Page 24 of The Alliance

She gave me a big grin, filled with teeth, and I turned back to my mate.

“I just wanted to see what theridirewould do, that’s all.”

Matty said, “He’s not aridireany longer.”

“Yeah Dum,” said Dee, unhelpfully. Traitor.

“He kind of is, though, right?”

“No, he isn’t.”

“But he is! He was trained by them. He usesridiremagic. I wanted to know whether we could stop him if he attacked us. Doesn’t it make your skin crawl to have a dragon-hunter in our castle?”

To my surprise, instead of yelling at me, which is what Matty was great at, he stopped.

Hey, there were absolutely loads of things Matty was great at and one of them happened to be yelling at me. I never minded, since he looked so good doing it and I knew he did it out of love.

Some people never got that. Some people never understood that the reason Dee and I snuck around and poked and prodded people and touched things we shouldn’t and fought peoplewho were stronger than us is because we loved our family. We’d do anything to keep them safe. And sometimes we had to poke the bear to see how hard its bite was.

Matty understood that. And I understood him.

He worried about me. Okay, sometimes he thought I was reckless and maybe he wasn’t wrong,per se, but he wanted to keep me safe, which was very sweet of him.

I smiled at him, filled with love for my mate and basking in the care he showed for me.

He sighed, rolling his eyes.

“You’d better not try it again. I know you like to think you can beat anyone but I seriously don’t back you against a golden dragon. Ant’s going nuts about that. He says they’re practically myths, they’re that rare and powerful.”

I pouted. And if it drew my mate’s attention to my lips, then who was I to complain?

“I don’t know why theridirehad to come into our territory, that’s all.”

Matty closed the distance between us and put his hands on my hips. My nerves jangled at the contact. I still wasn’t used to the feeling of my mate’s hands on me. It was the best feeling ever.

“Dum, he’s not aridire. I don’t want you to say that he is.”

“But—” I began.

“He’s not one of them any longer. He left them because he doesn’t agree with what they were doing. You can’t say he’s still one of them because he was part of their coven once and he did things he’s ashamed of.”

A snarl ripped its way out of my throat and I pushed myself closer to Matty.

“Nobody’s blaming you, Matty. Nobody thinks badly ofyou.”

I cursed myself for being too stupid to see what I should have seen before. My sweet little mate saw himself in thatridire.

No, I reminded myself, not aridire. Kingsley.

Matty saw himself in Kingsley. Tricked into doing things he didn’t want to. Brave enough to stand up to them. Strong enough to walk away.

Matty’s voice was soft, which I loved and hated. I loved it because he so rarely showed that soft, vulnerable side of himself and I always felt special when he showed it with me. It meant he trusted me, trusted me to keep him safe and value him just as highly even when he showed weakness.

I hated it because I didn’t want him to feel weak or unworthy, even for a second.

“I know,” he said. “But I can’t change my past and Kingsley can’t change his. We both made our choices.”

“And you got the best mates,” I reminded him.

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