Stomach fluttering, she pressed the green button on the screen and held it to her ear. Unfortunately, she didn’t know what to say. Words tangled in her mind, held in place by confusion.
“Mina? Are you there?” A male voice rumbled her name and sent a spike of heat through her core.
She made a small noise in surprise.
“I can hear you breathing,” he said. His voice held a hint of…laughter.
“Who is this?” she finally managed to squeak.
He cursed under his breath and she thought she could hear the sound of flesh on flesh, as if he’d palmed his own face. “It’s Ryker. Ryker Drake.”
“I’m afraid I don’t…” Finally, the gears in her mind finally spun into action and began connecting the pieces. “Oh! You. That’s you.”
While Mina was annoyed with her inability to communicate, Ryker was laughing softly. “I think you’re right, but I’m not entirely sure. If it helps, I was the guy you saw destroy a guitar earlier. Um, the dragon…”
She waited for him to say something about his beast. All the metallic dragons had strong beasts. They were powerhouses compared to the chromatic dragons like Mina.
“The blue stuffed one I sent you is my way of apologizing. I never meant to scare you.” Ryker was silent. She listened to him breathe, a ragged sound. “I hope you can come back. The place is an absolute mess and I need help. I mean, the house needs help. Not me.”
“From what I saw, it looks like you need help, too.” Mina slapped her hand over her mouth, cheeks suddenly flaming. She’d never said anything so brazenly stupid in her entire life. She was surely going to lose her job now.
“I think my cousins would agree with you,” Ryker said. There was still humor in his voice. He wasn’t mad at her.
It was incredible. She grabbed the giant, stuffed blue dragon and crawled atop her bed, wrapping herself around it. Mina had to admit that the sound of Ryker’s voice was nice. It was low, making her feel like she was in a car with the bass turned all the way up.
“You saw what I like to do for fun,” Ryker began. “Tell me what you do for fun.”
Mina paused. She rarely had time for herself. She spent nine hours a day cleaning and then came home and usually spent a few more cleaning this house. Any time she had for herself was spent sleeping.
“I don’t really know,” she whispered into the phone.
“What do you mean you don’t know? Alright. Let’s go through some options.” There was a shuffling sound, like Ryker was wading through his sea of boxes. “Do you like skipping stones over the lake? Or throwing stones through windows of people you hate?”
“That sounds very delinquent.” Though Mina was already imagining throwing a big rock through her uncle’s window. She immediately shook her head to dispel the cruel thought. She didn’t hate her uncle. He was family and no one should hate family.
“Let me try this again.”
She could hear his fingers tapping on a surface while he thought. She imagined him lounging in a chair, feet kicked up on a stack of boxes. Her mind drifted to the holes in the knees of his jeans, and she wanted to feel the exposed skin. The image of herself seated in his lap entered her mind. She pinched herself in the leg to make it go away.
This was a Drake. He belonged to the king’s court. Mina was the lowest of the low, a subservient runt of a dragon who would never mean anything to Ryker. At best, she was an employee, and he was being nice to keep from scaring her away. Truly, his house needed cleaning. He must have been desperate for help if he was smooth talking her and sending her gifts.
“How about this? Do you like long hikes through the woods or sex in the woods?”
She clasped her hand over her mouth, but not before nervous laughter escaped. Her mind responded with another, much lewder, image. This one she could not pinch away. Heat pooled in her core and lingered there, stealing her voice.
“I’m sure you have an answer for that one. It’s not even illegal.”
“Public nudity is a crime,” she managed to squeak.
“Is it? I’ve never been caught, then.”
This time, she broke out in laughter. She buried her face in the stuffed dragon to muffle the sound.
“I like that sound,” Ryker said, almost as if he were surprised. His tone was so light and breathless.
“You should feel honored. I don’t do it often.” Once again, Mina knew she was overstepping boundaries. She had no right to tell him how he should feel.
Ryker didn’t seem to care. “You don’t laugh often? Is your laugh box broken? You should see someone about that. I’m sure I could help. We should start with laughter and then slowly wean you into the illegal things.”
“A laugh box isn’t even a real thing.”
Mina hugged the stuffed dragon closer. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled this much, let alone laughed. For once, she was comfortable. It wasn’t a feeling she experienced very often. Her rank meant she needed to be on alert at all times. She didn’t know who would come for her, who might hurt her.
It wasn’t that the chromatic dragons were cruel. She was simply in the wrong rank. If someone needed help, it was Mina’s job. If someone needed extra cash, it came from Mina’s account. She knew it was her place in life, but it was exhausting.
Footsteps slowly thumped down the hall. She sucked in a breath and held it. On the other end of the call, Ryker growled. The sound intensified the longer she held her breath. She held the phone away from her ear to listen to her uncle’s footsteps. They paused near her door.
She pressed her eyes shut and hoped he would move on. She didn’t want to deal with him tonight. Her phone call with Ryker was too much fun. Yet, the growl on the other end warned her that the conversation was coming to a close. She mourned it but held the few moments they’d had close to her heart.
“Who is hurting you?” Ryker snarled into the phone.
