Her Dragon Captor (Her Dragon King Duet 1)

Eventually, she says, “This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I wanted love and happiness. Like my parents. Not degradation and shame.”

A sickened sensation scrapes across my stomach. Her feelings, not mine. My side of the mate bond remains muted but her side pulses intensely in the space no longer between us.

“There is no reason to carry shame over our breeding act,” I tell her, nonetheless. “If it was something either of us could have helped, I would have found a way.”

“You could have helped it, bitch,” she points out, both her words and her tone harsh. “You didn’t have to kidnap me.”

“We are sexually compatible, and I am a drakkon.”

“Yeah, whatever, that doesn’t mean you have an excuse to kidnap me.”

“That is exactly what it means. You primate mutations insist on thinking you have free will despite all scientific and historical evidence to the contrary.”

I wrap my body tighter around hers. “I had no choice but to find you and wait for you to go into heat, which you did, it should be noted, less than six hours after you were healed from your wounds. And I’ve read your files, Queen of North Dakota. I know you are currently on heat control.”

Her body stiffens, and I continue on to my next point, twisting the knife. “This is something your anti-fertility drug could not fight against. A few hours was all it took. If you hadn’t run and we had simply spent time together in the same space as I had originally planned, I have no doubt your heat would have come upon you even sooner. That is how sexually compatible we are.”

Her uncharacteristic silence tells me I have broken past her stubborn pride.

“You are angry and bitter about this turn of events, and I am too,” I conclude, my voice somber. “I would not have chosen to have matched in this manner with the daughter of my mortal enemies. But not mating with you after I discovered that we could produce young together…that would have been impossible. Like one of you mutated primates inhaling a breath and deciding not to let it out. You are my mate and I am yours. This cannot be denied by either of us.”

More silence. Then she says “Okay, fine. Say I believe that fucking me is some kind of biological imperative for you. Why did you have to humiliate me? Why did you make me crawl?”

There are many true answers to this question and I pick the cruelest one. “You are a stubborn, defiant, idiot, she-wolf, and if I am to live with you as a mate until you bear my child, you must be brought to heel.”

“Fuck you,” she says before the last syllable has left my mouth. “I’m not your mate. I’m not your anything. I’m going to find a way to escape you. And then I’m going to hunt you down and kill you like my fathers killed your daddy. Call me an idiot if you want, but one day, you’re going to look up and find this idiot standing over you with a sword. I promise you that, and I always keep my promises.”

She is correct about one thing only. Her fathers killed mine. For that, I must have my vengeance. Like my claim of her, this is nothing short of biological imperative. I will pay my father the reverence he deserves.

As for her threat, she is ridiculously weak, and I am nearly all-powerful.

She is hopelessly ignorant, and I hold all the cards.

Yet my fire ices over at her words. For they do not sound like a threat.

They sound like prophecy.

She falls asleep just a few moments later, and I lie there thinking about her vow. Somewhere behind me, I hear the sound of Colby’s footsteps coming down the stairs. They recede into the kitchen even though it is still dark. He is most likely beginning early preparations for one of his gourmet breakfasts. Good, we will both need to eat before her next heat wave.

She lets me out of her milking hold about an hour later.

But as it turns out, there will not be another wave of heat. As soon as I pick her up, I smell it.

A hatchling! Sired by me. She did it. She actually took my seed and became fertile with it.

The confusing sparks of emotion suddenly give away to a new resolved flame.

As long as I draw fire, I will never let any harm come to this miraculous being now growing within her. And as for my unexpected mate, I will treasure her for as long as she lives. More than I treasure my own life.

Yet, as soon as those thoughts leave my head, the memory of what she said before I made my final claim invades my mind.

“I hate you. I hate this.”