Page 23 of The Ice Prince's Fated Mate
I looked down. Sure enough, my shirt was soaked through with fresh blood.
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” I said, trying to shake it off. “Must have pulled it open when I heard you cry out. I thought you were in danger.”
Ella leaned to her right, looking past me, and then around the forest. “Were you spying on me? Why are you out here?”
I shook my head. “No. I thought you were in Anna’s room. I heard the voices in there. I came out here to …”
It all sounded stupid in my head now. I had come out here to run away, to give her space. But now, face to face with her, I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. So I just sort of let it drop at that.
That silence lingered. Ella looked away, shifting from one foot to the other. I coughed, wishing my side would stop hurting as the pain returned, now that I knew she wasn’t in any danger.
“Sorry,” Ella said eventually. “For making you hurt yourself, I mean.”
“It’s nothing,” I replied, wanting to be both right there with her and anywhere else at the exact same time.
“That’s twice now I’ve gotten you hurt,” she said.
Her face twisted with an unhappy grimace that I hated to see on her lovely features. I wished I was wittier, so I could say something to make her smile or maybe even laugh.
“I never thanked you,” she said, digging at the dirt with one foot. “For catching me.”
“And you’ll never have to,” I rumbled with a tiny smile, hoping to diffuse some of the tension. “Especially after what I did to you. You owe me nothing, Ella.”
I gestured at her side, meaning the mate marks I had seen when she fell from the sky. My mate marks.
I wasn’t sure what I’d hoped to accomplish by saying that, perhaps to try to help convince her I was actually apologetic, but I knew it had backfired when her face clouded over.
“No, actually, I think I do need to thank you,” she said with sudden stiffness. “I don’t want to owe you a thing, Dirk.”
I nodded. As usual, I was just making things worse.
Fool.
“I should go,” I said, hoping she would understand I was leaving for her sake. “Then you can get back to it. You don’t need me for it, but don’t get too worked up either. It’ll happen.”
Ella gave me a half-frown half odd-stare. “What will happen?”
“Your next shift.” I gestured at the clearing, which she was standing in the middle of. “Thatiswhat you’re out here trying to do. Right? Shift again? It’ll come in time. Just … stay on the ground this time. Okay? I’m not quite up to speed to be there just yet. As we can see.”
I pointed at my side with a smile, hoping she would at least laugh at my injury. It hadn’t taken me long to figure out that her cry was not one of pain but of frustration. She, as most shifters new to their dragon, was struggling with establishing the connection to her other half.
“Why would you have to be up to speed for that to matter?” Ella asked coolly.
That hurt. I knew what she was getting at. That she didn’t want my help.
“Listen,” I said as my dragon tried to push me across the clearing to wrap her up in my arms so we could settle the anger between us and move past it. Which meant I needed to do the opposite and leave. “I’m just saying you’re going to get it. And you’re right. You won’t need me to save you this time when it does happen.”
I nodded, hoping she would accept what I intended as a compliment to her abilities, and turned to leave the clearing.
I had limped three steps when her voice lashed out, stunning me with the wave of fury.
“Saveme?”
Thirteen
Ella
It was too much.Everything was too much. After everything that had happened, for him to now push me away and say I didn’t need him to save me, something inside me snapped.
