Page 123 of Dragon Me Through Space

“What?” Zeke asked.

Tears started falling down my face and great sobs shook my body. “I-I was going to talk to you about activating the bond after the ceremony. To ask if you still wanted it, but then she opened it and … I thought she’d bound you to her. That I’d lost you to her. But now, now it’s been forced on you without your consent and you must be upset. Preston’s obviously upset and⁠—”

“Stop!” Zeke shouted.

My mouth snapped closed.

He moved to kneel before me and took my hands in his. “We’re not angry about the bond, Xoe. We’re happy. We wanted the bond, want the bond.”

“B-But⁠—”

The door opened and Preston froze when he saw my face. After a breath of hesitation, he shut the door and hurried over to sit beside me, taking my face between his hands. “What’s wrong?”

“I … didn’t mean for the bonding to happen like this. If I’d known she was going to try to use the necklace, I would have hidden it,” I blurted while hiccupping as I tried not to cry.

His brows furrowed a moment and then he exhaled and lowered his head until our foreheads touched. “I’m not upset that we’re bonded, Xoe.”

What? “You’re not?”

“No.”

“Then, why were you avoiding me?”

He kissed the tip of my nose and leaned back to meet my eyes. “I’m not avoiding you, pet. I’ve been dealing with the Exostalons and other annoying princely duties.”

“So, I’m overreacting?” I whispered.

He hugged me tightly, pulling my head until it rested on his shoulder. “You’re not overreacting, you just misunderstood what was going on, and that’s okay. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there when you were discharged and that I wasn’t able to visit you while you were in the medic ward. I should have made time for both of those things.”

“I understand that you’re busy as prince,” I said and felt my face heating in embarrassment. I knew that the heir always has a lot on their plate. Even as a child, I was constantly busy with training and attending meetings to learn about ruling.

“There’s no reason to be embarrassed,” he said and chuckled.

“How are things going with Exostalon?” Wayne asked.

Preston smiled at me and said, “Well, they just delivered Tarkar’s head to me as an apology gift.”

My mouth dropped. “They did what?”

He nodded. “I incinerated it already, but they were apparently the ones who had sent Tarkar after you and gave him coordinates to find us and gave him the advanced weapon to destroy our ship. I accepted his head as payment for them entering our airspace, but warned them if they came within our solar system again, we would destroy their entire planet.”

“Can you destroy their planet?”

Preston gave me his famous, smug smirk. “You saw us destroy that ship with just three of us. Imagine what a dozen or more of us could do to a planet.”

Holy starships! I hadn’t even considered it! No wonder they were left alone. They had a truly frightening power.

“Now that we’ve got that cleared up, I think we should let Xoe rest,” Gage said as he cleaned up our empty plates.

“Yes, let’s get you showered and in bed,” Preston said.

“It’s lunchtime,” I argued. “It’s not bed time.”

“We didn’t say sleep, pet. We said in bed. You need rest to fully recuperate.”

Arguing was pointless, so I let the four of them fawn over me.

My four princes.