Page 80 of The Ice Prince's Fated Mate
“Ow,” Ella said, pulling back as my fangs nicked her lip ever so slightly.
“Sorry,” I growled, looking just past her, my hood and her head concealing the vast majority of my face from anyone looking down the road. “My dragon is very much demanding I claim you right now, after we … after earlier.”
“It’s okay. But why the kiss?”
I approved of the fact she didn’t once look over her shoulder but instead stayed focused on me. My mate was smart. Thoughtful. I liked that.
“He slowed, and I suspected he was going to look back at us. I didn’t want our cover blown.”
Ella licked her lips. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m along after all. Maybe Caz was right.”
“Donottell him that. His head is big enough as is,” I said, smiling. “Now come on. He went down an alley. Stay on my right, so I can look down it while pretending to talk to you.”
We strolled along at a much more sedate pace, and I leaned over to kiss the top of her head as we ambled past the alley entrance.
It was empty.
“Damn, damn, damn,” I cursed. “He’s gone. I should have …”
“What?” Ella asked, keeping her head against my arm. “What is it?”
“A Hunter,” I growled, a long-simmering rage boiling to the surface as I watched the figure emerge from a set of double-doors halfway down the alley. “And now I think I know where our long-nailed friend went.”
“What do you mean?” Ella asked, looking up at me once we passed the entrance to the alley.
“There’s another illegal market in there,” I stated. “I’m sure of it.”
Ella stiffened. “I can’t go in there, Dirk. I can’t.”
“Hush, my mate,” I said, pulling her in to my chest as her fear registered through the cold fury sinking into my bones. “I wasn’t going to make you.”
Seeing and experiencing that visceral reaction to the market from Ella only solidified my desire to march through the doors and slit the throats of every single Hunter or Elite inside. I could do it. Ihaddone it. Before.
Frigid darkness was moving in, slipping free of the barriers in my mind as I thought deeper on the topic. Of just what must have happened to Ella and her friends over the course of theirlives. How every day was filled with fear that it would be their last as free people. Tracked by the Hunters, sleeping on edge, always with an escape plan, a way out.
Nobody deserved to live that life.
I had once tried to bring the Hunters to heel, to topple their entire organization, but I had gone about it wrong. I was borne by guilt then, a guilt that fed into a rage. For years I’d buried that, tried to move on. But now, seeing Ella flinch brought it all back. An old friend, draping its bloody desires over my shoulders once more.
The more Hunters and those who deal in Grounded and heart scales and electro-crystals that I can eliminate, the better.
The Hunters were supposed to protect the dragons of the Ice Kingdom from the creatures that plagued the wild. Rogue faeries, feral shifters, creatures from the deeps, things that could not be reasoned with. They weren’t supposed to be criminals, trafficking their own kind.
“Please, Dirk. Don’t go in there alone,” Ella said, pulling on my arm, a light reaching through the darkness to find my soul.
What little of one I had left.
But there must have been something. In the past, I would have given in, let loose the three heads of rage, vengeance, and single-minded purpose without thinking twice.
Now, small feminine fingers pushed their way between mine, squeezing tightly and holding on to them. Holding on tome.
Reminding me of what was still here. Of what I had to fight for now.
Mate.
I shook my head, banishing the cold fury and the beast I became with it. Instead, I latched on to logic, intelligence,and a new emotion—one I was still fumbling my way around understanding.
Was it love? The seeds of love? It was more than desire, more than caring. But I had never been in love before. It was foreign, unknown.
