I stopped in my trudge back to Maryanne’s to check on the supplies and see if I could make more elixir. We’d been lugging the stuff to every house in the whole neighborhood, it seemed like. So many people were in various stages of affliction. It wasn’t like my village at all. I realized that we’d had this under some sort of control for years. I now saw what happened when that wasn’t the case.
He caught sight of me immediately. Anyone in the vicinity stopped and stared, gaping up at the marvel of the prince, one of the last remaining dragons.
He stopped beside me, looking down. “It’s getting late. Time to go. Get your team, and let’s get out.”
“Oh, it went well, thanks for asking! Really good, actually. We got a ton accomplished.” I walked on, passing him.
He reached down at lightning speed and caught my arm. I squealed as he pulled me up and dragged me in front of him.
“You have revitalized them. Now it’s time for me to revitalize you,” he growled, kicking forward toward Hadriel and Hannon, who were walking down the way with empty mugs in their arms. “Hadriel, take Hannon back and head for the castle. Tonight is the lull. I’ll be spending it with Finley, as previously discussed.”
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”
Maryanne trailed after them, her eyes wide and mouth agape. She gracefully fell to a knee.
“Your highness, it is an honor. Thank you for bestowing your royal healer on us.”
“You have her to thank for that, not me. Take her pot. We must be going.”
“Yes, sir.” She rose and reached for it eagerly.
With a scowl, I handed it back, looking at Hannon. “I’ll see you soon, okay? The other villages will likely need looking after as well. Tell the others I said hi.”
He nodded at me, then tilted his head at Nyfain in hello.
“You will definitely see him soon,” Nyfain said as he kept the stallion moving. “The other villages are much like this one. I asked for a tour of the hardest-hit locations. It was…eye-opening. I hadn’t realized it was so bad. I’ve failed them.”
I leaned back into him, resting against his chest. He held the reins with one hand and wrapped the other around me.
“You didn’t fail them, Nyfain. You protected them from the monsters all this time, and you helped me find a cure. It worked again!” I put my hands on his strong thighs. “I have it, I really do. I brought one guy back from the brink of death. I helped several more who were a month or two out. It works!” I beamed, so relieved. “We used all the crowded plant I had dried. I’ll need to harvest more. I might need to pick from other fields, since we have a short supply of crowded plants.”
He squeezed me as we left the perimeter of the village and entered the wood. “You’re the miracle these people needed.”
“I couldn’t be the miracle alone. We did this together.”
He slid his lips down my neck and over my shoulder, applying pressure with his teeth, and a thrill arrested me. I groaned, wanting to be closer. Wanting his skin on mine.
“How did it go at the other villages?” I asked in a breathy murmur.
“I lost my cool a few times. At each village. I have a few triggers, it turns out.”
I smiled, rubbing my cheek against his jaw. “What are those?”
“I don’t much like when people call you common. Or when they say you don’t have enough experience to be valuable—it was the ‘valuable’ part that set me off. Or that you’re incredibly beautiful. Or that people from your village aren’t to be trusted—”
“So all your triggers involve disparaging remarks about me.”
“It seems so, yes.”
“Except the beautiful one…”
“His eyes flared with lust. I didn’t much care for it.”
My animal purred in delight, and it felt like she stretched out through the bond to connect with his dragon. I reached back and hugged a hand around his neck.
“That must’ve been the guy I met in the wood after you drugged me and left my house in the middle of the night.”
“Yes,” he growled, obviously remembering the exchange in the village.
Ask him how he handled it, my animal goaded me. Ask him what he did.
I rolled my eyes, pretending the little thrill was all hers, and relayed the message.
“The reactions varied relating to what they said. Tables were flipped, chairs were thrown, doors kicked in… I didn’t have a firm handle on things.”
“And the guy?”
He growled and raked his teeth down my neck and across my shoulder. Pleasure curled through me, and the thrill from a moment ago intensified. Suddenly my every nerve was firing electricity. It felt fucking amazing, like I’d just gotten a shot of adrenaline and energy and power and lust all at the same time.