Page 61 of The Dragons' Healing Mate

Rolling his eyes, Orsen draped an arm over the back of the couch. “Okay, maybe that wasn’t your proudest moment, but Rowan thought it was cute. Did you see the way she scratched your ears?”

My face heated, and a growl slipped free. I wasn’t going to admit how much I’d liked that.

I looked away, voice quiet. “I just… can’t.”

“Bastian, wewillfigure out who hurt her. Mark my words, if it’s the last thing I fucking do. We’re going to keep her safe,” he promised. “And you need to let the past go. Things will never be the same. There’s something to build here, though.”

“I wish I had your confidence.” I sighed.

“She’s not going to stick around if you’re not at leastfriendlyto her,” he pointed out.

“You sure have beenplentyfriendly with her. Her scent is all fucking over you.”

He shoved me, knocking me into the arm of the couch. “That’s me, asshole. Wouldyouwant to stay in a clan where one of your mates hates you?”

I didn’t hate Rowan. Not at all. In fact, my feelings for her were quite the opposite. Even when it felt like my entire world was crashing down on me, seeing her made the tightness in my chest ease. Ever since I’d admitted that to Orsen, I’d been unable to deny it, even to myself.

My delusion of indifference had been well and truly shattered.

Goddamn it.

And now I had to admit that she was making the lives of our entire horde better. A pregnancy. We’d wanted one of those for so goddamn long and had been thinking our horde was circling the drain.

But she’d fixed it. Because she was damn good at her job.

I sank into the couch, moping. “I don’t hate her.”

Orsen shrugged, standing from the sofa. “It’s not me you have to convince, Bastian. Also, you can take guard duty tomorrow. Griffin has things to get done, and he could use the break.”

He left as quickly as he’d entered, leaving me alone with my turbulent thoughts. The TV was still playing, but I had no desire to watch it now. This was a lot, and worse, I knew Orsen wasright. That sucked. The ass would never let me hear the end of it when he’d finally gotten the words out of me. I was really running out of options, wasn’t I?

“Fuck.”

Rowan

“Iswear I’ll be sixty before I’m fully caught up,” I grumbled, running a hand through my hair. It had been a long day, and I was run-down and felt like crap.

Exhaustion did that, unfortunately.

Nina nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, it’s brutal. I think most people avoided coming to Jenkins for help because he made everything worse, but now you’re here, they know you can help.”

“That makes sense.”

“I think it is starting to ease though… a teeny tiny bit.”

There had been a bug going around the horde. It wasn’t terrible, and most of the dragons got over it quickly, but it had increased my workload significantly over the last few days, on top of checkups, the dragons coming off Jenkins’s harmful medications, and any injuries.

“Can I get you anything?” Nina asked.

I shook my head. “No, it’s okay. You should go home, it’s getting late.” My body was heavy and sluggish, but I still had a lot to do. There was no point keeping Nina here, even though she made good company.

Nina frowned. “You look tired.”

I resisted the urge to snort. I was run-down. I had been working nonstop for days, and sleep had become optional. The few times I did manage to drift off, I was woken by nightmares. I wasn’t going to admit to anyone just how badly being kidnapped had affected me.

The fact that Colin and Allison were safe with Baby Rowan brought me great joy, but that small moment of terror when being kidnapped seemed to have awoken a lot of my past fears.

“It’s all part of the job,” I assured her.