Ember cursed herself and her inability to choose anyone other than Cash. Her beast had decided, years ago, that he would be the only man for her. Ember wished she could have had a say in the matter. Maybe then, she wouldn’t find herself stuck and alone.
The business at the bar cooled down as everyone settled into their seats to watch the show. Cash performed here every Saturday evening, but the show never grew old. There were new faces in the audience, discovering the power of blues for the first time. Many of the people present were regulars, probably just as entranced by his music as Ember was.
Baylee sidled up to her. “So? How did it go?”
The hopeful note in Baylee’s voice hurt. Ember didn’t want to speak the truth into existence. If she recognized it, then there was no going back.
Cash no longer fit in his skin. His beast had become too large. It harbored everything he didn’t want to feel, all those tumultuous emotions turning the dragon into a monster living just beneath his skin. He wanted to let it out, let it rage across the world, but he knew he couldn’t.
So, he sucked it in and did his best to pretend that he was normal as the rain pelted his face. The stinging pellets of water helped for a little while, but they couldn’t distract him from the monster forever.
Over and over, the Barnes woman’s words echoed in his mind. That line. That one line. It had undone him.
How could she have repeated a line from the letters? She’d said it verbatim.
Baylee must have taken photos of the letters. That was the only reasonable explanation Cash could think of. There was no way that a Barnes woman had been sending those letters to him. He tried not to think about the PO box return address or the fact that they’d all been left anonymous. He knew there was a reason the author had left them unsigned…
But not because the author was a Barnes woman.
The moment she’d stepped into the room, the space had shrunk. She’d seemed unreal, at first. Her black curls had flickered in the air, the red tips like fire. When she looked at him, he expected fire to fall from her lips. In a way, it had. She’d spoken with such passion. It had been a burning passion, but that was passion all the same.
He couldn’t fall for her. He couldn’t allow it.
Gale had crossed the line when he’d mated with Baylee. Cash wouldn’t follow in his cousin’s footsteps. Only one of them could take that risk right now. If Cash tried to do the same, then he feared they would be too distracted when Quincy decided to strike again. Quincy wasn’t the only dragon they had to fear.
Cash had pissed off Alice Montoya not too long ago. She held control of all his musical contracts around town. If Cash irritated her any more than he already had, she could easily destroy his livelihood.
On the other side, Callum Barnes was likely itching to get payback. Though Baylee’s mother and brother approved of her relationship, not everyone in the Barnes family was so supportive. Callum was known far and wide as one of the toughest enforcers. He kept the Barnes family, a clan with no true leader, safe.
Cash didn’t want to tip the scales. Logan wasn’t ready to protect them yet.
“That phone in your pocket is going to get wet. I thought these new electronics didn’t do well around water.” Logan appeared out of nowhere.
“I have a water-proof case on it,” Cash said without looking at Logan.
Over and over, Cash found himself disappointed by the man. Logan was a Montoya legend, but when Logan looked at him, he saw a scrawny man with no regard for the tensions stirring in the air. Half the time, Logan was a man possessed. Either by a project or by something no one could quite put their finger on.
Sometimes, Logan stared off into the distance. Baylee wondered aloud from time to time if Logan could see the ghost of his dead mate. Cash doubted it. A ghost wouldn’t have drawn Logan out of his slumber. Something else had.
“Ah, that’s a look I know well,” Logan said as he stepped around Cash.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Logan paused, shoved his hands into his pockets, and smirked. Cash hated that smirk. Logan wasn’t going to explain himself. He was just going to stand there, with knowledge he didn’t feel like sharing.
“What’s for dinner?” Cash asked, trying to change the subject as he headed toward the door.
He didn’t want to interact with anyone just yet. Cash needed a few more moments alone, but he knew he wasn’t about to get that. Not around here. There was nowhere he could go. Baylee and Logan were waiting around every corner.
“I have something I want to show you, first.” Logan didn’t wait for Cash to follow. He grabbed ahold of Cash’s shirt and dragged him around the house.
He dragged Cash for a short while, away from the house and down a narrow path cut through the field. They emerged into a cleared area. The ground had been freshly dug out. Cash raised a brow and watched Logan curiously.
“You’re going to need this soon,” Logan said, rather cryptically.
Cash looked back at the hole dug in the ground. Logan’s words couldn’t have been a threat, since the hole in the ground was far larger than a grave. If anything, it looked like it could hold a house.
“Whatever, old man. I’m going to go shove pizza into my face before my dragon decides to burn something down.” Cash left Logan by the hole.
“If you want to burn something, torch Quinlann’s house!” Logan called after him.
Despite his mood, Cash laughed. He went inside, grabbed three slices of cold pizza and a beer before heading upstairs so he could be alone for a while. Neither Gale nor Baylee appeared out of the woodwork, which was a blessing.
What’s her name?
He shook his head to dispel the intrusive thought. Visions of her fiery-red and black hair consumed him. He clenched his fists, belatedly remembering the pizza that was now a sad ball of bread and cheese.
