I Married A Dragon (Prime Mating Agency)(55)

Despite his obvious love of cuddles, Nero couldn’t have been more different than Cedros. Instead of the gentle scraping of scales against my skin, rubbing against Nero felt like hugging a cloud or a very soft foam pillow. He gave me those zapping ‘kisses’ with the electric tips of his tentacles before slinking all over my desk.

The next forty-five minutes proved mostly unproductive. Nero might not be a cat, but he sure shared some of their most obnoxiously entitled traits. As I tried to work, he would park his beach ball-sized self either right on top of my keyboard, or smack in front of my monitor, blocking my view. Whenever he would feel playful or restless, he would settle on top of my head or on my shoulder and flick one or more of his tentacles at my face, like a cat would its tail. Thankfully, he weighed next to nothing. Naturally, he tried to tickle me countless times in between.

I couldn’t even be mad about it. You couldn’t hate on someone freely giving you their affection. He was growing on me, tentacles and all.





Chapter 15





Cedros





Over the next three days, I took Kaida to visit the various locations on Dramnac where the incidents had occurred. Because of my work, I could only devote a few hours a day to this endeavor. But today was my day off, and I had planned a few things for my Ejaya.

I no longer wanted to call her that. Keeping myself from calling her my mate was almost torture. I constantly had to remind myself not to. It had slipped from my lips a few times, and Kaida hadn’t seemed to mind. Was the idea growing on her, or was she merely pretending not to hear to avoid having to deal with it?

I wanted to keep her. I needed to keep her. This no longer was merely a Shadow Lord depending on his Ejaya. I loved her. I was madly in love with her. Coupling with her had only confirmed and strengthened what I had been feeling. Kaida had feared such a response from me, if we went all the way. But this didn’t compare to other Shadow Lords and their Ejayas.

Many who got married loved each other but weren’t in love, like Rovain and Trinit. They were happy couples, but the Shadow Lord wouldn’t have been crushed had his Ejaya found a different mate. Kaida was my soulmate. Of that, I had no doubt. There couldn’t be another male for her, and especially not another female for me. The mere thought of coupling with anyone else for breeding purposes made me nauseous.

If Kaida left me for another, I would be the first Shadow Lord to defy the custom of reproducing with random females at the age of fifty.

But that will not be necessary.

Kaida was mine, and I was hers. By the way she responded to me—both when we coupled and during our normal interactions—I could see that she was falling in love with me. Kayog had said we were a perfect match. I wouldn’t worry about it and let nature follow its course. This was destiny.

Which didn’t mean I couldn’t give fate a nudge in the right direction.

Holding my Kaida by the hand, I led her past my Shadow Lord brother Elros, who was on duty today at the shadow obsidian mine. He nodded at us in greeting and winked at Kaida. She gave him a friendly, almost affectionate smile as I led her inside.

I loved that my Ejaya was establishing instant chemistry with my brothers. Shadow Lords and their Ejayas formed one big family. They were the siblings and relatives we’d been deprived of growing up. I had worried that her being an off-worlder would have made it harder to form a connection with us, considering how much our mentalities differed on so many things.

But my Kaida was perfect.

“Whoa!” Kaida exclaimed, as she took in the giant cave. “This feels like we just walked inside a giant obsidian geode!”

“That’s an accurate comparison, if geodes had many hallways and nooks to get lost in, as well as shadows slithering over their minerals,” I said teasingly.

She scrunched her face, looking at the deep drop over the edge where we stood. “Looks like I should have brought my jetpack. You never let me play with it.”

I chuckled. “There will be time for it,” I promised. Leaning down, I pressed my lips to her ear. “After all, we haven’t coupled in flight yet.” I burst out laughing when she gasped right on cue. Not giving her a chance to chastise me for my boldness, I picked her up like a bride. “Come, my Ejaya. Let’s give you a closer look.”

I flew us around the cave filled with various people extremely focused on their mining task. Every minute, every second was precious if they wanted to mine as much obsidian as possible before their time was up. I remained at a respectable distance from them to avoid unwelcome distractions.

“That’s one impressive stalactite,” Kaida said, as I circled around a massive chunk of mineral dangling from the ceiling like a giant icicle.

“Indeed. It is a major headache that the Council is trying to solve,” I explained. “Poor planning caused it, with people chipping away at the obsidian wherever they thought they’d have better success. The faces of this stalactite are too mangled. You’d have to shave a lot of it off before you could get to the smooth surfaces needed to carve a proper shadow obsidian stone.”

“Oh! And because people have a limited amount of time here, they don’t want to waste it on smoothing it out for the next person,” she said, her eyes widening with understanding.

“Exactly. But also, the ground all around and below it has been carved away. You would need to fly to work on it, which would make your movements too unstable, thus damaging the stone.”