Very. He now had a decent idea of the depth of her knowledge thanks to that little speech.
Although, she’d left out bits related to him. Idly, he wondered if she knew. Probably not. Even his old team—men he’d counted as brothers after centuries together—hadn’t believed him, or maybe hadn’t wanted to enough to start pushing back on the Alliance the way he’d insisted they needed to.
Rune had discovered that the very laws they’d all been sworn to uphold were breaking down, harming the most vulnerable of their kind. A discovery without finite proof that had eventually sent him on a…different path.
Her tracking him down here told him she probably knew at least part of his story and not the bad parts about him. Almost all dragon shifters still believed him to be a traitor to their kind. A dangerous, unbalanced, homicidal fucker who stole dragon mates away from the clans where they rightfully belonged. The world had gotten part of that right. He did take the mates. Gladly.
But the reasons why…his old team was finally, only in the last couple of years, starting to learn the truth of that for themselves. To learn it and to believe him now, calling on him for help rather than attacking him. Vindication wasn’t all that sweet, though. Home couldn’t ever feel the same after this.
Forgiveness wasn’t in a dragon shifter’s makeup.
But he’d figure that out later. Right now, he needed to deal with Hadyn.
“Are we done, teacher? Did I earn my A?” she snapped.
“A plus, actually,” he said.
“Listen, you arrogant ass. There is a lot to discuss and little time. So, are you going to listen or keep fucking around?”
Instead of a snap of irritation, which would have been a normal reaction, he found himself wanting to crowd her. Just to scare her a little. Clearly someone needed to, or she’d get herself in trouble one day tossing attitude like that at any kind of shifter. Especially one who was, for all intents and purposes, a total stranger.
“Dragons are dangerous, love,” he warned in a soft voice. “I suggest you use a little more caution speaking to me.”
After a beat of hesitation, she rolled her eyes. The woman actually rolled her fucking eyes. “You won’t hurt me—”
The last word was hardly out of her mouth and he was across the room, in her face, curling a hand around her neck. Not tight. This was about scaring a little sense into her. He loosed a growl, letting her see his eyes go dragon for a second.
Not that his dragon acted bothered by her. If anything, the damn creature was intently curious about her…and impressed. Like a dog with its ears pricked.
Finally, a flash of nerves showed themselves as her tongue snaked out to wet her bottom lip. His body decided to go all sorts of haywire at the tiny action.
Or maybe at the way she held his gaze unflinchingly. “Hurting unclaimed dragon mates isn’t your style,” she said softly. “Protecting them is.”
An unclaimed mate? Who the fuck was this woman?
If she was what she said, Hadyn should smell of smoke at the very least. He dropped his head to the crook of her neck. Not touching but inhaling deeply.
Mint. Fields of it used to grow near the mountain where he’d been born.
The cool freshness of it surrounded her as though a subtle hint of her personality, all reflected in her eyes. Damned if his cock wasn’t throbbing by this point. A reaction that pissed him off, the burn of irritation settling low in his belly. He was reacting no better than a human boy with no control, no purpose, and no reason.
Rune jerked back, only enough to look into eyes that watched him warily but unflinchingly. Did she have no sense of self-preservation?
“You’re no mate,” he snarled. “And your parents couldn’t have been taken by the Alaz.”
“Why is that?” she demanded.
“Because the entire Alaz team is dead.”
The words dropped between them into a pool of silence, and she stopped breathing, eyes going wide. Then she blew out, harsh and fast. If he hadn’t been holding her, he had the strangest certainty that she would have run a hand through her hair.
“Huh. That explains a lot,” she murmured.
The fuck? How was that her response?
Before he could ask, her gaze snapped back to his, a thousand questions floating in the mesmerizing spring fields of her eyes, throwing his own balance off kilter. Because this wasn’t how a normal person would react to any of this conversation.
At least that’s what he told himself.
“My parents were taken a few days before the spring equinox in Alaska,” she said. “When were the Alaz killed?”
Not too long after that. But that only opened up more holes in her story.
“It’s June, now.”
Her lips twitched. “Yup.” Her irreverent tone clearly said, good for you.
“Then why aren’t they dead?” Rogues were supposed to be executed when found. Not that, as an enforcer, he hadn’t let his fair share slip by. Those who hadn’t been dangerous to their kind, merely subversive.
“You’ll have to ask their jailers,” she said.
He grunted. “Uh-huh. And, assuming they are alive, why did it take you so long to come to me if they were taken that long ago?”
“Because I had to track down their whereabouts first. I saw no point in bringing you in if they were already dead.”
On the backside of a sharp surge of respect for that statement, he hardened his heart. “That’s a nice story, love, but you’re forgetting one thing.”
Finally her hands came up to circle his wrists, though she didn’t try to tug herself free. Her touch chilled his skin, her hands—she’d taken her thick gloves off at some point—like ice, sending a slither of guilt through him.
She might be a liar, but she was human, and easily broken.
“What did I forget?” she asked.
“You’ve already lied to me once about being a mate. Why should I believe you about anything else?”
Her throat worked around a swallow under his palms, the skin silky soft there in sharp contrast to the calloused hands of a climber. He was barely touching her, and he could feel all that, and more. He’d wanted to scare her, not actually harm her, not that he’d admit that to Hadyn.
“My fated mate is dead.” She dropped that bomb of a statement quietly. “He was killed before he could turn me.”
Chapter Two
She hadn’t meant to say that…about Kip and being a mate. It gave away too much. But somehow, she’d sensed any other argument would only meet with a wall of coldness. The last thing Hadyn had expected when she’d finally tracked down Rune Abaddon was that he wouldn’t believe her.