Kennedy would love the little surprise. She could try the donuts that Dough Hole had to offer and write about it in her blog. Then, later, maybe Wyatt could help her discover more places in town. The idea filled him with joy, the kind he’d never felt before.
Just as he reached the door, his phone vibrated. His first thought was of Kennedy, but he remembered they hadn’t yet shared phone numbers. As he pulled it out, he made a mental note to program his number into Kennedy’s phone.
The name that flashed across the screen and the reminder that he hadn’t yet deleted her number weighed Wyatt with dread. Why would his ex-girlfriend want to call him now? The timing seemed strange.
His thumb hovered over the red disconnect button before tapping the green button. For a moment, he held the phone, staring down at it as if it’d been the device that betrayed him and not his own body.
“Hello? Wyatt? Darling, are you there?”
His gut clenched. Grimacing, he held the phone to his ear. Nicole was silent. He couldn’t find his voice to say anything, to tell her that he was there.
Even though he knew who was on the other end of the call, his thoughts went to Kennedy. This felt like a betrayal, even if it was nothing more than a simple phone call. He should have denied her and tucked the device back into his pocket. He should have gone inside to grab a dozen donuts and two coffees so he could run back to Kennedy and curl up beside her.
“Wyatt, darling. I’ve missed you. I can’t help but feel like I’ve made a huge mistake.”
He twisted away from the donut shop, unwilling to let Nicole taint the space he’d wanted to share with Kennedy. His feet led him away from town as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d thought of Nicole. Every moment of his time, every one of his thoughts, had been focused on Kennedy.
Wyatt sucked in a breath of fresh air, realizing what that meant.
“Do me a favor, Nicole. Delete my number.”
“Come on, darling. Don’t treat me like that just because I made a mistake. If you let me, I can make it up to you. You’ll forgive me in time.” Her voice was honeyed, even over the staticky crackle of the phone.
Wyatt had already forgiven her, but her insistence struck a chord in him, one that rippled with frustration. The beast had found a mate. It wanted Kennedy. She was all that mattered. The way Nicole was trying to insert herself back into his life angered the creature inside him. Of course, she knew nothing about that.
When he looked up, he found himself standing near the bank of the lake. He looked out over the blue waters, calmly reflecting the clear skies, and felt his body move of its own accord. Wyatt didn’t bother hanging up. He launched the phone into the lake. It made a distant plunk sound, satisfaction bubbling inside him until a roar shook the bare tree branches.
He wanted to run back to Kennedy. The realization that she was his mate, what he’d been craving for so long, hit him hard and left him reeling, but fate offered him no rest. Jasper’s golden wings blotted out the sun above. The king of the mountain raced away from Grove.
Away from the safety of their secret home.
Wyatt cursed under his breath. One moment, he’d felt free of everything that had been dragging behind him. It had been revelatory. Then, his cousin had swept overhead and destroyed any thoughts Wyatt had of happiness. He should have been running back to the hotel, back to Kennedy. Instead, he had to play babysitter to a brat of a dragon.
It occurred to him that he could have called for assistance if he hadn’t just thrown his phone into the lake. He wasn’t alone. Ashton and Griffin were there to help, but Wyatt’s desire to escape Nicole had blinded him. He threw his jacket to the ground, flipped his cousin the bird, and launched his scaled body into the air.
Jasper glanced back. The intelligence of the creature squatting inside Jasper glittered like the light of a star. Its lips curled back in warning. Wyatt had just enough time to barrel roll out of the way when a plume of flames sliced the air. His wings ached.
He thought he’d caught embers, but when he craned his neck to glance back, he realized there were still claw marks in the web of his wings. The holes made his flight shaky. Pain rippled through his shoulders. He clenched his jaw and ducked his head, determined to keep up with his cousin.
No one else was around. Wyatt was the only one who could stop him.
Jasper swung up. Wyatt fumbled, the flap of his wings faltering when Jasper disappeared. Before he could look around, claws sank into his back. He roared and thrashed. Jasper held on, and they sank together. The ground rushed to meet them.
