Page 41 of Scaled Hearts

“I don’t know, Angurus. Do we?”

He narrows his eyes at me until they’re barely slits. He yanks me closer to him so that we’re just barely pressing out noses together. I can feel his hot breath tickling against my face.

“Do you think being smart with me is wise?”

I’m so tired of this.

“Well, if youtalkedto me instead of ignoring me, then maybe I wouldn’t have such an attitude.”

A small smirk crosses his face, making him look more cruel than usual. He lets out a short laugh.

“This is how being mated to a dragon is, my mate. You may want to get used to it before you continually get yourself worked up over things that are normal.”

I yank my arm away from him and push him off, separating us by a few feet. My hand stings noticeably less and it causes me to look down at it. Blood has already crusted over the cut and my skin seems to have already knitted itself back together.

I suppose I should be grateful that he’s healed me, but I can’t seem to bring myself to be. It’s the least he can do for treating me so poorly over the past few hours and from his episode before we went to sleep.

I wipe my hand against my dress.

“If that means I have to suffer with dealing with your mood swings, then fine. As long as we get the cure for my sister, I’ll deal with it.”

He flinches visibly, surprised at my words apparently. I don’t know what’s so shocking, though, considering that it’s only the truth. So far, being mated to him has been a continuous cycle of up’s and down’s that I never planned for when leaving Kaynvu to save my sister.

Getting involved with dragons had never been in my list of plans to begin with.

Now that I’m here and tangled up in this mess with him, my thoughts and feelings have been jumbled into a confusing mess that makes it hard to sort through.

I hate the uncertainty. I hate that I may never be able to save my sister if we can’t find this Lotus. I hate that the person who claims to want to protect and provide for me is being a massive dick.

Angurus finally breaks out of his stupor and rounds on me again.

“How dare you say that you’resufferingwith me. Have you any idea what I’ve done for you? What I’vesacrificed?”

“No.” I bite out. “Because you won’t tell me. You don’t let me in. I tried to be vulnerable with you and all you did was completely shut down and have barely said a word to me since. How does that make me feel better?”

“You were making me feel bad.”

“How is that my fault!” I throw my arms up in exasperation. “I was sad! You couldn’t even comfort me! You said two words to me and then rolled over and went to sleep!”

Angurus shakes his head at me. “Being upset over the dead doesn’t change anything for you, Kelly. I was simply trying to not feed into it. You should move on.”

I groan into my hands. “You just don’t get it.”

“No, you’re right. I do not. Nor do I care to.”

The words sting so viciously that tears prickle at my eyes. I’ve always struggled with my self-worth, especially since getting older and realizing how easily it was for everyone to corner me into the box of my sister’s caretaker and not having any other attributes to me.

I want more than just being a sister.

I never had the chance to discover who I really was because taking care of Kara happened so early into my budding adulthood. I’ve always had a maternal role in her life, but after our parents died it just became worse and worse over time.

The mounting pressure of having to care for a young teenager while I, myself, was still a teenager had been overwhelming and a cold slap of reality that I may never get to live the life that I wanted to when I was younger and still full of dreams.

I put my head between my hands and fist them into my hair to pull at it.

Why can’t Angurus be understanding for once? As my mate, he should, shouldn’t he? Why didn’t he see that the stress of this trip, of my sister’s health, was actually kind of killing me? I don’t want to live my life this way. I only want to be happy.

“Stop,” comes his gutted voice. “Stop that. Whatever you’re doing.’

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