4. Dimpy

Chapter 4

Dimpy

M y dragon wasn't the most dragony of creatures, and I barely got any interference from it. This week was going to be quite a work-out for my instincts, though. Already, my dragon had surged up inside me when Alfie had smacked Anthony's arm away from Blaze.

My entire body had jolted with fear that my mate was hurt. I'd been at his side in a second, dragging him back, away from the threat. His scent had been hurt and confusion. For all he knew more about almost every type of magical creature in the world, my mate didn't understand our instincts very well. He didn't feel possessive or arrogant or vengeful, and so he didn't consider that other people might have those kinds of feelings. My own instincts were to hold him close and keep him safe, and I'd wanted to bundle him up in our room for the rest of the day as soon as Georgie confirmed his arm wasn't broken, just bruised.

Anthony, however, wanted to be out there with all the newcomers. He wanted to speak to them and find out more about uasal and ridire .

At first, I'd tried to persuade him to stay in our room but he looked at me with those big brown eyes and… well, he really, really wanted to go out there. I couldn't deny him.

I stuck close by him, though. He wasn't getting out of my sight for the rest of the day, probably for the rest of the week.

My instincts were unsettled and my dragon was awake inside me, even if it wasn't trying to do anything right now. When a ridire walked into our midst, it sort of raised its head inside me and took stock of things.

It might be settled but it wasn't going to stop watching, not now. It allowed my mate to enter the room where the ridire was, but it stuck close to Anthony. My dragon seemed to think that, if Nana had let this man into our territory, he wasn't a danger to us. It trusted our elder .

And Kingsley wasn't a ridire any longer, I reminded myself.

Still, Anthony had been hovering around him, hoping to talk to him. We'd never been able to talk to a ridire before and just because he wasn't one now didn't mean Kingsley didn't know all about them. Anthony was desperate to mine some knowledge from him. He'd started writing lists of questions last night in case he forgot any once he actually managed to corner the man.

Unfortunately for Anthony and his lists, Arram had got to Kingsley first.

Kingsley was a serious-looking man who held himself constantly alert. Maybe because he was around dragons, I wasn't sure. But he took everything seriously and listened carefully.

That was why he was getting on so well with Arram, I thought. The dryad was also serious, slow and watchful. The two of them had had their heads together for nearly an hour, talking in low voices about different types of magic.

That in itself was fascinating and, as soon as I'd realised that I could hear them but my mate couldn't, I'd manoeuvred us both closer to them so Anthony could eavesdrop beside me. He had been practically squirming in his seat ever since, desperate to interrupt and ask more questions. Somehow, he'd restrained himself.

I glanced at my mate and admired his profile. His eyes were so dark and beautiful, knowing eyes, and so gentle too. The lean lines of his body were perfect, elegant and smooth.

I stood back against the wall and listened to Arram and Kingsley and watched my mate soak up all of the new knowledge. Somehow he always retained it all, and I couldn't believe the sort of things he could remember. He was a walking encyclopaedia.

Suddenly there was a snarl from across the room and I jerked my head up in time to see Dee streaking towards her mate. For a horrible second, I thought she was going to attack Kingsley and my dragon rushed up inside me, ready to protect my mate.

If she fought Kingsley, it would be a bloody battle. There would be deaths from both families, for certain. Because my clan would defend Dee. And Kingsley's clan would defend him.

It would be the end of an alliance.

Maybe the end of a whole clan .

Inside me, my dragon grew big and gave a sudden, worried rumble.

Luckily, Dee shot straight past Kingsley, merely shouldering him aside as she made straight for her mate. She grabbed Arram and hustled them backwards until they hit the wall and then Dee grabbed their neck and fused her mouth to theirs.

She kissed Arram passionately and Arram suffered her to kiss them. They even obeyed when she growled, "Shift."

Arram's body became wider, their skin darker as it turned to bark and Dee's hands roamed all over her mate's body possessively, touching and claiming them. Where she touched, small pink flowers appeared.

Beside me, Anthony made a move to step towards them and I grabbed him.

"Not today," I said. "Not while Dee's in such a possessive mood. She might lash out if anyone gets near her mate."