Mina didn’t have the words to explain. Ryker should already know what her life was like. It was his world just as much as it was hers.
“Goodnight, Mr. Drake.”
The anger in his voice faded. It was still there but twisted in a kind of remorseful way that nearly hollowed the sound. “Call me Ryker. Please.”
She couldn’t. It wasn’t her place. Mina hung up. From now on, she would have to keep her head down. She couldn’t afford to let Ryker fixate on her. Their worlds were galaxies apart, it seemed. She thought about asking someone else to trade houses with her, but the idea of letting go of Ryker this soon bothered her more than she wanted to admit.
It was the same part of her that clung to the stuffed animal on her bed and fell asleep with it in her arms.
Chapter Four
Ryker couldn’t get Mina out of his mind. The call had been just to apologize for his idiocy, but he found himself enjoying her attention. She’d been snarky and snapped back at him in a playful way. On tour with the band he worked for, no one had dared look at him, let alone joke with him.
It was different than the way his cousins and their mates teased him. They seemed to look down on him, but Mina acted as if they were equals. It was refreshing, and he found himself craving more and more.
When he heard her breath hitch, the way she held it, his beast had slammed against the barrier between them. The phone had creaked in his hand. He had to force himself to be careful not to break the only connection he had to her.
Ryker stormed outside. He paced the packed earth, tempted to get in his truck and drive to the address he’d gotten earlier just to make sure she was safe. Mina told him she wasn’t in danger, but that hadn’t been comfort he’d heard in her voice.
He regarded the truck for a long time before finally getting inside. He drove down the side of the mountain, windows open while he blasted classic rock tunes. The cold air was a slap in the face, but he welcomed it as it sheared over his shaved scalp. It was like a dip in cool waters. It cleared his head and allowed him to th
ink straight.
Instead of marching into Mina’s home, he drove by. Once or twice. All the lights were off, and no sound came from inside. His beast squirmed uncomfortably. Ryker didn’t want to be the creep that waited outside someone’s door all night, but he didn’t want to leave Mina alone with whatever frightened her, either.
While he warred with himself, he drove to the diner. Its windows glowed, casting rays of light into the dark night. It was nearly empty except for a few bedraggled late-night employees and people who worked overnight shifts in town. He claimed a stool at the counter and plucked a menu from behind it.
The last thing he expected to see was one of his cousins. Worse, even, it was the last cousin he expected. Griffin perched on the stool beside him. His hair was falling out of the tie he kept it in.
“You wouldn’t have that problem if you shaved it,” Ryker suggested.
Griffin’s brows fell flat, but he didn’t say anything.
“Wow. You make for great company,” Ryker said. “It’s no wonder I hopped the first plane out of here.”
His cousins never understood his desire for sound. Silence drove Ryker mad. It left him alone with his thoughts, with the beast that lived inside him. He preferred something boisterous and busy to keep both occupied. Only then could he breathe.
His cousins seemed to love the silence of these mountains. Every one of them thrived in this environment. Last he’d seen Ashton, the copper dragon had a feral gleam in his eyes. Now that he’d returned to Grove and his old flame, Ashton’s beast was better behaved. Ryker wished he knew what made him so different from his family.
The difference made him the black sheep, never able to bridge the gaps between them. So, instead of fighting a useless battle just to be like the other Drakes, he set off and forged his own path in the world. It had been working great, too. Until Jasper’s beast went off the deep end and screwed up Ryker’s life.
“I heard Wyatt and Kennedy used the company money to pay for a maid to clean up your mess,” Griffin said.
“My house was fine. They didn’t like the way I lived, so they took matters into their own hands.” Ryker ordered a coffee and a plate of chicken wings. “What are you doing out and about tonight? Did Jasper escape his cage again?”
Griffin sighed. “No. He’s fine tonight. No sign of the madness.”
The madness. Their king had a few screws loose and no one was doing anything about it. They didn’t think to put him down because he was the last of the gold dragons, the rulers of their mountain and head of the Drake family. But no one else was lifting a finger to figure out where this madness came from.
Perhaps Ryker wasn’t the black sheep of the family after all. Maybe Jasper needed the sound of a city to calm his beast, too. He’d never been allowed to leave the mountain like the others. His place was here and only here. Any other path of life had been blockaded from the beginning.
“What are we going to do about him?” Ryker lifted his tiny diner coffee mug to his lips. They were always too small. He needed a bowl of coffee to get through life here.
“Are we really going to talk about this in public?”
Ryker raised a brow. “Look around. This place isn’t exactly hopping.”
Griffin’s nostrils flared. He’d been by Jasper’s side the longest. They’d been close, practically raised as brothers since Griffin’s parents died when he was young. Jasper’s madness was taking a toll on Griffin, but Griffin was too stoic to let anyone share the weight. It was a miracle he called the other Drakes home at all.
Griffin surveyed the room, carefully taking in everyone in the diner, before sighing in defeat. “Jasper is going to be fine. All he needs to do is get this out of his system.”
“This isn’t a phase. Jasper isn’t rebelling. He seriously hurt Wyatt. Or did you conveniently forget that part? Wyatt’s wings didn’t fully heal until a week after I moved back here. I think that’s cause for concern.”