Wyatt squirmed to escape. The impact would hurt. It could kill him, or at least put him out for days. Thinking quick, Wyatt did two things. He gathered heat in the back of his throat. The flames built into a burning ball that he threw at the ground below. The impact blew back and created a cushion of air that slowed their fall.
Just before he hit the ground, he let out the loudest roar he’d ever summoned. The sound echoed far and wide. If he didn’t have a phone, then he would find a way to call his cousins. The rest of the court would come rushing. They would stop Jasper.
Wyatt wasn’t alone.
He wasn’t unloved.
Eventually, they would figure out why Jasper’s beast fought to escape the mountains. The court would work together to protect their king from madness. Wyatt realized why Ashton and Makenna fought so hard to create a semblance of a family here in Grove. It bound them together, tighter than any bond of duty could ever hold them.
Jasper snarled. His clawed hand closed around Wyatt’s throat, clearly annoyed that he’d tried to summon the other dragons. The intelligence that swam behind Jasper’s beastly eyes was startling. Wyatt tried to fight him off, but his beast was no match for the larger and smarter beast atop him.
The gold beast’s head swung up. Wyatt sucked in a ragged breath, but didn’t dare move while his king was distracted. He saw a flash of what looked like hope in those beastly eyes, and it stunned him. What lived in these woods that filled his wild king with hope?
No longer concerned with the broken and bruised bronze dragon, Jasper launched himself into the air again. While Wyatt slowly shifted back to his human form, he glimpsed his cousins in a blur of silver and copper. They gave chase, no thought for Wyatt below.
His body barely responded to his commands. When he rolled over, everything screamed in pain all at once. His vision darkened. His heart thumped and the darkness pulsed, threatening to collapse over everything before him.
His one thought was of Kennedy. He clenched his jaw and fought against the fire in his shoulders as he tried to drag himself forward. His fingers dug into the earth and he dragged himself an inch. Then another. Her smile drove him. Those freckles on her nose, the ones he hadn’t yet counted.
But his body wasn’t strong enough. Jasper had done too much damage and his magic couldn’t keep up. While he thought of Kennedy standing on the booth seat in the diner, that first day he saw her, unconsciousness came to claim him.
***
Wyatt had disappeared from the face of the earth.
Or, at least that was what it felt like. Kennedy didn’t know where he’d gone, and she hadn’t been smart enough to get his phone number. Her only means of contact would be to hunt down Makenna at the diner or to show up on Jasper’s doorstep and ask them. Kennedy figured that if Wyatt didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t want her hounding his family, either.
She did her best to distract herself. Fifty images edited and three new blog posts later, Kennedy was out of work and needed something new to fill her time so that she wasn’t thinking about Wyatt.
About the way he felt inside her. About the way he’d held her so carefully after the elevator collapse. About his protective growl when Griffin dared look at her. She couldn’t help herself. She missed him more than she’d ever missed anything in her life.
Perhaps she was being stupid. This kind of longing, for a man who left without
a single word, made her weak. It left her open to all kinds of dark thoughts. Maybe she hadn’t been enough. Maybe she could have tried harder to be the kind of woman he needed.
She shook her head. Thoughts like that would never get her anywhere. If Kennedy wasn’t enough, then she wasn’t enough. There was nothing she could do to change that.
Even though she knew this, it didn’t stop the ache in her chest. It felt like a part of her had been ripped out. Only days with Wyatt, and already she’d given a piece of herself to him. For a while, she’d wondered if there had been complications with Jasper. She told herself that if that were the issue, then someone would have contacted her.
But, she wasn’t a mate. She was just a fling. That wouldn’t land her on the telephone list. No one was going to go out of their way to keep Kennedy informed. She was only human, an interloper in a magical world.
She let her head fall back, banging against the headboard.
Despite Wyatt’s disappearance, Kennedy was still determined to stay in Grove. It was the place of her heart, and she knew that if she stayed, he would eventually return to her. All she had to do was make a place where he could find her.
