Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 117336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
One lands and steps forward, pushing toward Azar. As I watch in horror, it lowers its muzzle toward his face, and they're inches apart. Azar is lost to it, trapped in the depths of his mind. Just let them go for a minute, I'd told him. I'm an idiot. How can I casually suggest such things? These dragons are man-eaters. They're monsters that hunt and kill, and they're the size of a city bus or an airplane. They can swallow me and Azar whole in a single gulp, and right now, I don't feel safe or protected.
But I can't leave Azar. I move a step closer to him, my hand on his shoulder, as another dragon settles in next to the first.
Azar's muscles leap at my touch, a sign that he's not as “lost” as I thought he was. So I squeeze his arm, trying to keep it together. "Well?"
"I am trying," he snarls at me. "It is not easy."
"Try harder or let everyone go inside," I snap back. I'm tired of this, and I'm scared. He can be in a pissy mood, but he needs to direct that pissiness away from me, because I'm on his side.
Azar scowls at me and then stalks away. He heads right for the women, pauses in front of one of them, and backhands her across the face.
What the hell?! Has this man lost his damn mind? The stress has fractured his brain if he thinks I'm okay with this. Shocked, I stare at the man I love as he points a finger at another woman. "Do not!"
This is not the way to lead…and this isn't the man I love. What is going on?
Azar turns and stares coldly at the dragons gathered nearby. "Nothing," he says after a bitter moment and gestures at the slapped woman, who has somehow managed to pick herself up off the ground. "It's not her. Take her back to her rooms." He points at another. "You. Come forward."
I have to stop this. I move forward, heading for my lover. "Azar. You can't do this—"
"Can't I? They are willing participants in my program. They eat my food and sleep under my roof. They belong to me." He shrugs my touch off as if I'm nothing. "Just as you belong to me."
I bite back a hurt gasp. How can he say that to me? How can he be so brutally cruel when I'm just trying to help him before he destroys everything he's worked for? Frustrated, I shove him. "Fuck you. And fuck all of this. You're being ridiculous."
Azar glares at me, then turns away.
He's dismissed me. As if I'm nothing. I stare at him, waiting for him to remember himself. Waiting for him to give me a flicker of apology, something. But he ignores me, his back to me as if I don't matter. As if I'm not his equal at all, but just another subordinate. The hurt flares and grows inside me, and I lift my chin. I'm not going to let this man see how much he's hurt me. I'm not going to show how betrayed I feel. I know he's been under a lot of stress, but there's no reason to act like I'm in his way when I'm trying to help him.
Maybe he doesn't want a consort after all. Maybe I'm kidding myself. Head held high, I turn and head back into the barracks, holding myself proudly even as I hear Azar snarling at one of the women. "Well, girl? I'm waiting."
I won't stand at his side and pretend this is okay when it's not.
Chapter
Twenty
AZAR
I am fraying apart.
I keep it together for the rest of the night, instructing my men to take the girl—the one that has somehow captured one of my dragons with her mind—and place her in a warehouse alone with the drakoni male. I feel defeated. Somehow this human female has managed to wriggle through the shields I have carefully placed around the minds of the captive drakoni and stolen him away. I cannot control him any longer. Not when he senses his mate is near. I will keep the girl captive, then, and he will stay just to be with her. He will impregnate her, and then there will be another child to help with the Rift.
If I live long enough for them to all be born, of course.
Why would you not live? Sallavatri asks. Luminoura prods at me with her thoughts, too, as if poking a wound.
Because I am tired. I am tired, and I am failing at everything. I have lost a drakoni from right under my nose, the Rift bleeds more malice out by the day, and I suspect it is affecting my thoughts. Worse than that, worse than anything, I was cold to my mate. I can feel her hurt vibrating through the fort this morning. I spoke to her as if she were one of the fools that bother me, when that is not the case. I was just so angry and upset last night that I lost control of myself.