“Don’t you need those sticks for fried mozzarella?” She searched the fridge for cheese sticks.
“The ones we had at the food truck rally weren’t sticks,” Van pointed out. “I want to learn how to make fried mozzarella like that so I can show Dante that good food exists.”
She laughed. She shouldn’t have, but she let out a bellowing laugh.
“The man burns everything like taste doesn’t matter. I can’t say I know how to cook, but I do like it when my food tastes like something other than char.” Van winked in her direction as he poured vegetable oil into the electric skillet.
They spent the rest of the morning with their fingers covered in egg batter and breadcrumbs. Their laughter filled the air when they flicked it at each other. Carol tried to touch Van’s face with her batter and breadcrumb covered fingers. He reared away from her and nearly knocked the tub of egg batter onto the floor.
In the end, they had a wide plate of little fried balls. Some had broken, spilling their molten contents onto the paper towels they’d laid down. Others weren’t quite melted in the center.
“It seems we are not cooks.”
She popped one into her mouth. It was too hot, and she had to roll it over her tongue while blowing around it. “Look, I’m a dragon.”
Steam billowed into the air.
Van shook his head. “I forgot to tell Dante about the dragon.”
“How do you forget about a dragon?”
Van turned to her and his gaze dropped to her neck, where his bite was hidden by her t-shirt. Her cheeks heated, blazing like she’d been standing over the fryer oil. Without words, he’d told her that she was enough to wipe his mind, to erase all thoughts of dragons and danger.
Carol had no words to offer. She didn’t feel deserving of the notion. The only time she had any semblance of control was when she was with Van, and even then, it could be stolen. The scent of chemicals or the flicker of a shadow, and her beast was slamming against her to be free.
That wasn’t the kind of person he should have any feelings for.
Van stepped closer. He looked down at her with a hunger he should have reserved for the food they made. She didn’t feel like it was hers, like she’d earned it. Yet, her head fell back, and a hunger tightened her throat. She couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe.
His hand hovered in the air over her neck, over the bite. He parted his lips and looked like he was about to say something when the building shook. Immediately, he grabbed her and pulled her into his body.
She clung to his shirt. The beast in her swelled with panic. A thundering sound boomed beneath them, a voice that shook every rafter.
Carol tried to ask what was happening, but another roar swallowed her voice. Van gripped her tighter. He didn’t seem to want to go downstairs, but as they waited, they heard no sign of Dante’s voice. Which meant that as second in command, Van would have to be the one to tend to the situation.
Chapter Nine
Carol clung to him. He didn’t want to leave her side. Her safety meant more to him than anything else, and the way she trembled made him hold her a little longer. He knew duty called, that he couldn’t let the intruder below trash the bar, but he was torn.
Eventually, she pushed herself away from his chest. He wanted to pull her back, but she looked up at him as if to say it was time to go downstairs. She kept one hand fisted in the front of his shirt, but there was a look of conviction on her face that he couldn’t waste.
If she felt strong enough to stand by him as he did his job, he would let her. Van wanted to deny her nothing. He had a creeping feeling that whatever waited them downstairs had to do with their hike in the woods.
Sure enough, a massive man stood in the center of the bar. He growled at all who dared step near him. A bronze beard covered his jaw and brown hair was tied back with a leather strip. His eyes blazed with the heat of dragon flames.
Van sincerely hoped dragon shifters could not spew flames. He knew nothing about them but held onto that small hope.
Where was Dante? Van didn’t want to take a dragon shifter on his own. He didn’t know if he could come out victorious. He didn’t even think a tiger and a lion could take on a dragon. If the massive man was pissed off, it would take the entire pack to bring him down.
That was a battle Van wanted to avoid. Especially with his quaking mate clinging to his arm. She shouldn’t be here. He nearly told her to run, but the words caught in his throat. Her chin was still held high. He didn’t know how long her courage would last, but he was glad to see it.
***
“If any of your shifters step on my territory again, I will kill them.” The dragon shifter bared his teeth. They were sharp with his intent, like a shark who smelled blood on the water. His eyes dragged over the growing crowd.
His nose twitched when his gaze hit Carol and Van. He flung his finger out to point at them.
Carol’s wolf thrashed. It was pinned by the dragon, by Carol’s inability to react. She tried to quiet the beast and tell it that now was not the time to run, but it wouldn’t listen to her. It wanted to flee. It wanted to find somewhere far away from the man who could turn into the great lizard they’d witnessed the other day.
“You were the fools on my territory. I recognize your scent.”
The crowd parted and Dante stepped forward. He measured the dragon shifter with his gaze. Everything about Dante’s stance said that he was unimpressed.
Carol didn’t like the disrespect. The beast whispered that the dragon would force Dante to bend the knee. The dragon would put on a show if it’s vast power and they would all suffer. Carol wouldn’t have to suffer if only she would run.
The bar could burn to the ground, for all her beast cared. She needed to survive.
But Carol didn’t move. She clung to Van’s sleeve like it would anchor her to the spot, keep her present for the moment. The beast could thrash, but as long as she held onto Van, she could maintain control of her body.
