At least she’d been able to obey her father’s commands for once. With the silver against her skin, she’d been able to live an approximation of a human life, out of the skies. She hadn’t realized until now just how sick the silver had made her. She felt sluggish and weary. Her lungs refused to fully expand. Her body moved slowly and achingly.
The only reason she could use her arm was because of her recent shifts. She wasn’t going to tell the guy that, though. Not because of his Montoya lineage, but because she didn’t want to make him feel bad.
He laughed and shook his head. “I can’t believe I ever thought you were just an everyday owl. I should have known the moment I saw you. No owl would have been out in that storm.”
She hadn’t meant to get caught up in the storm. It had taken her by surprise. All she’d wanted was to spread her wings. Her beast had been caged for too long. Birds didn’t take well to the kind of lifestyle she was trying to uphold. The owl inside her rioted and begged her to throw caution to the wind.
This was why she needed to stay on the ground, though. She made stupid decisions, like choosing to fly with blizzards blowing in and dragons cavorting about.
He set aside his empty mug. She hadn’t even seen him take a sip, let alone finish it. He grabbed the edge of the counter behind him and gave her a rakish smile. “Next time you want to fly, let me know.”
She let out a bitter laugh. “Sorry, dude. I’m already deep in trouble. There will be hell to pay if I’m caught calling a Montoya dragon when I want to fly.”
The corner of his mouth twisted. “Ah, you know my name. That means you know the Barnes family, somehow.”
Tegan was in no mood to explain her relationship to Callum Barnes. Her father had a bad reputation among the Montoya family. If there was any Barnes shifter they hated more than Elliana, it was Callum. He was the terror of the town in their eyes. He’d been relentless about his hatred for them and had terrorized them since his youth. Not much had changed in the past few years.
Not even when Ember mated a Montoya man. Teagan had watched their father make a show of being nice to Ember’s face. Callum was making an effort, which was notable for him. It wasn’t real, though. His heart hadn’t changed. He just wanted his daughter to love him again.
He’d been trying to do the same with Teagan. She’d had several years where she saw him maybe once or twice a year. Now, her father was on her doorstep every other day. She didn’t let him in, but that hadn’t stopped him from trying. When he showed up at her apartment and found it empty, he would get suspicious.
She didn’t want another day like the one at the bar. Callum Barnes had wrecked that bar in his rage. How Cash had kept from fighting back, Teagan would never know. She didn’t know if this man would be able to do the same if her father tracked her here.
“I’m serious, though. I work at the aviary. If you’re going to shift and fly, you might as well have me by your side. There’s no one in this town who knows more about bird anatomy.” He fell silent for several breaths. His shoulders tensed as his brow furrowed. “You need to shift more. You can’t live like this.”
She stood and an idea dawned on her. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that offer since I’m not going anywhere any time soon.”
His face went blank. Not carefully controlled, but the absolute blank of a man completely stunned. “I don’t think I heard you correctly. What did you just say?”
She grinned from ear to ear. His eyes flashed bright, the beast in him taking a peek at her. She waited for the shudder of fear to race down her spine, but it never came.
“I think I’m going to lay low and take it easy. I have a lot of healing to do since a dragon knocked me out of the sky.”
He pushed off the counter. “Look here, you can’t guilt me into letting you roost here. This isn’t your nest, little bird.”
She guffawed. “Little bird? I’m an owl! I’m anything but little.”
“Compared to a dra—” His word dissolved before he could finish it.
Teagan raised a brow, challenging him to keep going. He narrowed his eyes at her, but she could see that the guilt was working. If this didn’t work, then she would roll up her sleeve and show off her bruises again.
His tense shoulders suddenly slumped. He groaned dramatically. “Fine! Have it your way. Just don’t be mad when I don’t make you dinner. I don’t even cook for myself.”
Teagan tried to look smug, but inside she was shaking. She knew that the moment she left, her father would be breathing down her neck. The snowstorm had likely covered her scent trail. So long as she stayed where she was, her father wouldn’t be able to find her.
She bit the tip of her thumb. In time, she would figure out how to get home without her father tracing her steps. She didn’t want to lead Callum back here because a Montoya man tried to help her. This guy, whatever his name was, didn’t deserve that.
Turning around so that she faced the kitchen and the Montoya man who hadn’t yet properly introduced himself, she met his gaze as she dropped into a plush chair. “So, which Montoya are you?”
He laughed. The sound carried so much relief that Teagan didn’t understand. What was he relieved about? What had she revealed that he’d been happy to hear?
“Don’t worry about who I am.”
She scowled, annoyed that he wouldn’t say it to her face. Didn’t he realize that she’d overheard him say it himself? “That’s ominous. If I’m going to stay here, then I should know your name.”
“I could say the same about you. Hell, I’ve seen you naked, and I still don’t know your name.”
She wanted to check out his groin to see if the thought of her naked form had any effect on him, but the counter was still between them. “I get the feeling that happens often.”
That grin reached his face again. It was so perfect that she wondered if he practiced it in the mirror. Did he have different versions of it depending on the situation? He seemed like the kind of guy who had an arsenal of grins and steamy glances.
