4. If the shoe fits

(Vera)

"Wait? What the hell are you doing, Nova? I am trying to get the f*ck out of this place. Not hug the prince prickly. Stop rubbing his ass with your perverted tail," I said with a frown, but my dragon was busy wrapping her perky tail around the handsome-looking prince, a look of pure delight in her traitorous eyes, and the prince looked quite besotted as he tenderly traced her scaly head with his hand. She purred. Nobody in their right mind would call this kitty-fucking-cat a dragon.

"He was so damn angry with me, and he is petting you?” I frowned. I was kind of jealous of my own freaking dragon.

“Don’t be bratty, Vera. It is not becoming,” my dragon said with a huff before she finally unwrapped her tail from around him. He looked hesitant and I could see his beautiful green eyes looking at her with gentle adoration.

"About time. Now, let’s get the hell out of here before he calls the guards and really sends us to the dungeon,” I said with a frown. She huffed before she walked towards the window. For something so big, she was so agile and graceful. My dragon.

The window was small for her body, but she stealthily made her way out, flicked her tail once at the prince before she flew away. Thank the Sun God, Freyr, she finally did.

"You took your sweet time,” I huffed and she swooshed down, looking so damn enthusiastic. What was she so happy about? We just got caught, and I was sure the prince would keep himself sharp, looking for me, for the rest of the days of the dragon ball.

I should have been more careful. I was too arrogant to think that I could get away with this easily.

I shifted a few feet away from our place. The Ayerie Woods has been my home since I was fourteen.

I never enjoyed thinking about those days of my life before Ayerie Woods. It was only a few days, between home and Ayerie woods, but those days were bleak. 

It was like a black, overcast cloud, and sometimes, no matter how fast and far I ran, the stupid thing followed me relentlessly, but I never allowed it to catch up with me. I knew what would happen if it caught up with me, the misery. The walls I had carefully built, the masks I had carefully made... they would crash and burn and I was not ready for the aftermath.

I loved it this way. I liked myself the way I am now.

I didn’t like to think about the time I wasn’t like this girl. I couldn’t think of the days I had spent curled up on the floor, fourteen, starving, with a father who looked like he was just barely alive and a brother who sobbed himself to sleep. When my father flew away... I didn’t know whether I was happy or sad. Maybe both.

Things happened, and it changed me, for f*cking better. I was not the same wailing, broken little girl anymore. I had grown strong. I had also found how to be resilient.

"And you are amazing,” Nova said with a soft sigh, and I mentally hugged her. This was why, no matter how much we fought... we were a team. Always had been.

“You are back,” Faye said as she walked towards me. “How did it go? Did you catch our fish?”

“No, a shark caught me,” I said with a frown, and I tried to stop myself from showing her that that particular shark had affected me in a way no one else had, but it showed. It showed, because I felt hot all over just thinking about the damn prince.

I knew she had seen it too, when her eyes widened.

“The prince. He remembers you,” she said with a gleeful shout, her eyes shining, and I pressed a finger against her lips, cutting her squeal off.

“Bìtch, keep quiet. I don’t want you announcing it to the world,” I said with a frown. Her eyes gleamed as she looked like a little kid in a big ass candy shop.

“Of course, he does. I mean, you are unforgettable, you are unlike anything he has ever seen,” Faye said as she smiled at me.

I shook my head. By this point, I was wondering whether I should tell her what exactly had transpired in the palace.

Should I or should I not tell her about the prince being my mate?

"Why would you hide it? I want to roar it at the top of my lungs,” Nova said with a giddy smile. It was so unlike herself. She was usually pretty curt and blunt when it came to Ezra. But suddenly it was like she was bathed in a candy-colored shower of hearts and glitter, and me... I didn’t like it very much. It gave me hives.

"Because Ezra is not my mate. Mateo is,” Nova said without another thought. The bītch must be loopy from inhaling too much of Mateo’s musky, delicious scent. I licked my lips and my dragon snickered.

"I think you are too...”

“So what now?” Faye finally said, after the enthusiasm was drained. “I mean... the crown? What are we going to do? Should I go instead?”

“No, you are not going there...” I said. “I will find a way. I will always find a way.”

The prince was only distracted because I was his mate. If he caught Faye, he wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever he had to do. And stealing a royal crown was only a few steps down to treason.

“How are you going to do that? The man... he- he said he would only pay us if we do it before the coronation of the prince, and the coronation will be in what- after ten days from the dragon ball?”

She was right. My prince- shit, I mean, the prince would soon be the king of Draconiá, and me, I had to steal the fūcking crown before that, or all of our hopes and dreams would go down the drain.

I couldn’t do that to Lili and Hayden.

All their lives, they had only seen pain, and loss and suffering. I didn’t want them to face any more of that.

The boarding school in Zeyro cost a lot, and I needed to finish this job for that. This time, it wasn’t just for that kick, or the rush. This time, it was essential. Most of the time, it was just because it was fun and easy.

"Do you really want to steal from your own mate?” Nova looked at me with a frown.