When the dragon stalked toward them, she still kept a firm hold on her control. The beast in her cowered before the man, but Carol remembered a bit of who she used to be. She was a tall woman and could nearly look him in the eye without tilting her head. In the past, her height had given her advantage against the intimidation tactics of men.
This dragon was just another raging man who thought the world belonged to him.
“We were on a hiking trail,” she blurted, surprising herself. Even more alarming, she continued. “If you don’t want people near your territory, don’t set it up on the edge of a public hiking trail.”
He pulled his lips back from his teeth. Van stepped in front of her. Her beast thought she’d finally lost her mind. Instead, she’d found a sliver of herself. Which meant she could reclaim more of who she’d once been. All she needed to do was re-forge it. She couldn’t reclaim the pieces that had been broken by the doctors, but she could remake herself.
So long as her beast allowed it.
The dragon shifter snarled again. She flinched, a reaction she couldn’t help. The dragon shifter didn’t know she’d been in captivity for months, that human doctors had cut her open to see how long it took for her to heal. At least, if it came to a fight here, the dragon shifter would probably kill her long before she felt an inkling of pain.
“Stop posturing,” she commanded. “You want to be left alone. We get it.”
Van interjected at this time. “We will keep our shifters away from that segment of the trail and the waterfall nearby. If I have one of our pack produce a map, you could draw the boundaries of your territory on it for us. That way we will never mistakenly enter your space again.”
“Or,” Dante said, “we could negotiate boundaries so that there is no overlap.”
Everyone heard the threat in Dante’s voice. Dante must have suspected the dragon’s territory stole land from his pack, because the alpha watched the dragon shifter with suspicion. The dragon shifter snarled at Dante’s words and took a few lumbe
ring steps toward the alpha. If Dante didn’t take back his words, the dragon shifter would start a fight for sure.
Van and Carol had tempered the situation, but Dante was an alpha. He wasn’t going to let anyone walk over his pack. Which meant that a fight was inevitable.
Her beast fought to be free. It wrenched itself from her grasp and began tearing at the walls she’d put into place. Down, they came crashing. One after another. The pain of her beast’s panicked thrashing blossomed in her chest like a bonfire.
She couldn’t escape it. No matter how she tried to breathe, how she tried to wrestle her beast into submission, nothing abated the pain growing inside her. The only option left was to shift.
Control had been within her power only a moment ago, but she could barely think through the pain. Her grip on Van tightened. She thought she would keel over, that her beast would rip its way out of her while the dragon shifter looked on with disdain.
Carol could only do one thing. She bolted for the door. The fresh air outside did little to appease her rioting beast. There was a dragon shifter who would raze the bar to the ground. Her beast finally ripped out of her.
Her human thoughts became background noise. The beast reigned, and it wanted to run. Its padded feet slapped the earth as it carried itself far, far away from the fight that would happen behind her.
***
Van wanted to roar. He was about to turn and run after his mate when Dante motioned for Van to find a map. Van nearly blew up on his alpha. It would have ended in a horrendous meltdown, so he swallowed the sound and felt it become a burning fire in his gut.
He slapped the map of the area down onto the bar and kept his fists clenched to avoid giving his alpha the middle finger. Van needed to go find Carol and make sure she was alright, but Dante demanded obedience. Even from his second in command. Especially when an enemy shifter was nearby.
The dragon might not be an enemy yet, but Dante was quickly pushing the dragon’s limits. Van understood Dante’s show of power and aggression, but it grated on Van’s already spent nerves.
The two argued over boundaries for hours. Van stood nearby and pointed out areas where new boundaries could be drawn, places the pack wouldn’t miss, areas the dragon could easily guard. Van offered his services while his mind was on Carol.
When it was all said and done, Van lurched out the front door and ran up the stairwell. He should have known Carol would not be home. He had not heard her movement above while the others argued. Carol was nowhere to be found, likely running off her anxious energy.
Before he could go in search of her, a figure slid out of a nearby car. Van wasn’t bothered. It was dark, but people drank at night. This was a bar. It was only when the figure rounded the side of the bar toward Carol’s door that alarms went off in Van’s mind.
He sank low to the ground and crept along behind the figure. The man disappeared into the stairwell, climbing toward Carol’s apartment. Van’s nose wrinkled, a growl vibrating his chest. He moved to leap after the man but paused when he heard the stairs creak.
The figure reappeared. The man had his hands on his hips. He looked around, almost bewildered. Van kept low to the ground to see what the man would do next. A phone screen illuminated the night, nearly too bright to look at in the darkness. Van had to look away, his eyes searing.
When he turned back, the figure was gone. He cursed himself. Leaping from his hiding place, he tried to scent the air. Yet, the only smell was Carol’s. That wasn’t right. It was impossible. He should have bene able to smell the man who’d been standing there only a moment ago. There had been no time for the smell to disappear.