She pulled up a local real estate webpage and scrolled through the offerings. There were a lot of cabins for rent, the kind that hunters or stir-crazy husbands would love. Kennedy was neither. She wanted something in town, a place close to all that Grove had to offer. The kind of place she wanted would be walking distance to the diner and a short drive to the grocery store. Preferably, it would have a view of some sort.
Biting the tip of her thumb, she wondered if that was asking too much. Kennedy knew she’d spoiled herself while travelling the country. If she wanted something, she usually gave it to herself. Now, she wondered if that gave her unrealistic expectations.
Until she found just the right place.
Immediately, she had her phone in hand, dialing the number on the page.
Chapter Fourteen
Wyatt slept for days after the fight with Jasper. His wings hadn’t fully healed from the last fight, just as he feared. It’d hindered him when he found Jasper on his own. Had he been able to call upon the others, Wyatt wouldn’t have gotten hurt as bad. They would have been able to mitigate the damage.
Yet, he’d had no way to get ahold of them. He’d been the idiot that chucked his phone into the lake. Wyatt groaned again when he realized that meant he couldn’t call the hotel and check in on Kennedy either.
His body protested when he tried to sit up. Despite the quick healing that his beast allowed him, it seemed he was still in pieces. Each movement reminded him of what was broken. When he closed his eyes, he could still see the shattered web of his wings. He drew a shuddering breath.
Determined, he put one foot on the floor. His limbs burned with the all-consuming flame of pain. Nothing cooperated. His hands shook when he tried to push back the blanket. By the time he was sitting at the edge of the bed, his vision was swimming. Darkness pressed in at the edges.
Wyatt gritted his teeth and tried to push past it. Kennedy must think he’d only been interested in a one-night stand. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. He needed to explain his disappearance. If he could tell her what happened, then maybe he could fix what he’d done.
But Wyatt couldn’t lift himself from the bed. His elbows gave out and dropped him back onto it. Pain sparked in his chest, shattered ribs out of place once more. He tried to breathe through it, but every breath brought darkness closer.
The beast promised him it was only sleep. His body needed to rest.
***
Kennedy flipped through magazines in the convenience store across the street while she waited for the realtor to arrive. It was warm inside and smelled of cheap coffee, a smell she couldn’t help but love after her years of travel. There was nothing wrong with cheap coffee and powdered cappuccinos.
Since she’d arrived in Grove, not a day had gone by that she hadn’t seen Wyatt. He’d been around every corner. The days that passed without him unsettled her. Each one tightened a knot between her shoulder blades.
When she glanced out the window, she searched for him in every face, but he wasn’t there. He wouldn’t be. She was starting to worry that he’d gotten what he wanted. She touched the mark on her neck. It hadn’t healed, but the hunt was over.
Wasn’t it?
Kennedy had slept with him. She’d screamed his name the way he’d demanded. His disappearance shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. Other men had done much worse. At least she’d gotten to experience the days that led up to that night. She could hold them tight forever, but a bitter part of her knew that would never be enough.
Every time she stepped foot in the hotel, she expected the concierge to greet her with a missed message, an explanation for why he’d disappeared. The not knowing drove her wild. Her mind came up with story after story to fill in the places that were blank. Fear told her he hadn’t liked what he’d seen. Anxiety tried to tell her that he’d found someone better. Despair whispered that she would never truly belong here.
And yet, she was still going to look at the apartment. She could only hope that he would find her. Eventually. When he did, he would have a good explanation for all of this. Kennedy sighed.
After stuffing an over-expensive culinary magazine back into the rack, she was about to turn and grab a coffee. A flashy cover caught her eye. It wasn’t the kind of magazine she ever would have read, but one word made her pause.
Aurum.
She plucked the magazine from the rack. The article title read The Sexy Bachelors of Aurum Bank. Kennedy couldn’t help but raise a brow. Flipping through the magazine, she quickly found Ashton smirking back at her. He looked suave in his suit and tie, a look she never expected to work on him. Curious now, she flipped further.
