Page 87 of The Dragons’ Eternal Mate

Before I could open my mouth to answer, a large vehicle came crashing into the clearing, Orsen and Greylen jumping out of it and making their way over to us at a dead sprint.

Grey paused for a moment, looking at the body on the ground that was rapidly turning a sickly gray color as blood pooled around it.

The words just spilled out of me. “Craig came into the kitchen at the den and told me there was a medical emergency. I followed him out here. He vanished, and… Cyrus was here.” My chest heaved with the jagged sobs.

“You don’t have to worry about him anymore,” Bastian said, tucking some of my loose hair behind my ear.

Was he going to tell the others what I had done, or was that going to remain between us? I knew I would tell them eventually, but in the moment, I was feeling raw and exposed.

“Craig?” Orsen asked. “I’ll fucking⁠—”

“Don’t bother,” Greylen said, already typing away on his phone. “I just messaged Griffin. The idiot will be exiled from the horde before the sun comes up.”

“Griffin? I wanted to rip the fucker to shreds myself,” Orsen whined.

“Usually, I wouldn’t let anyone else do it, but Griffin is almost as protective of our mate as we are,” Bastian grumbled.

I almost giggled and told them Griffin was probably more protective, having seen me at my weakest, but I didn’t want to antagonize the pissed-off dragons any more than they already were. I also didn’t want them to leave me, any of them.

“Come on. Let’s get you home,” Nix said.

Orsen cocked a brow, gesturing with his head at him. “There’s not enough room for us in the car. Nix, you’ll have to fly back, seeing as you’re already naked.”

Nix preened. “It’s not my fault our mate likes me naked.”

I laughed, shaking my head. That was a bizarre leap of logic if I had ever heard one.

I slid into the back seat, and Bastian gently buckled me in. The moment I was secure, he stalked around the vehicle, sliding into the seat next to me. He didn’t bother with his own belt, instead sliding over until my side was pressed into his and wrapping an arm around my shoulder.

“Does this mean it’s over?” I asked in a small voice.

Bastian looked thoughtful for a moment. “It does.”

“Now what?” I whispered. Orsen and Grey slipped into the seats up front, and Nix shot me a look through the open window.

My three mates were quiet for several seconds that stretched on, the wind rustling through the long grass of the clearing. What I’d been running from lay in that field, and it wasn’t coming to get me anymore. I’d spent years fleeing from something invisible. After I’d learned what it was, I had silently worried that the five of us would never be free from that pain.

But he was dead. Cyrus was well and truly dead.

“Now, we get to be happy?” Grey smiled, but it was more a question than a statement.

Still, maybe… we could at least try.

Nix

For the first time ever, our enemies were gone.

Rowan sat on the porch of her clinic, a steaming mug of coffee in hand. I had put a bench out there so she could enjoy the scenery during her breaks, which she’d been a lot better about taking recently.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked when I walked up to her.

I grinned down at her. “You know me. Not many thoughts in this brain.”

Rowan laughed, swatting at my shoulder. “There are many thoughts in your brain. The majority of them are simply perverted in nature.”

I considered that for a moment, tilting my head with a smirk. She had me there. Who could blame me when I had a mate like Rowan, though?

“Actually”—I leaned against the wall—“I’m thinking if we don’t get changed soon, Ma is going to kill us.”