He wasn’t a violent man, but he was a demon. Like elves and orcs and dragons, his people had their own code of justice. Humans liked to pretend that everyone that even vaguely looked like them were civilized, but that was something they needed to think in order to sleep well at night.
The truth was that when you had a population comprised of individuals that could rip up trees with one hand, slit a throat with a claw, bend shadows to their will, claim a territory with might and tooth and fire alone, justice needed to be swift and brutal. The havoc that could be wreaked by a single rogue individual was immense. The bloodshed could be extreme. Mates and children could be lost.
No one would lay a hand on his mate again. Everything in Dom rebelled against the idea. Every bloodthirsty instinct, dormant since his bleak days in the war, roared to the surface.
He could feel Charlotte’s heart beating fast as a hummingbird’s against his forearm. Her voice was tight when she asked, “Do you think they’re after me?”
Dom grunted an affirmative. He wouldn’t lie to her. There wasn’t any point.
Little, clawless fingers dug into his forearm. “What are we going to do?”
“They’re trying to keep us from crossing the border into the Draakonriik.” Dom reluctantly pried his arm away from her so he could grip the wheel with two hands. Keeping an eye on the vehicle moving aggressively in the rear view mirror, he quickly ran through the only options available to them. “We could try to outrun them, but we still have a good hundred miles before we hit the border.”
Unfortunately, this far out there were few places for one to lose a pursuer — probably why they were being targeted now, instead of in the city. The road to the border was long and straight, with no cities in which to get lost. His truck couldn’t outpace their SUV, so speed wasn’t an option. Besides, they were clearly desperate to stop him from crossing the border and willing to do whatever it took to make that possible.
They clearly had some sense. No criminal in their right mind would pull a stunt like this in the Draakonriik. The New Zone was functionally lawless. As soon as they crossed the border, they would be in dragon territory — and subject to dragon justice.
Dom swerved to avoid another attempt to run them into the overgrown ditch, a calm sort of fury settling into his bones. The people who took his mate and imprisoned her would not give up the chase. It was a mistake he intended to use against them.
Eyeing a deserted rest stop area not too far ahead, Dom laid a hand on Charlotte’s knee and gave her a quick, reassuring squeeze. “We won’t make it to the border, so I have to end this before one of us does something stupid and we get into a wreck. Do you trust me?”
“Trust you?” He took his eyes off the road for a split second, just in time to see Charlotte looking at him like he’d grown another set of antlers. “I don’t even know you!”
“Doesn’t matter,” he gritted out. “Do you trust me?”
Dom was a sensible demon. He understood that he was asking a lot from a creature who didn’t have the same instinctive connection that he did, who was as mistreated as she was. But he also hoped she might feel something, some sort of innate understanding that he meant her no harm and that he would lay down his life for her without hesitation.
“What are you going to do?” Charlotte twisted around to peer out through the back window. “What’s your plan? Why do I need to trust you? Are you going to—”
He blindly reached for her shoulder to push her back into the proper position. “Sit down! If we get in a wreck, your seatbelt won’t do you any damn good with you twisted around like that.”
She hissed at him — a high, almost whine-like sound from between her sharp little fangs. “Well, tell me what you’re going to do, then!”
“I’m going to take care of the problem.” He didn’t bother signalling his turn before taking a sharp right off of the road and into the parking lot of the bare bones rest stop. Gravel crunched under his tires, then the tires of the SUV that swerved to block the exit.
Throwing his truck in park, Dom took precious time to unbuckle his seat belt and turn to his mate. She was gaping at him with open confusion and no small amount of fear, her usually rosy cheeks pale.
He could hear the sound of a car door opening, but he ignored it in favor of clasping the back of Charlotte’s neck, drawing her close, and planting an impulsive, hasty kiss to her slack mouth.
It was only a moment. A handful of seconds at most, but it was the best kiss he’d ever had and the only one that mattered.
She tasted like tart citrus and fresh honey. Her lips were smooth, warm. The hands that grasped the front of his shirt and clutched, pulling him as close as the console between them would allow, were eager and greedy. He could only linger there for a moment, but Dom wanted to stay more than he wanted anything else in his long life.
Charlotte was just leaning into him, her lips parting on a soft sigh that went straight to his cock, when Dom forced himself to pull away. Cupping the side of her head, he stared into her eyes and grated, “Don’t you fucking move out of this truck, you hear me? Close your eyes and count to one hundred. I’ll be back before you get to eighty.”
She blinked owlishly, her lips parted and flushed a delectable berry red. “What? Why should I close my eyes?”
“Because,” he replied, moving to open his door, “you don’t need to see what I’m going to do to these people, glowbug.”