The other photos were not professional like Ashton’s had been. They were candid shots, like someone had been prowling around Grove to sneakily capture photos of the Drake family. Griffin scowled into a sunset, which wasn’t a bad look for him. Another face, one she didn’t recognize, had back hair pinned back and the crazy gleam of a rock-star in his eyes. Maybe she just assumed that because the photo showed him moving instruments along with other rocker-looking types.
Finally, Kennedy found Wyatt. She smiled at the page, at the guy with a beer in his hand and the kind of smile that warmed her heart. The warmth grew oppressive. She couldn’t bear it, snapping the magazine shut and slamming it back on the rack.
“If you’re going to ruin it, you’re going to buy it,” the clerk shouted at her.
He eyed her suspiciously until she stepped outside to wait for the realtor. Her shoulders slumped. She scanned Main Street as if Wyatt would magically appear and take her into his arms. She had no idea where he’d gone or why he’d left. Seeing his face tagged as a hot, young bachelor filled her with dread.
Kennedy felt like she couldn’t hang on to him, like there was no chance she would win his heart now. He would soon be bombarded with women trying to steal him away just because he was involved in a big bank. Not because they loved the way he smiled or the way his beast filled his eyes.
Someone ran up to Kennedy, arms waving. At first, Kennedy’s heart surged with hope, then she realized the form was feminine. It was just Makenna. She shook something in her hand. When she stood before Kennedy, she opened it up to reveal the same magazine Kennedy had just jammed back onto the rack.
“Did you see this bullshit?” Makenna asked. “My mate is not a fucking bachelor.”
Kennedy smiled at Makenna’s possessiveness. Perhaps what Kennedy felt was not too far from what she saw in Makenna, though she had no claim over Wyatt the way Makenna had over Ashton. She was not a mate.
Not as far as she knew.
Makenna scowled at the pristine photo of her boyfriend before pausing. The magazine slapped her thigh as she took in her surroundings. “What are you doing here?”
Kennedy po
inted to the wide windows that filled the second floor of the building across the street. “My realtor is supposed to come and show me the apartment.”
Makenna clapped her hands together. “So, you’re staying? That’s so exciting!”
Kennedy offered a tight-lipped smile in return. It would have been more exciting had Wyatt been there to see the place with her. His disappearance confused her. She’d thought they were doing so well, that they’d moved forward. Then, it felt like they’d gone right back to the beginning.
Grove was her home, but so was Wyatt. She didn’t know how she knew. The knowledge sat inside her, as intrinsic as her own name. Yet, the magazine boasting Wyatt as one of the hottest and richest bachelors bothered her. It was like finding a secret account on a dating website, an advertisement to draw in more women. Kennedy struggled with the fallout inside her, with no longer feeling like the one.
They’d never discussed anything so serious, so she wasn’t sure why she’d held onto the idea.
Across the street, a pearl pink SUV pulled up to the curb. A woman with hair sprayed into place slid out of the driver’s seat and waved at Kennedy. The back window of the SUV bore a vinyl decal for one of those multi-level make-up companies, but the door boasted the name of the realtor business. Kennedy shook her head at the absurdity of it and prepared herself for the inevitable make-up sales pitch.
“Do you mind coming with me?” Kennedy asked Makenna. “I know we aren’t particularly close or anything, but I would like a local’s take on the place.”
Makenna smiled wide and hooked her arm though Kennedy’s. “I’ve got your back. If Marcia tries to upsell you, I’ll remind her of that time I punched her in the nose in tenth grade.”
Kennedy’s eyebrows shot upward. “That is a story I will need later.”
“It’s a deal.”
The realtor eyed Makenna’s presence warily the entire time she showed them the apartment. Kennedy would have felt bad for the realtor, but her mind wandered. The updated kitchen with a black granite and quartz countertop sparkled like the night sky. She could envision Wyatt navigating it beside her, probably asking her what the difference between a green and yellow onion was.
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