“You still hurt my heart with what you were doing. I knew that you were seeing someone about what we were doing. But it only just occurred to me what else you might be doing since you seemed to have no problem talking to others behind my back.” He said that he’d never betray her. “But you have. Haven’t you? You have been telling me stories about how you were finding things out when you were going to someone else to get the answers. I suppose that he’s been paying our way since I woke.”
“He has.” She stomped her way around the room, madder now than she was before she began this talk with him. “My lady. I never meant to hurt you about this. It was only my intention to make sure that you were safe.”
“I don’t feel safe now.” She was hurting him, she knew, but he’d been doing things behind her back and taking the credit for what another person came up with. “I feel as if I shouldn’t have trusted you, Dak. How should that make me feel when you’ve lied to me from the beginning?”
“I’ve no answers, my lady.” She stopped pacing and turned to look at him. “I will do whatever you wish to make this right to you. Whatever it is. Even if you were to tell me that you no longer wish for me to serve you. I don’t want that, ever, but I can understand if you were to wish it to be so.”
“I only wanted to ask you about this man, and now I’m finding out that not only has he known about me since I woke, but he has been keeping an eye on me since I was hurt in war. You could not have found a time to have told me before? Why did I have to confront you on this now?” He said that Lord Connor wanted to meet her. “So that he might extract payment from me? I have nothing to offer him but myself. I don’t even have my first true job, because you have gone behind my back and had him open doors for me to get it.”
“You got it on your own merit.” She snorted at Dak. “I promise you, my lady. Neither of us made him give you the job. You did that on your own with your own hard work.”
“I don’t know what to believe.” She didn’t either. This was much worse than she had thought it would be. Aisling had only wanted to know what dragon he was seeing, but now it turned out that he had been caring for her for a while, a long while, and she had no other choice but to throw herself at his mercy and ask him not to take more than she had as payment. “He will make sure that I am a slave to him forever. You are aware of this, are you not?”
“I don’t think he will. My lady, Lord Connor, is a good man. He is happy to help you.” She didn’t say anything else to him. Her heart really did hurt for him not telling her when she’d first woken up. “He has asked to speak to you this night. We are going to try out the restaurant that is just near here. I have arranged it so that he can tell you all that you need to know.”
“And what is it that he feels I need to know? That I have been sold to someone of his acquaintance? That I will be butchered into pieces so that witches and others can have some of my magic? I don’t know this man. And to be honest with you, Dak, I feel as if I don’t know you either.” He nodded and sat down on the table that he’d been hovering over. “I don’t know what to do about us. I will have to talk to this dragon and find out what he wishes of me. To me, it feels as if you have sold me to someone else. You will stay with me, please. However, if you have plans to go to meet up with this dragon again, I will quit you. I wish for you to tell me when you are to leave to talk to him about me.”
“I will stay with you until you find another that you can trust.” She didn’t tell him that wasn’t what she wanted. But right now, she was hurting too—hurting about all the things he’d kept from her. “You will come to know that I never meant you any harm, my lady. I meant only to keep you safe, as did Lord Connor. You are only that because he has made it so. The job and the things that you are thinking of now are only on you. He would never sell you off. Lord Connor wouldn’t do anything like that to you or to any other female such as yourself. This, I will stake my life on.”
“I just hope that you have not staked my life on what you believe to be true. All I wanted, Dak, was for you to be honest with me. To not lie to me about what was going on. But not only did you know that I was being protected by another dragon, but you also helped him to keep me. To have me indebted to him. You know as well as I that I had only just been able to break the bonds that my mother had put me in. It nearly cost me my life. Now I find out that you have perhaps done the same to me. Put me in a position that I know nothing about, nor can I do anything about it.”
“I understand, my lady. And I am deeply sorry for the trouble I might well have caused you. And for the trust you no longer have for me.” He fluttered over the table for a moment before he spoke again. “I shall meet you at the restaurant at six. Lord Connor will join you at half-past six with his mate. I will only join them if you were to call for me. I have, as you have pointed out, harmed you by not telling you all the truth.”
“Is there anything else I should know about? Something else that you’re not telling me?” He asked her what she meant. “A mate? Have you and this dragon conspired to give me to a male as his bedmate? It is something that I would like to know now.”
“No, my lady. I have never conversed with him about such a thing for you. However, I will say that anyone that takes you as a mate will be able to count himself lucky to have a female such as yourself.” She had nothing to say to him about that. “I shall go to him now to tell him that you are willing to meet him at the place you are working tonight.”
After he left, she sat down in the chair she’d been sitting in while waiting for him to return. Her heart was broken. Not just for the things that he’d done to her, but also the things that had come between them. It had not been her intention to break them apart. But she’d not known of half the things he’d confessed to her.
Aisling looked at the things she’d gotten when she’d started running her articles about places to eat. The newspaper people had sent her a lovely letter with her first check, telling her that people were excited about her next place. He was also pleased that she was moving around the country and telling people about places that weren’t chain places—something that she’d had to look up—but little mom and pop places—another term she’d had to research the meaning for—and giving her reviews about their places.
