audience!
“Ailean, I’m not joking!”
“Nor am I. I understand why you’re nervous. So I’ll handle it.”
It was his calm, casual tone. His relaxed nature. As if telling her father they’d been sharing a bed for days was something of no real concern.
Shalin jumped in front of him, slamming her hands against his chest. “You’re not understanding me, Ailean. You’re not to tell my father anything.”
He leaned forward a bit and whispered loudly, “Don’t you think he’ll notice?”
“Notice what?”
“That I’ve Claimed you as my own. He’ll definitely notice after the first hatchling.”
Somehow, she still managed to control her temper—but it was definitely getting harder to do so. “You won’t be Claiming me. Not you.”
“Why not me?”
“Do you really need me to give you a list?”
“A list?”
“Don’t yell, Ailean. Simply accept it.”
“Like hell I will. You love me, why won’t you just admit it?”
“And why won’t you admit I only wanted one thing from you, I got it, and now I’m done?”
She saw it for only a moment, a flash deep in his eyes, the grim set of his mouth. She’d hurt him. But the part that wanted to soothe him, to see him smile again, she ruthlessly battered into submission. She’d shake this dragon from her tail even if she had to make him cry.
But Ailean didn’t cry. He didn’t argue. He did slightly flinch, but it was so small only she would have noticed it.
Without another word said between them, Ailean gently gripped her by the shoulders and moved her out of his way.
Shalin watched him walk over to her father and knew he’d ignore her wishes. Like everyone else, he assumed she’d be compliant. Adienna certainly thought so. She thought Shalin would quietly go off with enemy dragons to live in the North until she became ancient. And what made Shalin wince was the truth of it. Before Ailean and his brothers showed up, she had been taking the Northerner’s hand. Without a fuss, she would have gone with them even as her heart screamed for her to fight, to flee. To at least try to stop them.
So, perhaps it was no great surprise Ailean thought the same of her. Like everyone else, he thought she’d comply. Bend to his will for her “own good.”
To get what he wanted, he was willing to embarrass her in front of her father while his kin stood and watched. Then years later they could joke about weak little Shalin and how her futile protests were ignored. The pain of it ripped through her, leaving her shaken and angry. So angry, she could barely see or hear.
In that instant, something inside her snapped—and there’d be no going back now.
Ailean stood only a few feet away from the old dragon when Shalin suddenly stepped in front of him. The cold expression on her face surprised him. Wait. Not cold. Icy. An icy rage.
The instincts he’d honed in battle and war screamed at him to step away from her, but he didn’t understand why. This was his sweet Shalin. And she’d simply have to understand this would be better in the long run. They were meant to be together and there was no use in fighting it any longer. Besides, Ailean had no patience to wait for her to realize it.
Ailean reached for her to again move her out of his way and, hundreds of years later, he’d refer to this as “one of the stupidest things I’d ever done.”
In one fluid moment, as her father and his kin quickly scrambled out of the way, Shalin turned and her human body shifted to dragon. As she did, the razor-sharp tip of her tail lashed out and ripped across his human throat, slicing it from ear to ear.
Ailean’s hands wrapped around his neck and he dropped to his knees. Blood flowed between his fingers and dripped onto the forest floor.
“Shift, you fool!” Shalin’s father shouted. “Shift now!”
Ailean did, calling up the ancient spell and shifting right where he kneeled. His scales quickly covered his body, preventing him from bleeding to death right there.
As his body changed and tried to right itself, he watched Shalin motion to her father and take off from the clearing. Confusion on his face, the old dragon followed.
“Gods, Ailean!” His brothers stood on either side of him now in dragon form, trying to figure out the best way to help him while the twins tried to go after Shalin and most likely kill her in the air. But their mates held them back