She didn’t know where to begin. The question wasn’t what was wrong. It was what was right. “You were supposed to be in the village to welcome me home. Why weren’t you there?”
He’d laughed derisively. “Really didn’t want to see the lot of you returning home with the bloody hides and scales of my brethren dripping from the backs of your horses as you dragged them through the village. Damn sure didn’t want to celebrate your sneaky victories and bloodshed.”
Sneaky? That had only made her fury grow. How dare he dismiss the danger in what they did! “I’m your mate!”
Heat had darkened his deceptively human cheeks. “And I’m yours! You just took one look at me in my real body, and screamed for an hour, and then went into shock at the sight of me. How would you have felt had I done that to you the first time I saw you naked?”
“It’s not the same!”
“Isn’t it? Or better yet, what if you’d come here to find human skulls and bones littering the floor and decorating the walls? Huh? How would you react to human fat burning as oil for my torches? Yet you left me alone in your village that’s held together with the remains of dracokyn. And that includes the tent where you sleep. Do you really think it’s escaped my notice that the posts of it are made from the bones and tusks of drakomai? Or that the candles that burn throughout the village are made from dragon fat? You think I don’t know that smell?”
Unwilling to cede the point since he was right, she didn’t bother to contradict him. Instead, she moved on to something he couldn’t argue with. “Your place is at my side!”
“Aye, at your side. Not beneath your feet to be trod upon. I am not an Amazon male who caters to your every whim and begs for a kind word from you. You do not own me. I am not your property! And I will not allow you to treat me as such!”
“And I will not allow you to embarrass me in front of my basilinna or my tribe. I’ve worked too hard to reach my position —”
“As a murderess?”
“Dragonslayer.”
“Nay.” He shook his head. “Sneaking into a lair while a dragon sleeps and cutting his throat isn’t noble. It’s murder. You don’t hunt. You tiptoe to slaughter.”
“And what do dragons do? You attack sleeping villages! Is that not murder?”
“No, we don’t. We don’t attack, ever. Katagaria are not drakomai. Do not insult me by mistaking my brethren for one of them. They are a different breed entirely. Made by an Arcadian king and a psychotic god who wanted to please him. Merged with Apollites by dark magick. ’Tis the bloodline of your kind that taints those poor bastards. Drakomai are not raised to attack unprovoked. We don’t hunt for any reason except to eat, and we don’t prey on man. That is not in our natures. So long as you stay out of our territory and dens, we leave you in peace.”
“You lie!”
He shook his head. “We are solitary beasts who only war when confronted.”
She’d gestured at the trunks of treasure that surrounded them. Gold and jewels that glimmered in the dim light. “And what of that? Are those not your war trophies?”
Sincere shock had marked his handsome features. “Hardly. I have no need of treasure or money. Those are things given over to me for my protection. I hold them in trust for their rightful owners.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Believe it or not, that’s up to you. It’s the truth. Everything I own, I placed in your tent.”
“And why weren’t you in my tent on my return?”
He’d stared at her in sullen defiance.
“Answer me!”
His eyes had snapped the same fire he could have easily breathed all over her. “You don’t take that tone with me. I don’t speak to you in such a manner and I demand from you the same respect I show my mate.”
Fury had simmered deep in her and she’d wanted to beat him for that. In Amazon culture, the men bowed down to their women and were, in truth, subservient to them. But she knew he didn’t come from that kind of environment. And she did her best to understand and respect it.
Yet it was difficult when it went against everything she knew.
“Fine, then. Please, explain to me why you humiliated me today.”
He’d snorted in shocked disbelief and repeated her words back at her. “Please explain how I humiliated you?”
“By not being there when I returned. You showed a total lack of regard for me and my standing in the tribe. And they all laughed at me because of it.”
His jaw had gone slack. “I didn’t know that.” His brow furrowed by earnest regret, he’d closed the distance between them and cupped her cheek in his warm palm. “If this is true, then I’m so sorry, Sera. I had no idea that was your custom. No one told me. I swear, I never meant to hurt you.”