He shrugged. “I can’t help it if I’m irresistible. Everybody wants a purebred dragon man.”
She rolled her eyes. “Dragons are insufferable. They’re the most territorial of all the shifters. Fate never should have given you beasts the ability to breathe fire. All you do is burn everything to the ground.”
“Wow, someone has a really jaded view of dragons.” He watched her closer now.
She turned her face away from him. He couldn’t open her and read her like a book, yet she was still afraid he might recognize her. Once this Montoya man realized her connection to Callum Barnes, she would find herself out in the snow.
A glance out the nearest window told her that the skies were perfectly clear, but a dull throb in her arm warned her against shifting again so soon. She didn’t know if another shift would dislodge anything that had been set the night before. It was rather shameful that she knew so little about herself and what she was.
As an owl shifter surrounded by two dragon clans, Teagan had no one she could turn to with her questions. The dragons were so vastly different from her that their answers never really helped. They were the kind of folk to walk off their hurts. They vented their anger by trading blows with one another, their wounds healing in a matter of minutes.
Teagan couldn’t even hunt down her mother for answers. According to her, Teagan had been the result of a one-night stand. Born to a human who had no idea how to raise a shifter, Teagan had fumbled around by herself for the first couple of shifts. Then her mother married Callum Barnes so that Teagan would have a family of people like herself.
Only, her mother had treated it as an opportunity to give Teagan up. The way Callum acted after Teagan’s mother left had made her feel bad for grieving. The man had fallen apart and left his children to pick up the pieces. While Ember did everything that their father should have been doing, Teagan swallowed her grief and did her best to avoid being a burden.
When she touched the part of her heart where her mother should have b
een, it was still numb from all the years of keeping that grief locked away. She was afraid to open the locked door now. So long as it stayed shut, she wouldn’t have to deal with the tsunami of emotions that likely waited behind it.
“Do you blame me?” she asked wryly.
He huffed and shook his head. “Considering the dragons I know? No, not in the least.”
That should have been Teagan’s first warning.
3
The first day, they spent most of their time trying to dance around one another. If she stepped into the hall when he exited his bedroom, they stared at one another and waited for someone to move. Half the time, Teagan lowered her head and stepped out of his way. After a while, he tried to move first. That resulted in them accidentally mirroring each other as they both rushed to get out of the way of the other.
She was aware of his lingering gaze, too. At first, she’d assumed that he felt bad about what he’d done and that he was watching her to see if she’d healed more. Then, it became obvious that his attention wasn’t on her arm. His eyes roved up her legs, and his lips parted at the sight of her thighs.
The gesture should have turned her cheeks red, but something about his attention emboldened her. She straightened her spine and lifted her chin. A hungry growl sometimes rumbled from inside him. The sound gave her the sensation of fluttering wings just under her skin.
That evening, he slapped his hand onto the counter. Startled, Teagan’s head snapped up.
He stared at her stunned visage. The corner of his mouth lifted. Suspicious, she narrowed her eyes at him and wondered what he found so funny.
“You have owl eyes when you’re scared,” he said.
She scoffed at him and went back to the book she’d been flipping through. So long as she ignored his presence, he might wander away again. That’s what they’d been trying to do all day. But he didn’t leave. The Montoya man pulled out a stack of pamphlets from under the counter and spread them out.
“I’m going to go into town to pick up dinner. Do you have any suggestions?” he asked.
“Are you offering to buy me dinner?”
He didn’t look up, but she saw the smile curving his lips. “It’s not like you brought your wallet along. A healing shifter needs to eat. Consider this part of my rehabilitation plan.”
She threw her feet to the floor. “You make it sound like I’m a drunk trying to give up the drink.”
“That’s not…I’m sorry. I’m used to dealing with birds. I keep forgetting that people take the terms differently.” He plucked a pamphlet from the pile and held it up. “Pizza? I can grab beer at the market.”
She shrugged, but her stomach growled and gave her away.
His lips twisted to the side. “You know there’s a fridge full of food, right? You’re welcome to take whatever you want.”
Teagan was already painfully aware of how she was overstaying her welcome. She didn’t need to pilfer his cabinets, too. She had no way of paying him back as of right now. He was right. She didn’t have her wallet or even her phone. It occurred to her that she could log onto a computer and transfer funds over to him, but that meant asking to access his computer.
She did not want to assume she could use it and then accidentally stumble across his porn collection.
“Two pizzas, then,” he said. “I’m getting a meat lovers. How about you? Supreme? Veggie?”
She pressed her lips together, unsure if she should ask for what she wanted. If he was paying, then he had every right to pick what kind of pizza he bought. He was being kind by asking, but that’s all it was. He probably had an order he wanted. If she told him what she wanted, then she would make him give up his choice.
He leaned forward, elbows on the counter, and stared her down. “I can’t place this order until you make a decision. The more time you take to tell me what you want, the longer we starve. I might have to resort to eating poultry tonight.”
Her jaw dropped, but the way his gaze roved down her body changed the meaning of his statement. She couldn’t stop the flush that seared her cheeks.
“Veggie pizza,” she blurted out to escape his gaze.