Anthony was desperate to study those flowers. They appeared when Arram was in their dryad form and was touched by their mate, and nobody had been able to study them before, which meant Anthony hadn't been able to read up on it .

I felt him sag against me with disappointment.

"One day soon," I promised him, "I'll ask them to show you specially. I'm sure Arram won't mind and Dee is more than happy to show off her mate's flowers."

She liked to show off the fact that they only bloomed for her, too. She always looked proud as anything when Arram had pretty little flowers blooming all over their body.

I jumped when a voice spoke right in my ear. I hadn't heard anyone come into the room.

Of course it was Dum. Never far away from Dee, he had seen her display of possessive ownership and was grinning with far too many teeth, right next to my neck.

"Leaves a trail of petals behind us all the damned time," he said.

Anthony twisted round to see Dum. He smiled at the dragon, and I was amazed, as always, that he never seemed to mind those two sneaking round and being generally dangerous. It didn't seem to have entered Anthony's head that they would do him any harm. Something I had to admit looked likely. They'd taken it into their heads that he needed protecting, and they were the ones to do it .

My dragon gave a low little rumble as it settled down again. It didn't mind Dee and Dum protecting our mate. He was worth protecting.

Dum folded his arms and took in the picture of Dee making out with her mate against the wall, showing everyone exactly whose mate the dryad was. I had to admit, I could feel all the dragons around me were slightly closer to the surface than usual. We had strangers in our territory and they were nervous. Watchful. Possessive. Protective.

My whole family was giving in to their dragon's instincts quicker than usual.

Dum spoke casually, "Do you think she's going to fuck Arram right up against that wall?"

My beautiful mate blushed and murmured, "Maybe we should leave."

Kingsley had already silently left the room.

I'd noticed that, too. He had courage, to come into a dragon's territory. But whether it was just common sense that he didn't want to push the dragons too hard or whether his own ridire instincts were restless around us, I wasn't sure. Either way, I'd noticed that he tended to look less tense and alert when he was around the non-dragons .

Dum pursed his lips, thinking. "You know, I think she might. That ridire was standing awfully close to Arram, you know."

Apparently, Dee could hear us because she snarled again and pressed her body harder against Arram's, trying to cover them completely. If I were to guess, I'd say that her dragon wouldn't settle until she'd convinced it that she'd claimed Arram again.

Dum cackled gleefully and kept going. "They were standing so close together, weren't they? Their bodies were almost touching—"

I thought it was probably time to get Dum out of there before he could convince Dee to hunt down Kingsley in some kind of vengeance for touching her mate. She didn't look like she'd see reason right then, and I didn't want to be the one who tried to convince her that her mate and Kingsley had been talking very platonically in front of witnesses the whole time.

"Come on. Yes, you, Dum."

I managed to get him out of the room by using Anthony as bait. Dum followed my mate like a lamb, asking, "What am I going to do for the rest of the afternoon now that Dee's occupied? "

Anthony suggested, "You could go and help Prince in the kitchen?"

Dum shot him the sort of look he might give an adorable puppy, a combination of disbelief and cuteness overload. He humoured my mate enough to say, "Yeah, I might," and hurried off before Anthony could actually expect him to do that.

Anthony turned to me. I wound my arms around his slim waist and looked up into his dark eyes.

"What about us? What are we going to do now?"

I didn't really mean to, but I might have pressed my body up against his. I loved to feel my mate pressed against me and his smell was intoxicating every time I did it. His natural scent became deeper with a faint flush of arousal.

"Um, well we could… we could go to help in the kitchen? Or we could go to the library? Or maybe to our room?"

I craned my neck and pressed my lips to his. His breath caught and he wound his arms around my neck, pressing closer to me .

As we kissed, his scent got deeper and deeper until all I wanted was to strip him down and devour him.

"Definitely bedroom," he said, when we finally broke apart. Then he leaned his mouth down to my ear and spoke quietly so that nobody but us would hear. "I want to take that plug out of you."

It might not have been entirely fair play on my part, but my dragon was happy to finally get to take our mate to our room, which was safe and contained and where we could defend our mate and keep him naked and safe.

I hurried him up there before he could see anyone else he wanted to question. He'd have time for that later. For today, he was mine.