Though he knew he needed to go back downstairs to get new food, his attention fell on the letters. They were still stacked on the desk, right where he’d left them. He stepped closer and sniffed the air. There wasn’t even a hint of Baylee in his room. When she’d snuck in to paint his guitar, she’d left her scent everywhere.
Cash reasoned that Baylee could have invaded the desk drawers the day she defaced his guitar. It wouldn’t have been that difficult. If she had time to paint a dragon, she had time to take pictures of the letters.
What are you so afraid of? The beast’s voice rumbled through his skull.
Cash cringed and dropped onto the edge of the bed. He pressed his thumbs into his temples and tried to shove the creature back, but it refused to budge. It dug in its claws and snarled at Cash. It called him weak and cowardly.
“You’re a monster,” Cash growled.
The door creaked open. Logan peered into the room. Cash narrowed his eyes at the Montoya patriarch.
“Do you want to punch me?” Logan asked, casually.
“Get out of my room.” Cash couldn’t stand how cramped the house had become.
He had no space to himself. Everyone was constantly up his ass. All he wanted was a bit of peace and quiet. Why couldn’t anyone understand that? If they would leave him alone and stop throwing Barnes women at him, then maybe he and his beast could find a balance.
Logan remained, looking Cash up and down like there was something one of them should say before they parted ways. Cash didn’t have any words, so he waited to see if Logan was sitting on some piece of outdated advice. Instead, Logan gave a solemn nod.
Cash let out a breath. At least Logan’s presence meant that someone would stop Cash if the beast broke out. That was the one piece of solace that this crowded house gave him.
He glanced between the letters and the open window. Though Cash often lost himself in the words of a stranger, he couldn’t help but think of the Barnes woman when he saw the letters. Unable to push her out of his mind, Cash felt the pull of the night sky.
Perhaps letting the beast stretch its wings would help take its mind off
her.
3
Ember was as much a night owl as her stepsister, Teagan. After wiping down the bar and closing out the tills, Ember said farewell to her co-workers and turned toward home. An overzealous line cook offered to walk with her to keep her safe. Ember had to swallow her laughter.
The idea of the skinny young man fighting off any of the creatures she knew to exist was laughable. She should have felt bad for making fun of him, even if she did it silently, but she wasn’t in a mood to be kind to anyone.
The interaction with Cash had left her cranky. She couldn’t believe that Cash had disregarded her so easily. She’d given him a line from the letters, and he’d walked away as if she’d told him the earth was flat. There was a chance that Cash never read the letters, but she doubted that was the case. She’d noticed a flicker of recognition in his eyes when she’d spoken.
Cash knew that line, he just didn’t believe it could come from her.
“All because I’m a Barnes,” she growled.
“What did you say?”
Ember startled. She had forgotten that the line cook was with her. The guy gave her a quizzical look that she had no answer for.
“Sorry. I got caught up in my thoughts.”
He nodded, a gesture that seemed to go on forever as if he was buying time while the gears in his mind cast off their rust and started to spin. “If you don’t want to be alone tonight, you’re welcome at my place. I know that living by yourself can be scary as a woman.”
Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Don’t…
Ember managed to hold her tongue. She knew what the line cook was subtly offering, but her beast took no interest in this man. Nothing about him called to her. He smelled of fryer grease and the scratchy tattoos peering out from beneath the collar of his shirt didn’t pique her curiosity. If anything, she wanted him to stay fully clothed and far away from her.
This was how every interaction with men went. Ember knew how to flirt, almost salaciously, because of her job as a bartender. Yet, when she stepped away from the bar, she left that persona behind. For a while, she’d thought she was broken. Then she’d considered the fact that she might be gay. When that idea went nowhere, she had to face the truth.
Ember had forged a mate bond with a man who didn’t even know her name.
Cash Montoya made her burn bright, like a star trying to reach distant places with its flickering light. That distant place would always be Cash. She feared she would never be able to cross the space that separated them.
“I think I’m going to go home for the night,” she said, trying to let the guy down as gently as possible. “Nothing feels safer than sleeping in your childhood bed.”
Just as she’d suspected, the mention of childhood made the line cook take a step back. His eyes drifted over her shoulder, toward the Barnes farms that were out of sight. Everyone knew where they were, though. The Barnes family was the backbone of this small town’s economy ever since the Montoya mines shut down.
“Uh, yeah. Sure.” The guy nodded and lingered a moment too long.
Ember was done. She wanted to be alone so that she could put her thoughts away and revel in a clear mind, if only for a little while. That, and she wanted to shift and stomp through the last of this year’s cornstalks. It was one of her favorite pastimes, especially since there was no threat of wildfires when she shifted.
She couldn’t start a wildfire if she didn’t have fire.
Ember gave the guy a salute and spun on her heel, all too eager to get away. He called out to her, but she paid him no mind. Now wasn’t the time. Her skin had grown tight. She needed to let the beast out so she could stretch her wings. The beast would give her the reprieve she wanted.
Barely out of town, a gust of wind ripped at her. It tugged her hair forward and rippled beneath her clothing. She pushed her hair back and looked up. The silhouette of a dragon nearly disappeared against the dark backdrop of the sky. She could tell where the beast flew because the stars blinked out in his wake before returning as he passed.
