Page 75 of Claimed by the Savage Dragons
But she’s suddenly lunging forward and burying her face in my chest.
I’m frozen in surprise for a good few seconds before my arms wrap around her and I pick her up.
I take her to the couch and sit with her on my lap. Holding her until her breaths even out.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says in a small voice. ‘I don’t even know you.’
You will,the dragon mutters.
‘But you feel like the others do,’ she sighs.
‘Tor and Brax?’ I ask.
She nods against my chest.
‘How do they feel?’
She’s quiet for a moment. ‘Like home.’
Her words make my mind stutter to a stop.Like home.
That’s exactly how dragon mates describe their bond.
But she’s a human.
She can’t be a true mate.
I frown as my phone buzzes, and I let out a breath when I read the message with the specifics of the meeting I have to attend with the other factions in a couple of months to discuss the problems in the Borderlands as well as other issues. I decide then and there that Mari is coming with me no matter what. I’m not leaving her care to anyone, not even Del. She’s not leaving my side.
I hesitate for a moment, but then message Tor and Brax. Their banishment isn’t even half over, but I want them to see Mari. That’ll make her happy and, hopefully, keep her calm. And I can trust them at least not to stab me in the back.
No, they’ll come at me from the front once they hear how I’ve let their human be treated on my watch.
I sigh, holding a now slumbering Mari close.
My phone buzzes.
It’s Del. She wants to run more tests. She doesn’t elaborate, but I wouldn’t expect her to. She’s always been a law unto herself even when she was a youngling, and I was five hundred years her senior. Those were the days. Being a laird of a small clan in Scotland circa thirteen hundred was infinitely easier than being a commander of an entire faction these days.
But something comes across in her message that gives me pause. It’s as if she’s hiding something.
‘What is it about you, little human?’ I whisper. ‘What secrets are you keeping?’
Chapter Eight
MARI
When I wake, as usual it’s the scent I notice first. The smell of Dreythos is spicy, like cinnamon or nutmeg, or maybe apple pie. The same as it was with Tor and Brax, I feel safe with him and I realize now that his private rooms have always made me feel like that, even over the past few weeks when, after a long day in the kitchens, I knew that Dominick would be waking me up in just four hours to begin the same day all over again. I can’t actually believe I’ve been here so long already. With every day being like the one before it, I thought maybe it had been ten days, a couple of weeks at most, but six weeks?
I shake my head.
A month and a half of being beaten multiple times a day, starved, worked to the bone. I wouldn’t have believed I could survive even that long but now that I’m here, and I’ve slept properly, it’s like I’m coming out of a haze. I was surviving, but not much else.
None of the other humans spoke to me after Jesse and the overseer the first day. It was like they’d been told I was untouchable, well except for all the times I was tripped or slammed into. I worked longer hours than all of the others andwhen I left the kitchens, I felt like there were eyes on me all the time.
More than once, the overseer slapped me for working too slowly, or for being late even though it was Dominick who brought me to the kitchen every morning, and I made my own way back to Drey’s rooms every night.
The other dragons actually didn’t bother me much over the past few weeks. It was limited to Dominick after the first night. I’ve barely seen any of the others. Not that I’m complaining.