“If I don’t steal, the man will send someone else. It is those rich people’s game. I just want my f*cking payout so I can get the little ones the hell out of this place.”

“Okay,” Faye looked confused, but I knew she would always trust me.

I was walking inside the tent with Faye when I heard raised voices.

“What the hell?” I said as I saw Owen and Ezra walking in with wild eyes.

“An intruder,” Owen said.

“Intruder?” I narrowed my eyes and

No one ever came this deep into the woods. That was exactly the reason why the cottage was here. I knew every bend and crook and hidden blindspot in Ayerie woods. This tent of ours, it was in one of the blindspots. Anyone who was just walking by wouldn’t exactly come across this.

“Yes. Thankfully, our trap worked. I left Lili and Hayden and Bianca to keep watch.”

“You left two kids to watch over a criminal?”

“Well, he didn’t exactly look like a criminal, though,” Owen said with a thoughtful frown.

Ezra turned to me and smiled at me as he walked closer to me and put his arm around my shoulder. I leaned in with a sigh. Nova was breathing fire, though.

“So how did it go in the palace?”

“We will talk about that mess later. Now we have another one to deal with,” I grumbled as I walked out with Ezra.

We went to the old Leurier tree, full of red leaves. It had been our marking spot for years now.

And from the tree, a freaking prince hung upside down, looking so comfortable, talking and laughing with Hayden and Lili as if he wasn’t hanging upside down.

“Can we bring him down and take him home with us? He is so handsome,” Lili said with a bright smile when she saw me. I shook my head with a frown as I glared at the f*cking prince.

How the hell did he find me and what the hell was he doing getting caught in a trap?

He must be more resourceful than I thought for a freaking prince.

His head snapped towards me, and his eyes narrowed when he saw Ezra’s arm around me. His lips pressed together.

“Can you people let me down?” he grumbled as he glared at me.

"Help him...” Nova... ugh.

“What the f*ck are you doing here?” I snapped as I squirmed away from Ezra, who stared at me and the prince with a confused look on his face.

“Ah,” he trailed off, as I grabbed Ezra’s dagger and sent it whizzing through the rope. The prince fell down, face first into the mud, with a thud. He stood up with a curse, his face streaked with mud, and his pristine clothes were now dirty.

“You are dirty,” Lili giggled, an amused glint in her eyes and the prince shook his head with a smile.

“I am a dirty, dirty dragon.” I knew he was just doing it to make Lili laugh and there was absolutely no hidden meaning in it, but why did my dirty mind conjure up images of the prince covered in mud and nothing else?

I licked my lips and his eyes found mine for a split second, and the look in them... it could burn down a whole forest.

Little Lili smiled and clapped, and she looked just as besotted with the prince as my dragon.

He chuckled and I could see how easygoing he was with Lili. He poked her nose, leaving a dot of mud on her nose.

“So... you...” I marched towards him and stopped in front of the dirty prince. His emerald eyes glistened as he looked at me, and I felt my breath stuck. This mate bond was becoming bothersome. “Why the f*ck did you follow me here?”

The whole place was quiet and I could hear my friends and my boyfriend breathing in the background. And sharpening their ears. Metaphorically speaking.

I turned to them. “Can I have a moment, please? With him? Alone?”

They all looked confused, but they walked away.

“So you are the boss here,” he said with a lazy look on his face. I didn’t know... how he looked equally as commanding as he did in the palace, covered in mud “You have quite a set up here, thief.”

“Again, what the f*ck are you doing here?”

He pointed to the shoes on the ground. My shoes. “You left your shoes in my home. I thought I should bring it to you and find out if the shoe fits the thief!”

“Well, what if it fits? What are you going to do then?”

Why was the air filled with electricity? Why did my throat feel like it was filled with hot sand? Why did I feel like I was standing inside a f*cking brick oven?

“I am going to take her up on the offer,” he said, his voice hoarse and dark and delicious, and I shuddered. What the f*ck was he doing?

I didn’t like it when I realized the table had totally turned... he was playing me like a freaking piano and I was singing, alright.

“What is that?” I breathed out. My heart danced in my chest and my intestines wanted to climb out of my throat. The prince’s eyes turned absurdly dark.

“Send her to the dungeon, tie her hands to the ceiling with a silk tie, maybe, or I think she prefers handcuffs...”

My breathing turned hot and heavy and he looked totally calm. The bāstard was good. So damn good.

“Rip her clothes off from that sinful body...”

“And...”

“I will strip for her, too. It is only fair.”

“Yeah, you are a very fair man... And?”

“And she will beg me to touch her!” He looked at his palms, and they were so freaking strong and oh... I moaned.

“And?”

“I can’t. I won’t touch her. I have to punish her for being a naughty, naughty vixen.”

F*ck? Would it be absolutely wrong if I pushed the stupid, dirty prince to the ground and rode him right out in the open, until this

f*cking feeling inside me would go away?

"You think it will go away?!”

That was my overly helpful dragon!!!

"Nobody asked you.”

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