Since she’d noticed after the first week that Dak was seeing another dragon, she had been keeping records of what she would owe someone. It was costing her more than she had made on her first check. Much, much more.
“Mayhap I shouldn’t have been so hard on him.” She had been very hard on her only friend, and it hurt her that she’d been so. “But he should have allowed me to know of what was going on behind my back. For him to have known so much and not told me scared me more than I could have thought.”
Aisling could also feel dangers coming her way. Her mother for one; another was a being that she wasn’t known to. What they were up to, she didn’t know, but the second creature wasn’t going to fare well if he tried anything on her. She could show no compassion for anything right now.
Chapter 2
Connor didn’t know what to expect when Dak came to see him. The little creature sobbing nonstop for over an hour had him wanting to smack the thing, but he held his temper until Dak was finished. It wasn’t him that had Dak stopping, but Roxanna. She told him to shut the hell up and tell them what had him so upset or just to go home. Dak, apparently afraid of Connor’s mate, sat up and started talking.
“She said that she will quit me for what I have done to her. She is afeard that you will sell her off to the first dragon that comes along. If you don’t use her for yourself.” Connor was glad now that he’d explained to Roxanna what was going on with the white dragon, or she might well have been upset by the terms the faerie was using. “I have done all that you asked, my lord. I told her of the meeting this night. I have told her too that you meant her no harm. But she no more believes me than anything right now. She feels as if I have betrayed
her.”
“You have, you fucking moron.” Connor started to tell Roxanna that he’d been in on it too when she turned to him. “You as well. What the fuck were you thinking to have kept all this information from that poor woman? If she doesn’t end up killing you both, I certainly will do something to the two of you. What the fuck were you thinking? I know, you weren’t. That poor woman has had a lot of shit done to her, and you two come along and figure that you can make her life better by not telling her the shit that you have planned for her. The next thing you’ll tell me is that Devon isn’t aware of her.”
“He’s not.” Roxanna growled at him, and Connor felt his dragon curl up around him in fear. “We really had her best interests at heart.”
“No, you didn’t. You thought because you were a male and she was just this poor little white dragon, who might not have the sense to get in out of the rain, that she would need you. Didn’t you tell me that she was a warrior dragon? That she fought in wars alongside humans to keep them safe?” Connor nodded and couldn’t help thinking how much he loved this woman. He loved it when Roxanna got all pissy with him. “You wipe that smile off your face right now, or so help me I will take it from you permanently. You disrespected this woman from the start. Had I known what you were doing, the two of you, I would have gone to get her and tell her what morons the two of you are. No, not morons. You’re fucking stupid morons. I should...you know what? I want to strangle you both. You will tell Devon about this. And you’ll do it now. Christ love a turnip. You two in charge of keeping someone safe makes me fearful of my child being here. To think—what the hell are you still standing here for? Go tell Devon what the two of you idiots have been up to.”
He was laughing hard when he left the house. Yes, he had fucked up. And he had treated Aisling in a way less than she should have been treated. But now that his mate was involved in this, he was sure that things would start to go in the right direction for all of them. He could only hope that the white dragon knew what sort of help she had in the way of Roxanna. This was, he knew, going to be epic.
~*~
Aisling didn’t care if anyone showed up for dinner with her. But she did miss Dak. Thinking about what she’d said to him, not only did she feel bad about it, but she missed her only friend. Calling him to her, Aisling wasn’t the least bit surprised to find him lying in front of her, and both of them sobbing about how sorry they were.
“I did you wrong, my lady. I will never do that again.” She told him that he’d hurt her. “I did. And I’m sorry. I should have told you what it was that I was talking about with the other dragon. I should have told you from the first that I saw him when he found us. I am so sorry.”
“I am as well. Just don’t treat me like I’m something that needs to be cared for, Dak. I’m not fragile. I am a warrior of old. I’ve been taking care of myself for more years than you and I have been together.” He said that he knew that too. “I have missed you. And being here, without you at my side to help me with this dinner, it didn’t seem right. But if I ever think that you’re lying to me again—”
“I will never think you need help again unless you ask me for it. I am ashamed of the way I treated you. Lady Roxanna, she pointed it out to her mate, Lord Connor, and I that we were indeed at the wrong in all this. She was most upset.” Aisling asked Dak how she’d gotten involved. “Lord Connor told her about what he’d been doing. I believe that she might well have harmed us both if not for the fact that she was his mate. Her temper, I think, is worse than yours.”
“Good.” She didn’t know what to think about someone else knowing how she’d been treated, but if she had taken her side, Aisling was all right with it. “You and I will work together in getting things back to the way they were. Provided that you don’t ever do that to me again. You have something to tell me; I expect you to say it. There will be no more going behind my back and talking about me to others.”
“Yes, my lady.” Nodding, she was surprised when three women sat at the table with her. She asked them if they were at the wrong table. “This is Lady Roxanna, my lady. I know not any of the others.”
