Page 27 of Warlord's Mate

“She’s emptied her stomach several times this morning.” Toren pushed Sara’s hair from her face, her friend sighing as he touched her. “She has complained all night.”

“I’m not feeling so hot myself. I’ve got a few mystery bruises too that I'm not sure how I got.”

Sara sat up and pushed her hair from her face. She looked around camp before leaning against Toren’s side. “They tried to feed us earlier but one look at the stuff in that bowl was enough to turn my stomach.”

Marcy nodded. “If it’s the mash I had yesterday, it tastes worse than it looks.”

“Are you all right?” Sara asked. “I know I asked you last night but really—are you all right? Has anyone—”

She let the sentence dangle but Marcy knew what she meant. “I’m fine. I’ve not been forced onto my knees and don’t think I will be. Well, not by any of the aliens walking around here. Now the warlord is another story. It’s been made abundantly clear that I belong to him and him alone.”

“He has a serious boner for you.”

Marcy snorted a laugh. “No, he’s just a possessive caveman.”

“I think it's more than that. He killed someone for you.”

Her head started to pound again. “I know. Not that I’m for killing random people but that asshole—” Him sticking his hand between her legs came back to mind. “I wouldn’t have wished him dead but the warlord could have fucked him up a little and I would have watched with a smile on my face.”

Sara looked around camp, then to the trees at her back. “I’ve been watching those here in camp. Not many have even looked our way so, want to sneak away?”

“Absolutely. Where are we going?”

“Dra’Lera.” Toren pulled Sara closer to him and stroked her hair back away from her face. “It is the ancestral home of the Draegon. We go there.”

Marcy looked over her shoulder, then into the sky as two of the small camera orb flew into her line of sight. If she left with Sara and Toren, those things would no doubt follow them. Hiding would be next to impossible and if she left, and the warlord found her?

He walked into the clearing a moment later and never paused as he headed straight for them. They climbed to their feet, Marcy wincing as something in her back pulled.

Jorrick’s gaze ran over her in one quick pass before he turned his attention to Toren. “You and your mate are to leave. Now. And do not come back. If I see either of you, I will kill you on sight.”

Marcy opened her mouth but the warlord interrupted her by saying, “You will not be going with them,” before she could utter a single word. His gaze met her own. “It is not up for debate. You have chores to do. Join the other females and get to work.”

That predatory look she’d seen in his eyes the day before was once again shining bright in his strangely colored irises. She opened her mouth again, but shut it before saying anything. What was the point? He wasn’t going to let her go. Why would he? She was stupid for even entertaining the thought. Like it or not, she was stuck here, a prisoner, and unless Toren turned into that massive dragon he had hiding beneath his skin, she was well and truly stuck.

Jorrick stalked across camp, anger fueling his every step. Did she honestly think he’d let her go? From the disappointment he saw on her face the answer was yes, she did.

He should have never let that dragon and his mate be brought into camp or let them live once he learned Mar-see knew them. He should have executed them both on sight. Now, the threat he posed was even greater.

There was no doubt in his mind that the dragon did nothing but please his mate. From what he’d observed, he went out of his way to do so. He’d heard stories of the Draegon race that once inhabited this planet and until he’d seen that one in the arena, thought as everyone else had—that they were nothing but myth. But, the legends were true and not only was one of the deadly creatures in his camp, more than likely he’d want his prize to please his mate.

Vikram met him halfway across camp. “Your orders, warlord?”

“Take them to the boundary of our borders and let them go.”

“And the key to the collar?”

Jorrick turned to look back over to where they stood. Mar-see and the dragon’s mate were embracing one another. He wanted to toss the key into the forest and forget he’d ever seen it but he’d lived too many lunar cycles in chains, confined and under the control of another, to force that fate on anyone else. The collar didn’t restrict the dragon’s movement, but it confined him. “Give it back to them.”

“But—“

Jorrick scowled. “Let me finish.”

Vikram bowed his head. “My apologies, warlord.”

“Give them the key once you’ve reached our border. Tell him if I see either of them again, I’ll kill the red one the moment I spot them. They’ll have nothing of her to take with them but her head.”

Vikram ran across camp, motioning for several others to follow him. The conversation with the dragon and his mate was short. The reaction to it was not.