Page 59 of Guardian's Dilemma

“What?”

“Stop treating me like I’m a delicate flower who can’t handle the real world!”

I gawped at him. Not my most attractive look. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“You’re patronising me.”

“No, I’m trying to take care of you.”

“Well stop.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t,” I growled. “That’s what I do. I protect the people I care about.”

“You’re not protecting me, though. You’re smothering me. Treating me like I’m not capable of putting my own socks on.”

I growled at him. That might not have been the smartest thing to do, but I didn’t like the tone he was taking. I didn’t want him thinking that. My mate was powerful and capable, and I knew it. I wanted the world to know it, too.

His hands curled into fists and I recognised the stance he was taking from the first time I’d met him. He was gathering power to himself. I recalled the hard hit of those spells. If he attacked me now, he could do some real damage.

Trying to swallow my growl back down my throat, I asked, “What do you want me to do, then?”

It was in the way he paused. There was a whole monologue in that pause. In the conflicting emotions pouring off him. In the way he drew his fists in.

He said, “I don’t want anything from you,” but I didn’t believe it. I’d seen that pause. I’d heard him.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Fuck off.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“Why should I? Why should I talk to you when you won’t talk to me? You don’t trust me to understand. I don’t get to know about your clan and I don’t get to know about your duties and I don’t get to know about thatcuraidh.”

His voice cracked and he stopped abruptly, furious that he’d let his voice betray him.

And I couldn’t believe it.

I had done that to him. I hadn’t meant to. No matter what, we just couldn’t seem to stop hurting each other.

“I didn’t realise you really wanted to know.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

It did. It did matter. I took a step towards him, ready to dive to the side if he decided to fling that spell at me. My dragon flexed, annoyed with me, and I tried to calm it with the hope that my mate and I would finally stop hurting each other now.

“I want to tell you. I’ve just never shared that stuff with anyone before. I don’t know how to do it.”

After a moment, Kingsley’s hands flexed and his fingers fanned out, releasing the spell harmlessly.

“I can’t help with that. I don’t know, either.”

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