“He knocked on my door, and when my husband answered it this dragon guy shifted and knocked him out.”
“Husband?” I gasped.
“Yeah, we’ve been married for two years,” she said. “This guy comes at me, so I run up the stairs and lock my bedroom door and then run to the en suite bathroom and lock myself in there. I tried to open the window, but he was already breaking down my bedroom door.” She was talking a thousand miles a minute. “I started screaming, because the bathroom door only opened halfway and there’s no way I could fit through that,” she cried.
“Oh, god I’m so sorry.”
“I’m okay now, thanks to that other dragon guy. He came up and bust through to try and protect me, but the first one snatched me up and tried to fly me away. We got to the woods, and he dropped me and became a man again. Started trying to…” She looked away from me. “He kept talking about mating me, and—” She started tearing up.
“You’re okay, you’re safe now.” I petted her arm and watched outside the car.
What kind of man could act like that?
Sure, Rhuron snatched me away, but he never tried to force himself on me.
“We’ll protect you,” I said calmly. “I’m going to call the police to go to your address to check on your husband.”
“Thank you,” she sobbed. I pulled out my phone. Hopefully, cops wouldn’t start heading our way; this would be the worst way for the kingdom to be discovered.
As the dispatchers answered, a loud thud shook the ground beneath us. I gasped, almost dropping my phone.
“What is your emergency?” they repeated.
“There’s been a break-in at…”
“3411 Juniper Street,” she whispered.
I repeated the address. “Please send help. A man has been attacked.”
I disconnected the call, moving up against the window to see better.
There was movement out there.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no — what if he killed them?” she sobbed in fear.
My heart beat hard, and I worried too.
Rhuron had to be okay, right?
There’s no way anything could happen to him.
I would know.
A large thing was being dragged through the forest. I saw red scales.
I held my breath until I saw that it was Rhuron dragging Tierner with his teeth. In a huge gust of wings that pushed and rocked the car, Rhuron lifted off and carried the huge dragon with him. A gasp slipped from my lips. In the sunlight, Rhuron’s wings were so beautiful. Like stained glass, they glimmered and colored the surrounding air.
“What does this mean for me?” the woman asked.
“They have their own way of dealing with things, but I promise he won’t come near you again.”
“How can you make that promise?”
She looked terrified, but I understood.
“I’m that dragon shifter’s fated mate, the one who’s carrying the other. I’m going to make sure nothing happens to either you or your husband,” I explained. It felt wild to admit that I was Rhuron’s fated mate, but I had to accept it.
It had only been a handful of days.
I just knew that I could never be away from Rhuron again, not after I realized how good it felt to stay at his side.
Karr returned, a little worse for wear but seemingly okay, and we headed back into town to drop her off. She’d be fine, hopefully. I found myself praying that no other girl would have to go through anything like this. They deserved better, and I was going to do my best to help with that.