And if she was reading the light’s position through the window right, she’d spent the whole morning crying and feeling sorry for herself.
Okay, self-pity time was over. Chloe scrambled out of bed, splashed her face with some cold water, and threw on one of her heavy prairie dresses. If she could get the stove lit, maybe it would look like she’d merely overslept and was just now getting around to making the porridge for breakfast.
Throwing herself back into the illusion that she was not falling apart brought some relief. She imagined herself asking Fenris if he’d caught a boar as soon as he comes through the door and pretending like she was just dying to make boar bacon.
But she didn’t end up asking him about the boar when he came through the door.
Instead, she stared at him as he stomped his boots to clear the snow from his shoes on the fur hide she put down for just that purpose.
However, Chloe did not greet him.
Her mate was back, but instead of fresh game, he was carrying a wolf pup, sleeping and nuzzled inside one of his arms.
“What is this?” she pushed into his head, too shocked to speak to him in the North Wolves’ language.
“A present,” he answered with a huge smile, holding the sleeping pup out to her. “I brought her back from the old village. Just for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
OLA
The next hour as the dragon king’s prisoner is…strange.
There’s no other way to describe it. It starts off with him drawing me a bath. Like, an actual bubble bath, complete with a pearly perfumed soap poured out of a bottle and flower petals he produces out of nowhere.
“Reverencccce, pleasssse dissssrobe, sssso that I may help you into the bath,” he says after switching off the faucet.
“Okay, fine, I can’t take the hissing anymore,” I answer. “You were right. Let’s go back to you talking inside my head.”
He gives me a grateful look, then my mind fills with him saying, “Thank you, Reverence. It is difficult for me to speak your language without my tongue cap. I believe this will be much more comfortable for both of us.”
“There is nothing comfortable about any of this shit,” I answer out loud.
“Yes, I can feel both your mental and physical discomfort over our mate bond,” he answers with an apologetic tilt of his head. “Only time and patience will cure the mental discomfort, but if you like, I can tend to your muscle soreness by removing your clothes for you, Reverence.”
“Nah, Supervillain, back right the hell up. I’ll do it myself,” I reply. Only to end up grimacing as I perform the now super achy task of pulling the old-fashioned nightgown over my head.
Standing there with him after I’m done is weird. He’s fully clothed in another trillionaire-at-leisure trousers and sweater ensemble, and I’m totally naked. And just in case I think he’s not noticing, his glowing eyes scroll up and down my body. Like I’m a meal, and he’s a very, very hungry dragon.
I feel totally exposed.
And a little turned on.
Which is fucked up. So, so fucked up.
I’m no longer in heat. And he’s still the guy whose ultimate goal in life is to psycho-murder my fathers. How had he put it before he decided to start putting on this act? Only their slow and painful deaths will satisfy my thirst for vengeance.
I quickly step into the tub and lower myself down into the water. And it feels like I’m hiding from those glowing eyes when I slip down so that my breasts and everything else is hidden under all the pretty smelling bubbles.
However, that’s not enough to get away from him. I find that out when he produces something I haven’t seen since the invention of wash-and-dry shower systems, when I was, like, ten. A yellowish-brown sea sponge and some soap.
“I brought this sea sponge with me from my home in Greece,” he says, dipping the sponge in the bathwater. “I hope it pleases you.”
Seriously? I ask inside my head. While out loud, I say, “I can do that.”
“Please allow me,” he answers, soaping up the sponge. It is my duty to pay you reverence in this manner.”
There goes that P-word again. Less than an hour ago I wouldn’t have figured he knew the word even existed, and now he’s used it twice. Also… “What do you mean it’s your duty? You weren’t acting very reverent last night.”
“No, I have not acted as I should have since the moment I realized you could and would become the mother of my progeny. And for this, I will never be able to apologize or punish myself enough. But I plan to spend the rest of your time upon this Earth reversing that error. Starting with this bath.”
I’m so stunned, I don’t protest or pull back when he lifts my arm out the water and starts to clean it.