The Platinum Dragon's Mate - Zoe Chant Page 0,16

at her side.

Inside, she slumped against the closed door. “Whoof.”

“You can say that again.”

“Whoof,” she repeated, just to see if he’d chuckle, and he did. She smiled a little. “I’m glad that didn’t get any more out of hand.”

“Me too.” He shook his head. “You were amazing. Bossing them around like that—I’m impressed.”

She flushed with pleasure, and tried to distract from it by saying, “Me? You have that—commanding voice that you do, where you’re not loud but somehow everyone automatically listens to you. I wish I knew how you did that.”

He looked taken aback. “I suppose—when you’re a physician, sometimes you have to make someone listen without frightening them or sounding aggressive. You don’t want them to hurt themselves, or get angry or upset.”

Sage pictured Reid with a patient, in some—antiseptic white room, which was the only vague idea she had about what human doctor’s offices were like. Someone hurt, and scared, and maybe angry. Saying calmly, not loudly, but in a way that was impossible to ignore: Listen to me. This is what you need to do.

She shivered a little.

“Are you okay?” Reid was watching her closely, and she blushed again.

“Fine.” Time to change the subject. “Do you—do you want to check on Rhiannon while I make us all something to eat?” It was probably time for dinner. Sage wasn’t hungry, but that was because her stomach was in knots about...so many things.

He took the change of direction without so much as a blink. “All right. Don’t give me any special treatment—whatever you’d make for yourself normally is fine for me.”

“Well, good, because that’s what I was going to do anyway,” she said, mustering up a little bit of vim, hoping to bring back his smile.

It worked, and she headed into the kitchen with a little bit of a lighter heart.

It lasted about two minutes, until she took a second to think about the larger picture. Somehow, in the last few hours, she’d started caring about more than just getting this man to help her daughter.

She wanted this whole thing to work out, somehow. Athena and Santos, and making Reid’s vision of a clan and Jeremiah’s vision of a clan coexist—

And there was no way it was going to work. Absolutely no way.

Chapter 7: Reid

Reid found Rhiannon deeply buried in A Wrinkle in Time and absolutely uninterested in moving from her spot until she finished it.

“Good to hear,” he told her, and retreated under her unimpressed look into the main room.

Sage was moving around in the kitchen, finding food for them. Reid thought with a pang of guilt that he probably should have brought some food, as well as the toys and medical supplies, because who knew how much they had here.

On the other hand, that might have been seen as insulting. This was a proud clan, for all that they didn’t have very much to their name.

They did have fire, though. Energy. Passion. Something. Reid had seen it out there, with Sage and Shiloh locking horns, Athena shouting, the other two men ready to back Shiloh up if necessary. He hadn’t been kidding—he admired the hell out of Sage’s ability to tell all of those big, aggressive men what to do. And the fact that they listened to her—that meant that there was a real bond there. They trusted her to know what was best.

Reid did not want to be at war with this clan. He truly, honestly didn’t. Even leaving aside the issue of Santos and Athena being mates—there was real heart in this small group of shifters.

And Sage...

The way she’d said that she just wanted to live somewhere nice...the way she’d looked so regretful about not being able to give books to her daughter. She should have a nice place to live, and Rhiannon should have books to read, and neither of them should have to be afraid of a war.

Reid wanted to make this work. Really wanted to.

When he’d agreed to come here, he’d been doing it mainly out of duty. It hadn’t seemed right, in the abstract, to leave a town without any medical help if he was in a position to do something about it. And Santos was his friend, and it also hadn’t seemed right to let him come face his mate’s violent clan alone.

That had changed. Now Reid was invested.

And he knew what had tipped the scales.

Sage, her golden eyes flashing as she talked a violent man down from his anger, enforced her will on four men twice her size. And