Her dragon filled her, pressing against her skin in a silent bid to escape her body because the beast knew. The dragon flying above wasn’t just another shifter. She was looking at Cash. The bond that chained her to him rippled, as if in agreement.
Instead of shifting and joining him in the sky, she continued her walk until she reached the edges of the Barnes fields. There weren’t many corn stalks left over. She would have to go west a little more to reach the fields near the pumpkin patches. Those fields were unharvested and turned into labyrinths every fall.
Halloween had passed. People weren’t out picking pumpkins or trying to escape labyrinths, so she could have wrecked the whole field if she wanted. Now that Cash had appeared, she walked out into the open space and waited to see if he might touch down and greet her.
The beast circled a few times before landing. Ember hesitated, breath caught in her chest. The monstrous creature looked like something straight out of hell. His eyes gleamed in the dark. She could make out the curl of his black horns and the barest hint of white on the tips of his pointed scales.
Cash’s dragon looked like the personification of smoke. His body was lithe, but not snake-like. Ridges ran down his spine. A wispy line of white travelled along the protrusions. He moved soundlessly, stalking toward her before breaking off to circle around her. He prowled, like a predator stalking prey.
A shiver overtook her and forced her held breath from her lungs. She quickly inhaled. The beast paused. She waited for him to pounce, but her heart marked each passing moment with an ominous beat and still nothing happened.
She took a cautious step forward. The beast raised its head. She couldn’t tell if it was looking down its nose at her or if that was an expression of surprised curiosity. Either way, she continued forward because she knew, deep down, that she was safe.
Cash wouldn’t hurt her. No matter how he reacted to her confession earlier, the bond they had would keep her safe.
“What are you doing on Barnes territory?” she asked, teasing.
The beast wrinkled its nose at her and huffed. A plume of smoke twisted in the air.
She gestured to the field around them. “I’m not exaggerating. You are on Barnes territory.”
The beast looked from side to side. Its gaze settled on her finally. Her heart leapt into her throat.
“You know,” she said. “You were really rude earlier. Do the Montoyas not teach manners to you gremlins? It’s no wonder our families can’t get along.”
The beast grumbled and shook its head in a way that was almost mocking. Her jaw dropped. Laughter slipped out of her.
“Don’t be sassy! You’re the one who was rude today!”
To her surprise, the beast lowered its head and crawled closer to her. Her shoulders relaxed as the beast pressed the side of its head to her chest. She ran a hand down one of his dangerously sharp horns and reveled in the ridges beneath her fingertips.
She chewed her lip nervously when a thought occurred to her. She knew that dragon shifters could sometimes feel a disconnect between their human selves and the beast inside them. That could lead to one shoving the other away. Many times, it was the human side that held back the beast. But, sometimes, the beast grew tired of the human part and locked that side of themselves away.
“Are you and Cash having a fight? Does he even know you’re here?”
She must have hit the nail on the head because the beast stilled under her hand. The night of frolicking through the fields with Cash that she’d been anticipating quickly vanished. She couldn’t entertain the beast’s decision to divide himself or else matters could get much worse.
She knew firsthand how hard it could be to live with someone who couldn’t manage the balance between man and beast.
Ember lifted the beast’s head so that he had to look at her. She gave him a look that she hoped was serious enough. “You’re going to have to let him have control again. You can’t run around like this all the time or yo
u’re going to miss out on some of the best parts of your life.”
Just like her father had.
Callum Barnes was well respected throughout his family, but Ember and Teagan knew another side of him. They knew the dragon shifter who’d missed all of their important moments because he couldn’t handle his own heartbreak. All those times she looked into the audience at her high school choir recitals, she’d found an empty chair where her father should have been.
She sighed. Why did she have to fall for a man with the same problem.
The beast gave her an odd look, but she didn’t bother explaining.
Letting go of him, she stepped back and wrapped her arms around herself. “You should go home. Get some rest.”
Ember kept backing up. She didn’t know where she wanted to go, only that she couldn’t stay here. If she went home, like she said earlier, she would have to deal with her father. He was still riled up over Baylee’s mate bond with a Montoya, and Ember didn’t want to have to listen to him complain all night.
Especially when she hoped Cash would recognize their bond eventually.
She couldn’t go visit Baylee because Baylee lived with Cash. That would be an awkward interaction that Ember wasn’t ready for. She couldn’t stay with Teagan, either. Her stepsister had fallen off the family radar once again.
Ember had hoped that after the girls’ night they’d had with Baylee that they could repair their relationship. It seemed that Teagan wasn’t ready for that kind of work. Ember understood, on a practical level. That didn’t stop Teagan’s perpetual cold shoulder from hurting.
So, Ember turned around and walked back into town. Her apartment wasn’t far. She rented a small place above a cluster of shops—none of which sold any kind of food. She couldn’t imagine renting a place that smelled of baked goods or coffee all the time. It would have made her sick.
Still, the sounds of the town and the smells that did manage to snake their way into her home were more than enough to make her weary of going home. The privacy she had gained by moving out should have been worth it, but Ember yearned for another kind of life.
A Song of Destiny (Great Plains Dragon Feud Book 2) Page 2