He didn’t look away, though. He grinned and bit his lower lip. Her owl flapped its wings manically. Her heart fluttered the same way. She felt like she was trapped in the storm again. The hormones and emotions assaulting her right now were like the wind and snow. She couldn’t escape either.
She dragged in a shaky breath and tried to focus on the book in her lap. It was an overdue library book about local birds. She scanned the page and tried to digest the words, but her brain caught none of it. The longer she stared, the more the words turned to a mushy blur.
Frustrated, she growled and chucked the book at the man who had been watching her the entire time. He deftly ducked the incoming book as he laughed. It smacked the toaster behind him and bounced to the floor. He bent to pick it up, flipped it over, and checked the due date on it.
“River is going to kill me,” he muttered.
Teagan froze. The red hair. The Montoya lineage. How could she have been so willfully blind? She knew exactly who this man was. Though she’d never come face to face with him, she should have known him by reputation alone.
Her father was going to raze this cabin when he learned that she’d been staying with Alice Montoya’s favorite and only son. She swallowed the lump in her throat. And when her father burnt this place to the ground, then Alice Montoya would go for his throat.
Teagan imagined this must have been what Helen of Troy had felt right before she left with Paris. Though, Teagan wasn’t going to romance this dragon man. She knew better than to court disaster like that.
Their parents would clash and cause a bigger disaster than the mystery zone outside town—a zone that had been created during a battle between a Montoya and his ex-wife who happened to be fae. Callum versus Alice would be ten times worse. Teagan knew it in her bones.
This was a recipe for disaster.
Reece could not place the strange owl shifter. He knew nothing about the Barnes family, but he doubted any of them were related to an owl. Dragon genetics were pretty persistent. No dragon would give birth to an owl shifter. That meant she was likely a friend of the family.
That didn’t really make him feel any better. Reece had enjoyed watching her make herself at home. He liked the idea of her staying longer than for one night, but that would come at a cost.
He doubted this woman’s distance from the Barnes family would matter to his mother. If Alice caught wind that he was spending time with anyone even loosely affiliated with the Barnes family, then she would lose her mind. He was tired of his mother’s ranting and raving. She was coming undone, but no one could tell her that.
Reece had to keep his houseguest a secret.
He yearned to tell his sisters, but he wasn’t sure if he was welcome among them. They’d become tight in the past couple of weeks. Mating Barnes shifters had given them common ground and freed them up to become themselves. They were more like twins than triplets. At least, that was how Reece felt.
He coasted the truck down the hill while his thoughts wandered. He almost didn’t see his mother’s car pulling onto the road toward his cabin until it was too late. His heart lurched into his throat. Laying on the horn, he prayed he could catch her attention in time.
The sleek sedan slowed and turned around. Reece blew out a breath and relaxed. After pulling onto the side of the road, he hopped out of the truck and faced the sedan as it pulled up behind his truck. His mother rolled down her window and gave him a questioning look. He jammed his hands into his bomber jacket because he suddenly felt strange with them hanging at his sides.
Was this what his sisters had always felt like? The way his mother looked at him made him afraid she could see every lie written across his face. How had River or Raven ever hidden anything from their mother?
“Where are you headed?” she asked curtly.
“I don’t feel like cooking tonight. Thought I�
��d grab a couple of pizzas and some beer in town.”
She raised both brows. “Two pizzas?”
His stomach churned nervously. “I’m a growing man. I might eat a pizza and a half tonight. The rest will be breakfast for tomorrow.”
Reece didn’t have time for this. He glanced up the road that led toward the cabin. So long as his mother didn’t discover his houseguest, then it wasn’t time wasted. He had to set aside his distaste for his mother’s recent politics.
Her attempt to get Raven to marry that scumbag from their father’s clan had soured Reece’s opinion of their mother. The push had been so heavy handed. If Raven had gone along with it, then Reece might have had to pay their father a visit for the first time in years just to make sure he looked out for one of his children.
Thankfully, Raven had rebelled and left for her Barnes man. Reece had hated the idea of his sisters bedding down with the enemy until he’d seen just how happy they’d become. The Barnes family wasn’t the enemy. They were just dragons. Just people.
And he was content with letting them live their lives without his meddling.
“Forget the pizza,” his mother said. “Come to the house. We can have dinner there.”
Thoughts of the long-legged blonde in his cabin consumed Reece’s mind. His beast snarled, low and threatening. It warned Reece that if he abandoned her tonight, he might never see her again. Something about the beast’s warning seemed urgent. Reece didn’t understand why the creature pushed the issue, but he wasn’t about to argue, either.
“Not tonight. I’m not in the mood for your games.” He turned away from the sedan and his scowling mother.
She’d never been like this with him. Her persistence had grown more and more overbearing with each Montoya mated to a Barnes shifter. Reece wanted nothing to do with her mid-life crisis. If she needed to re-evaluate her life, then she could do that without him.
His mother was stubborn, though. He got into his truck and waited for her to pull away from the shoulder of the road just to make sure she didn’t go up to his cabin to wait for him there. She hit the gas and passed him, her red taillights becoming a blur as the sky grew darker and darker.
Wings of Destiny (Great Plains Dragon Feud Book 5) Page 2