was seconds from coming out of his skin, he ground out, “Answer the question.”

“No! He just— I don’t know what he wants with me. Not that it matters. Didn’t you hear me? He has men with him, Taevas. There’s no cousin. He’s been searching the woods for you with Monty! You heard him. He wants to come back tonight!”

“Not what matters?” Taevas couldn’t recall a time when he got so angry his mind simply blanked. Not even seeing Sergei put his hands on Alashiya just minutes before had the same effect. It was like that one simple phrase had robbed him of every thought he had or would have, save for one.

That great, serpentine beast of need and possession roared in him when he snarled, “You are all that matters, Alashiya!”

The ’Riik, his Wing, Sergei — they were all banished from his mind when he crushed their mouths together in a brutal, desperate kiss.

Taevas slipped his claws into her hair and pressed her back against a tree trunk.

She trembled beneath him as he swept his tongue across her lips, demanding she let him in.

Alashiya gasped. Her back arched when he slid his tongue past her teeth to glide it hungrily against her own. Her fingers pressed into his chest, her blunt nails raking gently. His cock jerked in his loose linen pants as he gripped one of her luscious thighs and hiked it over his hip.

No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to get close enough. To taste enough. To feel enough.

His tail coiled around her waist with a possessive squeeze as he stole kiss after kiss, each one needier, messier than the last. He wanted to mark her in every way he could.

He needed her to taste him on her lips, to feel his hands everywhere, to endure the sharp pleasure-pain of his cock between her perfect thighs.

He needed her to know that she was his, that he was hers, and that whatever came next, there was no tearing them apart.

“Damn it, Shiya,” he growled, hips rocking restlessly into hers. Alashiya made a shocked, breathy sound that sent a bolt of lust down his spine. “When are you going to get it? You’re everything.”