Page 33 of The Alliance

She could travel with me, Rhod, Glimmer and Kingsley, I should say. Glimmer had insisted on seeing the mage’s territory and I admit my dragon was much, much happier with the idea of staying there if it had a few of Glimmer’s protections around it. It was the one thing I couldn’t do for my mate, since I couldn’t work those kinds of protections. Having Rhod safe on the farm was going to go a long way to making me truly content.

I’d been parted from him for long enough. I said goodbye to Georgie and walked over to Rhod’sside. The first thing I noticed was the slightly stressed tang to his scent.

He didn’t lean into me, which surprised me as I waited for it to happen and then realised it wouldn’t. He didn’t do that in public. He held himself upright and stiff, looking very put-together. Just like the old Lord Somerville had liked.

Well, I wasn’t going to not touch at all. I slid my arm around his waist and held him just tightly enough to remind him that I was there.

Rhod promised to arrange several meetings with Jill, Milton and Dane. He explained to Cuthbert about the clan records, the storage rooms and converting everything to digital records. He agreed to look out some unique texts for Anthony, whose eyes lit up in a way that made my dragon want to push between him and my mate to protect him from all that knowledge-hungry keenness.

When I got rid of Anthony, Rhod said quietly, “Your father’s getting on well with John, the elder’s mate. They’ve been drinking port and they’re a bit sozzled. Do you want to do something about it?”

And that was when I realised: my mate wasn’t relaxing at all. He was working.

I had forgotten what it was like to be around so many people. I’d forgotten the energy that coursed through me when I was needed, when I had challenges to fill my day instead of endless theoretical research and re-organising my stock of medical supplies yet again.

Now that I’d rediscovered the feeling, I didn’t think I’d be able to go back to simply sitting all day in the medical room of the Somerville castle with nothing to do.

I was thriving on the bustle of my new territory, the pace of the surgery and the constant queue of people who needed my expertise.

It was the same here, in the Hoskins’ castle, filled with people, bustling and talking and getting on with their day, always around, always noisy.

My mate, though, struggled with it.

He got on with people far better than I could, being much more polite, much more patient, much kinder. Maybe that was why people drained him so much faster than they drained me. He gave them too much. I gave them my attention and my expertise, whereas Rhod gave them his empathy.

As much as I wanted to stay and talk to these new people, to pick apart their histories and theirexpertise and absorb all the knowledge I could from them, I could feel Rhod getting more and more drained by the minute.

I decided to act.

Nobody – nobody in the world – was more important to me than Rhod.

His needs came first, always.

“We’re leaving,” I said.

Rhod looked at me in surprise. “I don’t mind staying a while longer.”

I was already steering him out of the room. As I left, I caught Silvia’s eye and she gave me a slight nod. Just that one look between us and I’d known I was doing the right thing. She had seen his energy start to flag, too, even if nobody else would notice.

I led him out of the room and back to our guest room. I was more than happy to ignore the dark looks I got from a few others who thought I was being heavy-handed.

Maybe I was. But Rhod needed me that way.

I knew he did because he leaned against me the moment the door shut behind us.

As my arms wrapped around him, I smiled into his hair. Holding Rhod close never got old. His body was so perfectly moulded tomine.

I leaned my head down and traced my lips over the claiming bite on his neck. My dragon loved to see it there, loved to touch it and feel the satisfaction that we’d marked our mate. Everyone knew he was ours.Heknew.

Already, his scent was changing to contentment. It constantly amazed me that he didn’t just put up with my possessiveness, he actually revelled in it.

I gave serious consideration to stripping my mate down and taking him there against the door, but that had not been my plan.

“Get undressed,” I said. “We’re going flying.”

My beautiful mate didn’t even ask where we were going. He trusted me. He just obeyed, and my cock hardened as I watched him do what I told him, stripping off his clothes to reveal his smooth, pale skin to me. His perfectly-proportioned body was slim and delicate, and my hands were roaming over his chest before I realised I was going to touch.

As always, Rhod melted against me, his body becoming pliant under my ministrations. He would have let me do anything to him. Anything I wanted.

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