Page 22 of Last Minion Standing
“I don’t want love,” I grumbled.
“Excuse me?”
I shouted. “I said I don’t want love.”
“Why ever not?” I couldn’t believe the note of incredulity in his voice.
“Love is for pussies. It makes a person weak and do stupid things.”
My father dumped me off his lap and stood up. “Listen here, young lady, I don’t know where you got those foolish notions, but you need to readjust your thinking. Love, contrary to your belief, makes you stronger.”
“I notice you don’t deny it makes us do dumb shit though.”
“No, I won’t deny it. Love will make you do things you never would have dreamed of, but you want to know a secret?”
“What?”
“Those stupid things will make you insanely happy.”
His answer made no sense. How could acting like an idiot make me happy? Then I thought of Drake and the laughter we’d shared the previous night and, to my disgust, I actually understood what my father was telling me. I really hated it when he was right. But it didn’t mean I forgave Drake. The prick had lied to me. Maybe I would skin him and make boots out of his dragon hide.
As if thinking of him conjured him, he strode into the room. My father looked at Drake with his stony face then to me with my stubborn look. He sighed. “Good luck, son, you’re going to need it.”
Then my father left me with him. My eyes couldn’t help drinking him in, from the partially unbuttoned shirt that strained over his bulging muscles, to his snug jeans, where evidence of his arousal distended them. I left his eyes for last because, once I gazed into them, I found myself caught as if in an emotional vortex.
“What are you doing here?” I tried to control the trembling of my voice.
“I’ve come to collect my mate.”
“I’m nobody’s mate. Go find yourself somebody else.” Brave words considering just the thought of him with another woman made me want to growl.
“You are mine. I thought to give you time so that you would come to me of your own volition, but I see now it would have never happened. I don’t know why you refuse to admit you love me.”
“Maybe because I don’t love you.”
“Liar.”
“I don’t care what you think. Now go away.”
“Not without you.”
The steely glint in his eye gave me a moment’s warning, and I whirled to flee. But he had no intention of letting me go, and while I’d never admit it aloud, I didn’t want to escape.
But just because he’d caught me and proceeded to carry me back to his lair didn’t mean I’d give in easily. Stubbornness was one of my most endearing qualities.
Chapter Fourteen
Drake could see the fear and confusion in her eyes, a look she’d worn since she’d heard the truth, both Dretnor’s and his own. His dragon paced and railed inside his body, torn between lamenting his mate’s distress and a desire to tear apart the demon who’d thought to separate them.
When she’d fled after the fiasco, he’d searched her out backstage, but she’d already escaped. He’d flashed to her apartment and found it empty. Desperate to find her and explain himself, he’d gone to her father’s home in Hell next. Lo and behold, he’d found her, spitting mad. Probably not the right moment to tell her how sexy it made her.
Throwing her over his shoulder to take her back to his place seemed like a good idea at the time, but even with his excess strength, her wiggling body, not to mention well-aimed jabs at his kidneys, made him think he would have been better off tranquilizing her first.
Her violent assault was also punctuated by vile insults, some so original he made note of them for future use. A delicate shrinking violet she was not. Fuck, did he love her toughness.
With the use of a portal, he finally made it inside his place, a retrofitted cave in the bowels of a mountain situated within the Rockies. He liked his privacy. Setting her down, he moved back quickly as she whirled with flying fists.
“Rotten, scum-sucking bastard. I’m going to tear your intestines out and tie you up with them. I’m going to—”