Page 11 of Protecting His Treasure

Chapter Three

Kaede

Sweat dripped into his eyes.

Kaede blinked it away, ignoring the slight sting it left behind. Wasting time to wipe sweat from your eyes could cost you your life. Closing your eyes to allow the sting to go away could give your enemy a chance to sneak up on you. In the Frostlands, you had to remain alert at all times.

You had to treat each second of the day as if there was someone watching you, waiting in the shadows, ready to attack. That was how Kaede had survived for sixty years on this plane. That was how he would continue to survive until he found a way to get him and his mate away from this place.

“Kaede,” a voice called from the distance.

Until he was able to take his mate away from this plane, he’d continued to battle any threat that came his way. He’d continue to fight to keep his mate safe. Her safety was his only concern. Any one who was a threat to her safety, to her happiness, had to die.

“Kaede, stop…”

But before they died, he would make sure they suffered for trying to harm his mate. By the time he was done with them, they’d wish for death. They’d beg him to send them to hell, where they belonged.

“Kaede, what the hell!”

Blinking, Kaede pulled his thoughts away from killing his enemies and looked in the direction of the voice calling his name. Morgan stood directly in front of him. The male looked pissed off. Kaede cocked his head to the side, waiting for Morgan to tell him why he was calling his name.

“Let him go, Kaede,” Morg said.

Let who go? Kaede thought with a frown.

“You’re going to break James’ arm,” Morg yelled. “Let him go.”

James?

“I already tapped out,” a voice uttered from below him.

Kaede looked down. Fuck! James. Kaede had James’ pinned to the floor with his arm twisted behind his head and he had one knee in the male’s back. Shit. The sound of groaning reached his ears. He stared around the room. Three more males were lying on the floor, holding either their arms or legs as they groaned and glared at him.

“Release him, Kaede.”

Right. This time he did as Morg asked. Releasing James’ arm, Kaede stood up. He stretched his hand out, offering to help the male up. Moaning in pain, James ignored his outstretched hand and turned over onto his side. While holding the wrist that Kaede just had pinned behind his head, James slowly rose to his feet and moved to the far wall to join the rest of the crew who were glaring at Kaede.

“Did I blackout again?” Kaede asked his dragon.

Don’t think so.

Even his dragon didn’t know. This was happening too often lately. It started about two days ago. Around the same time that he started to feel the pull of the coming full moon. He needed it to end. Now! He couldn’t have it happening around his mate. If he hurt Sinclair… he paused, unable to finish that line of thinking. He’d never hurt her. Hurting her would be worse than hurting himself.

We won’t hurt her. Ever, his dragon assured him.

“How can we be sure? We don’t know what we do when we blackout.”

We won’t hurt her. I won’t allow it.

It was good that his dragon felt confident about it. Kaede, on the other hand, did not.

“Are you listening, Kaede?”

Morgan again!

I’m getting sick of him yelling at us.

“So am I.”