“Good, you have Dak back with you. I have to tell you; I thought that I was going to have to murder them both, my mate and this one, when I found out how they treated you. I’m Roxanna. I’d like to introduce you to Kelly and Bryce.” Aisling told them that she was to meet with Connor tonight. “He’s in the dog house, so I thought that we’d make it a ladies’ night out and get to know you a little more. There will be more of us coming to have—”
“You said that there would only be two of you for dinner. I don’t have the room for you to be adding people to your table.” None of the others said a word when the waiter came back to her table. He’d been there once before to bring her water, but he’d not said a word to her. “I suppose that you’ll all have to crowd around this table.”
When he walked away, Aisling looked at the other women. Roxanna looked at her before speaking.
“Well, that was fucking rude. What’s up his ass?” Aisling told her that she had no idea. “We’ll just find us a place to sit on our own then. Are you working here tonight?”
“I think so if you mean rating this place.” Roxanna nodded. “Then, yes. I wanted to come in and try the onion rings they have. I’ve heard they were very good. But I have no idea why he’d speak to us like that.”
“I hope you’re taking notes.” She said that she was. “If you don’t mind, there will be more of us joining us tonight. So we’ll just find us a nice sized table to sit at. If he has a problem with it, then we’ll have Bryce turn him into a frog and have us some legs for dinner.”
They sat around one of the round tables. It wasn’t as if the place was busy. They were the only table that was seated in this part of the restaurant. Even with that, there was only one more table being used, and they had their check already. Sitting at the table, she saw the waiter, his name was Charles, coming back toward them.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Bryce told him they were seating themselves. “That is not the way things work. If you think this is one of those fast food establishments, then you are sorely wrong. This is a five-star restaurant that only caters to the very wealthy and sophisticated. You will not be moving around like you own the place. Get back over there and be seated.”
When he left them again, his nose in the air, she looked around the table. Getting up, they moved to the first table, and Aisling had to laugh. The table was larger than it had been before, and there was a pitcher of iced water as well as a plate of cheese, crackers, and vegetables.
“I thought that if we asked him for these, they’d be spit in. If we were even allowed to order them.” Aisling was having fun. Dak looked confused but kept his mouth shut. When the other women joined them, the table simply enlarged to accommodate them. This was going to make Charles’s head explode. Bryce was ready for him when he returned. “You say one word, and I will not be responsible for what I do to you. You will behave yourself and take our orders, or so help me, you’ll regret it.”
“You are not getting the best of service this night.” Bryce told him that they’d not had it so far, so she didn’t think they’d miss it. “I’m going to call the police and have you all escorted out of here. This is not how we run this establishment.”
“Well, I should fucking hope not.” It was the first time in a long time that Aisling had stood up for something she believed in. “So far, you have insulted the people with me. You’ve made us all try and crowd around a small table, and you’ve treated us with the disdain that should only be reserved for people you know are going to stiff you. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Yet I’m not. Are you ready to order?” She nodded when the others did. “Also, I want you to know that since you’ve been nothing but trouble here, I’m going to be putting my tip on the check amount. And I will not be pressured to put this on separate checks. One
of you will pay, and you’ll divide it up amongst yourself when you get to whatever rock you crawled out from under.”
He took their orders. Aisling was tempted just to leave and not ever return, but when the other women started to tell Charlie, what Nicole was calling him, what they wanted, she made a quick decision when he came to her.
“Also, I’d like two orders of your onion rings, as well as more crackers to go with the cheese plate, please.” He told her no. “No? No what? No onions or no crackers?”
“We’ve sold out of onions. And if you want more crackers, you should have brought them with you. We’re a restaurant, not a wholesale food market.” She asked him if he got his jollies from being a prick. “Actually, this is the most fun I’ve had in a while. You people know as well as I do that this is going to be a check that will be larger than your rent for the next several months. So when you can’t pay, I’m going to call the police and have you all arrested.”
He jerked her menu from her hand and walked away. She looked around at the table of women and started to laugh. She had no idea what she might have thought was so funny, but the others soon joined in. This was surreal, is what it was. The man was going to make it so that this place no longer had the five stars that he seemed to be so proud of.
“Before that ass of a man returns, I’m Anna. We’re not going to talk about our titles. I have a feeling that you’d be all tongue tied about them, and frankly, I’m very happy with the way we’re getting along. But I must ask, do I know you?” Aisling told her who she was, as well as her title. It was the only thing that she could think of to make her understand where she might know her from. “I thought so. I knew your father. Alan, Warrior Leader. He was a good man and fought a good fight. Your mother, is she still around?”
“Yes. As much as I’d like to say otherwise, she is still around. The last I heard, she was with a human trying to suck him dry of all his money. My father would be turning over in his garden if he knew what sort of things she did with his bounty when he passed away.” One of the women, she thought her name was Nicole, asked what a bounty was. “When a warrior dragon is killed while he’s at war, his family is given a great deal of compensation. Whatever it happened to be at the time or who he was fighting for would determine what she might have gotten. Jewels. Coin. Silks. Anything of value to the lands surrounding the fight. It could very well be land. Or in my father’s case, money and gems. My mother, who was a human when he was married to her, flittered it all away in about a year or so and was left with nothing. Not even complaining to the dragon king at the time would get her anything more.”
Matthew: House of Wilkshire ― Paranormal Dragon Shifter Romance Page 2