He looked around, eyes sharpening in the dark. No movement caught his attention. He rounded the bar several times. As the night moved on, more people arrived at the bar. Shifters hesitated at the door, overwhelmed by the confusing scent of the dragon. Then they went inside, bellowing questions about what happened while they were gone. The human patrons entered headfirst, unaware of the scents around them and the danger they would have been in an hour earlier.
Still, there was no sign of the figure who’d attempted to break into Carol’s apartment. Surely, this was why her senses were always on alert. This stalker was someone she knew about, someone she feared.
Van wasn’t about to let her spend the night alone, but he knew she wouldn’t invite him inside. Not for the night. So, he shifted and crouched in the too tall grass outside the stairwell door.
When Carol’s feminine form returned, walking slowly as though she’d expended all her energy, she paused at the door. She sniffed the air but didn’t see him in the grass. Her eyes swept right over him. A part of him was sad that she could not find him, but he knew it was for the best. If she found him, she would probably have sent him away.
So, he settled down for a long watch.
***
Van never visited her that night. She wanted to see him and apologize for running out on the meeting with the dragon shifter, but she was too afraid to show her face downstairs. She’d held onto the idea that Van would appear at her door like he had so many other times.
Yet, he never showed.
She feared that she had finally pushed him away. There was no going back and reclaiming what could have been because he had finally seen that she was irredeemable. Her control only lasted for small bursts, to be followed by uncontrollable panic.
He was probably telling Dante that she would never make a good shifter. Despite everything she’d gone through and how she had technically survived, Carol turned her face into her pillow and cried. The torrent of tears wasn’t enough to wash away her fear and shame.
All she wanted was to be the kind of person she’d been before the change. It felt so far away. Now that Van had turned away from her, she knew she would never get it back. He’d been the only person to show her any kind of hope. Around him, she’d had a chance.
He’d been what she needed, but he was gone now.
Leave it to her to ruin the one good thing she had going for herself. It was one of those cases where she never realized what they had until it was gone. She wanted to reach out and grasp for it, pull it close and pray it wasn’t over, but she wouldn’t lie to herself.
She was a mess of a shifter. Van had no time for her. He was the second in command, Dante’s faithful servant. As such, he would have to tell Dante that she couldn’t control herself. There was no more time for her to fumble her way through the world. It was over.
Maybe, in the morning, Dante would come and lead her away.
At least she wouldn’t have to look over her shoulder anymore. She wouldn’t have to fear the buyer.
The whimper in her throat wanted to become a roar. She wasn’t ready to roll over and accept the fate Dante wanted to give her. She wanted to fight for her life and the possible happiness she could have had.
But in the morning, instead of Dante on her doorstep, she found Van. He was curled up in a patch of grass outside the door. She had dressed for a run and hesitated upon finding Van. Absolutely naked, she should add. Bemused and a little curious, she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the door frame to watch him. He snored softly. His pale limbs were folded, hugged tight to his body. She studied the lines of his muscles and felt no small amount of awe that a man could have so many.
Once it became clear he wasn’t going to wake any time soon, she resumed her run. The hum of her muscles and burn of her lungs was invigorating. Her beast wept with joy, and by the time she returned to her apartment, the beast was fast asleep. As was Van.
Still.
How long had he been there, outside her door? Had he posted watch all night? And, if so, who was it that he was looking out for?
The back of her neck prickled, but she blamed it on sweat and rushed upstairs to shower. She rushed through the process while fresh coffee brewed. When she descended the stairs with two mugs of coffee, she realized she shouldn’t have, for Van was still asleep.
She sank to the bottom st
ep of the stairwell and sipped her coffee. The black bitterness awakened her senses. She let out a slow breath and felt the chill morning air caress the dampness between her shoulder blades, a spot she’d missed when towel drying.
Finally, the lion shifter roused.
“I made coffee for you,” she announced so he wouldn’t startle when he sensed her presence.
Like an attention-grabbing cat, Van stretched. He rolled onto his back and flexed his long limbs, exposing his groin. Her cheeks flared with heat, but she didn’t look away. Only when she felt his gaze roll to her did she turn her focus on the coffee in her hands.
Van was large. Her mouth went dry just thinking about the length he hid between his legs. She tried to quench it with coffee, but the liquid couldn’t erase her shock and awe. She meant to ask him why he was outside her door, but her mind was filled with the glorious vision he made before her.
“Are you doing anything today?” Van asked out of the blue.
She looked up and immediately regretted it. He was standing, his hands on his hips and his cock on display.
Right. In. Front. Of. Her. Face.
His question slithered in one ear and right out the other as her attention fixed on his proudly presented cock. He laughed and it danced. She knew she should look away. Look away. But she couldn’t stop herself.
“Maybe we would be able to have a proper conversation if I put on some clothes,” Van said with laughter in his voice. And pride. There was no missing the pride. “I didn’t realize I was such an Adonis.”
She snorted, finally coming back to herself once he’d turned away from her. “You think too highly of yourself! If you were an Adonis, you’d have more than a mutt staring.”
She thought he would argue with her self-deprecating humor, but he spun around, cock wagging. Her cheeks burned hot again and her mind blanked. This time, she noticed the black tattoo that graced the right side of his chest.
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