Griffin looked like he wanted to argue, but Ryker had laid down the facts.
“When did this start? I know I took my time getting here. I’m a bit behind.”
“It started… around the time his father died. I thought it was grief at first, but he doesn’t even talk about his father. I don’t know what else it could be.”
“Jasper hasn’t actually left the mountain,” Ryker asked. “Has he?”
“Well, no. We stop him before he can get that far.”
If Jasper truly wanted to leave the mountains, it would take all four of the metallic Drake cousins to keep him contained. So far, they’d been successfully working with two or three. Ryker didn’t think Jasper actually wanted to leave the mountains. Whatever Jasper or his beast wanted was right under their noses.
Ryker ate his chicken wings in silence. He hated to admit it, but they were better than any wings he’d ever had on the road. Deep frying made the skin crispy and the sauce, a blend of buffalo and honey mustard, had him licking each finger.
When he was finished, his mind returned to Mina. He shouldn’t have been thinking about the maid but worry gnawed at him.
“Have any of you had any problems with the other dragons in town?”
Griffin cocked his head as he took in Ryker. “Not long ago, Wyatt and his mate were having issues with a chromatic dragon. He issued a warning and they’ve been better behaved since then.”
“What kind of issues?”
“The guy didn’t understand boundaries. He kept hitting on Kennedy and following her around after she said no.”
“You didn’t nip that in the bud long ago?” Ryker raised a brow in challenge.
Griffin growled, lip pulling back from his teeth in a human snarl. “I didn’t know there were issues or else I would have dealt with them.”
Ryker didn’t know if he believed his cousin or not. All he knew was that someone scared Mina, and it infuriated him. He couldn’t bear the thought of the small dragon woman living like that. His beast rebelled, trying to break free of his human body so it could sit outside her house.
“We could all do better,” Ryker finally said.
Grove deserved better than a bunch of idiots and a mad king. They needed to get their shit together if the mountain was ever going to be a safe place to live. If they weren’t careful, other dragons would try to poach their land. It didn’t happen often, but if a strong enough family sensed weakness and disorder, they could try to reinstate order by force.
Ryker didn’t want anything to do with responsibility, but he couldn’t argue with the role he’d been born into. He couldn’t leave the mountain in disarray, either. If no one else would look out for them, Ryker would bear the burden and keep them safe.
He paid his tab and left Griffin at the counter. Back in his truck, he drove up and down Mina’s street a few more times, just to be certain she was safe. When he was convinced she would be fine for the last few hours of the night, he retreated to his mountainside home.
Chapter Five
For the first time in her life, Mina did her hair and make-up before heading out to Ryker’s house. She didn’t know what possessed her to do so. It had cost her precious time and her uncle had looked at her strangely before she’d ducked out the door. She made a mental note to take it off before she got home, but for the time being she felt pretty.
She almost felt like she belonged in the presence of a metallic dragon. The phone call from the night before felt like a dream. When she woke, she’d been convinced that it had been a creation of her own mind until she saw the stuffed dragon beside her.
She checked her make-up and hair in the rearview mirror before heading toward the door. There was no loud music playing like last time. She scowled before knocking. Minutes ticked by as she waited with no answer.
Her stomach flipped. She quickly dug out her phone and checked her schedule. It was Thursday. Ryker had her services booked for Thursday. She swallowed and tucked the phone back into her purse.
Maybe he�
�d decided she was too cheeky. More than once she’d challenged him with her words when she should have been subservient. She cursed herself for ruining not only a friendship, but a job opportunity.
Then the door swung open. It slapped the foyer wall and clanged. Ryker hung by the doorframe, dark circles under his eyes and a defeated slope to his shoulders. He ran a hand over his face, blinking several times.
“Are you alright?” Alarm cut through her. She took a step toward him before remembering her place.
His brows furrowed. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, which captured her attention and sent a plume of heat running straight through her.
“Oh my god, you have a nipple piercing.” She slapped her hand over her mouth.
A smirk quirked Ryker’s lips and he brought his chin up. “Why, yes. I do. Do you like it?”
Her face was so hot, Mina was convinced she could have baked cookies on her cheeks. As much as she tried to look away, her gaze kept going back to the bar in his nipple. On either end of it was a tiny steel skull. She reached and flicked it before realizing what she’d done.
Ryker slapped a hand over his chest, over the nipple. His eyes flashed wide with surprise.
“I didn’t mean…I’m so…”
Then he laughed. He doubled over, gasping for air as he continued to laugh. “That deserves a cup of coffee. Come on inside so I can make you a cup before you have to work.”
Mina licked her lips. She should have gotten right to work. The minutes were already ticking by, minutes that she wouldn’t be able to get back. But she followed him through the house anyway, like there was a magnetic pull that tethered her behind him. It helped that his sweatpants hung low over his round ass.
She couldn’t believe she was thinking of a Drake this way. It wasn’t her place. He would never want her. They could be friends, but never more than that. Mina had to remind herself every time her gaze dropped to Ryker’s ass.
Aurum Court Dragons: Boxset Books 1-5 Page 29