Free Rendan (Scifi Alien Dragon Romance) (Dragons of Preor Book 4) by Celia Kyle, Erin Tate

recovery within six Earth hours.”
    “And Rendan?”
    The healing master tapped a few buttons on his screen. “Perhaps four Earth hours though he will be required to abstain from his duties for a full rising. Possibly two.”
    She stared down at her mate, unable to believe that he’d be up and around within four hours and would only need a day or two to rest and recover. The brain injury alone would require a human to undergo months of physical therapy to re-learn how to walk and talk.
    But Rendan would be fine in four hours.
    “Amazing,” she whispered and shook her head. Her hands trembled, shock finally setting in now that her mate was as healed as he could be. “And he’ll live? He will be better in four hours?”
    “On my honor as a healer,” Chashan pressed a fist to his chest—a Preor salute. “He will live and will rise from the ryaapir without assistance within four hours. He will be weakened and his muscles will need time to become comfortable with his healed bones. That is why he must take at least one dae of rest. But you will not lose your mate due to the Trials of Syh, Carla joi Rendan Butler. I swear it.”

8
    P erhaps it would have been better had he died during his trial with Argan. Then he would not be suffering through this unending torture.
    He would not be surrounded by Carla’s scent, the delicate flavors of her sweet skin or heated musk of her arousal. And she was aroused, his mate desiring him even as she skirted his gaze. A light flush of pink stained her cheeks, the color a stark contrast to her normally pale skin. The Knowing fought to feed him knowledge of humans, the tie sluggish and weak. But it was enough to tell Rendan that his mate was embarrassed.
    Why?
    He did not know because she would hardly speak more than five words to him. No, four. “Do you need anything?” In her husky murmur. Did she not realize what her voice did to him? How her mere presence scraped at his control?
    He had woken with her leaning over him, her touch delicate as she wiped his brow with a damp cloth. When she pulled it from his head, he noted its red staining and realized she tended him. She cleaned him as a dam would care for a dragonlet…
    It’d made him harsh, that connection between his mate and thoughts of offspring. It’d rekindled their argument when he’d stomped off in a huff. Those were Grace’s words when she learned of his actions.
    That’d also been before his trial with Argan.
    Now he’d spent nearly one full rising in her company and he had another to go. How could he survive? He’d barely lived through the previous day with his sanity intact.
    He had been fine while unconscious, but once they returned to Preor Tower, he had been placed in his apartment while Carla went to hers. Then… She opened the doors that separated their suites. The air in their rooms mixed and mingled, bringing him her scent and teasing him with what he could not have. He had spent the evening that way, mind whirling while he imagined Carla at his side, astride him, beneath him.
    The early hours had not been much better, her luscious form striding into his apartment. She had not appeared to have suffered as he had during the night—his body yearning to be inside her—but her scent at least told Rendan she was not unaffected. He needed her to crave him as much as he craved her.
    It was not a task that could be completed within the walls of Preor Tower, with the door between them that could close as easily as it stayed open. He needed to get her someplace she could not run and hide. Where neither of them could depart. His possessive instincts and need to protect her would not allow him to “stomp off in a huff.”
    Rendan was the third fleet’s offense master. He would not be thwarted by a female—his mate. He would use his skills learned over two-hundred thirty-one years and defeat Carla before she realized she was under siege. It would not be the forceful demands that many others attempted. No, he