“She’s pretty banged up,” Chaghan said heavily. “We’re pretty sure this is a concussion. I’m going to the infirmary to get some things. Qara’s a blood match. It’ll help Hadyn heal faster.”
Rune had already killed the fucker who’d dared to lay a hand on her. He wanted to kill him again. But banged up wasn’t dying. She’d recover, especially with dragon blood’s healing properties in her. The effect on humans could be unpredictable, but Hadyn wasn’t entirely human, so who knew. “She’ll be okay?”
“You should go help your people, son,” Chaghan said, his voice pretty damn final. “Nothing you can do pacing around here. We’ll let you know when she wakes up.”
Rune peeled his gaze from his view of Hadyn’s shoes. Chaghan was older than the last time they’d met, wearier. The loss of a son would do that. So would captivity with a death sentence hanging over your head. His blond hair was pure white now and his green eyes almost crystalline in appearance. Hard…and tired, the lines around them drawing tight.
“I’m not leaving her,” Rune stated, equally as hard.
At least that’s how he’d meant it, but the words came out more as a plea. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t how he handled shit. He wasn’t a panicker or a pleader.
Chaghan frowned, his gaze searching Rune’s as though trying to figure out why he was losing his shit over the woman whom the fates had given to his son. “She’s our daughter. We’ll take care of her.”
Rune shook his head. “She’s mine to protect.”
Chaghan’s brows lowered over his eyes slowly, first in confusion, then dawning realization, before toughening into an expression Rune could only describe as a father deliberately trying to scare the piss out of a prospective suitor.
“She had a mate,” Chaghan snarled. “He’s dead.”
“Your son. I know.”
The hardness only turned colder. “Then you know she can’t be yours.”
“I can’t turn her, but she is mine.”
Chaghan puffed up, arms crossing, practically chest bumping him. “You’re not going to come along and claim—”
“Let me stop you right there. Hadyn wants to be mine. I would never force her.”
Smoke spilled from the other man’s nostrils, his dragon damn close to eating him alive. “Do you love her?”
Love?
A word Rune had never considered. Not in relation to anyone. He’d vaguely held the notion that one day he would meet his mate and, yes, love would be part of that. Before coming here, when he’d told Hadyn he planned to keep her, that had been chemistry, and possessiveness. A hell of a lot of respect, but also…genuine liking. More than liking. But love?
The knowledge that he couldn’t face her slipping away hit him so sharply he almost expected to taste blood. She’d come into his life with a pretty big bang, and he couldn’t let her go.
But love?
Was he even capable of the emotion? He was usually such a loner, even with either of his teams around him. He’d allowed himself to get close to the Huracáns. Finn especially. Deep, too.
Look where that had got him. A betrayal he’d forgiven with his mouth. The heart was harder to convince to forget the hurt that had been caused, the massive gap in his life. His fault, partly.
Chaghan regarded him with narrowed eyes. “If it’s going to take you this long to answer—”
“I don’t know yet,” Rune ground out. “We’ve known each other no time at all.”
Chaghan stared him down, clearly unimpressed.
“I can tell you that I don’t want to lose her.”
“Like every other possessive, selfish firebreather out there.”
“No.” Rune ran a hand over his face. “I mean if I can’t see her and know she’s safe, I can’t breathe.”
Chaghan said nothing, nor did his expression ease.
Rune mimicked his posture, crossing his arms. “Look. You know me. Not the reputation as a mate stealer, but the man trying to find them and protect them. You wouldn’t have sent Hadyn to me if you didn’t trust me implicitly.”
Chaghan’s expression and stance stayed the same, but he nodded, once.
Rune took that as progress. “Honor is important to me. I’m not going to lie and say I love her when I’m not even sure that’s something I can do. But I can tell you that I want to make her…happy. Happy and safe.”
And he’d done a fucking bang-up job with the safe part today. He held the older man’s gaze, not flinching, not blinking, and waited.
After a long, solid stare, Chaghan sighed, expression turning suddenly weary, and dropped his arms to his sides. “If you really mean that, then right now, the best thing you can do is let us take care of her while you help your people fortify our position.”
The last thing he wanted to do was leave this room, but Chaghan was right.
Fuck.
Rune stood there, shaking his head, hating everything about that realization, his dragon pushing him to both stay and to do what Chaghan said and make her safer by locking this place down.
Just one fucking break in his life. That’s all he asked. He’d spent all this time doing the right thing only to be made a pariah, to be hunted for money or bloodlust or pure hatred, to lose the people who’d been closer to him than his own family, and now to lose the one person who was starting to become the most important thing in his life?
Damn the fates. Damn them all to hell.
“Don’t leave her alone,” he mumbled at Chaghan. Then stalked out of the room.
Chapter Eighteen
Damn my head hurts.
The first thought that broke through the blackness was quickly replaced by the sound of a familiarly gruff male voice asking her to open her eyes. Only her first instinct at hearing it wasn’t fear, but instead a sort of dazed pause where the strangest sense that she was safe curled around her.
Only the voice went away only to be replaced by the sounds of her parents’ voices calling her name. It took way more effort than it should to force her eyes open, but frowning about it only made her head worse. In and out of awareness she drifted until finally her parents’ faces swam into fuzzy view.
“Is this real?” she croaked.
Both gave her watery smiles. Or…Qara’s was watery. Chaghan looked as though he wanted to kill something.
“What happened?”
Her father grinned at that. “You got in a tussle with a dragon shifter, baby. Got a pretty good knock on the head.”