“I messed up yesterday,” Ryker said, his voice low. When she looked to him, his eyes were no longer on the tart, but on her. “While I’m not quite sure what I did, I want to make it up to you.”
Mina straightened and stepped back. This was too far. She could feel the tug that drew her into him but fought against it even though it felt like a losing battle. It was unrelenting. Mina didn’t understand why she felt this way, but knew she needed to turn back.
There was a mess to be cleaned. It was her job. As she brought down the wall of business between them, it became easier to ignore the sensation twisting her stomach. She glanced at the tart in the container. Someone had taken care to write an apology into it.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” she told him, spinning on her heel to get back to work.
***
Ryker was stunned. The beast in him roared with anger, but he slapped his hand over the stereo remote and cranked up the music once more. Kennedy’s tart sat untouched. He smirked at the message she’d written on it, but the humor didn’t quite reach his soul. He pushed it aside as his stomach hit the floor.
Mina had fled as quickly as possible. He could taste her on his lips. The music had scrambled his mind enough that he hadn’t noticed the way the taste haunted him, but with Mina in the house, he couldn’t ignore it any longer.
She asked him what caused the disaster that was the living room. Truthfully, it hadn’t been there when he’d gone to ask her to come back and clean. He’d lied about that mess, but when he came back and the feeling of his life slipping between his fingers had become too much, Ryker had lost control.
He’d let the beast expend a bit of its pent-up frustrations in the living room. Ryker would need all new furniture now. It crossed his mind to ask Mina what she would like to see in the living room, but it was a useless desire. No matter how much he wanted her in his life, she was doing everything she could to avoid him.
Ryker should have bitten her the other day. He should have shown her that he was serious about their courting, but there’d been so much going on that day. The threat still was not over. Jasper was giving the other dragons time to leave before he approached them. He was doing his best to avoid a confrontation for the sake of Grove, but it was beginning to look like a battle was on the horizon.
He stared at the door Mina left through. He could hear her, even with the music blasted, singing to herself in the living room. It was the kind of sound he would have given his life to hear over and over. Gripping the edge of the counter, he paused and let himself listen to Mina. Her voice was soft and sweet, nothing like Makenna’s smoky voice.
This was nicer, he thought, though he might be a bit biased. Mina’s voice enchanted him and drew him out of his sulking mood. He padded toward the hall, doing his best to keep from frightening her away. From the shadows, he watched her dance around the living room. A smile curled over his lips.
Her hair was pulled up into a messy bun with feathery locks fluttering all around her as she bounced and swayed with the music. She was jamming pieces of furniture into thick plastic bags while nodding her head. When a solo came on, she closed her eyes, clenched her fist, and belted the words.
Ryker was captivated by the sheer sight of Mina allowing herself this small freedom. His heart thumped when he realized the only time she was ever this brave was in his house. The beast stirred inside him, hungry and filled with pride. Mina was safe here. She was happy here, despite every inch of space she tried to put between them.
If he thought she’d go for it, he would have given Mina her own room. Her presence would have made it difficult to sleep, his mind always on her, but he would know that she was happy and safe. Before she could see him, he turned back. He found what he was looking for and folded it into his palm.
When he returned, she was still singing. A new song came on. This one was familiar, one of the classic rock songs that had pulled him from this small town in the Colorado mountains and made him want to live a life on the road. Laughably, the song was about finding home with a soul mate.
Ryker stepped up to Mina. He swept her into his arms, pressing her palm into his as his arm wrapped around her lower back. Immediately, her face flushed red, but she didn’t pull away. Ryker counted that as a small win.
He joined in, singing the lyrics, as he spun her in a circle. Her embarrassment quickly turned to laughter. The way she smiled lit up the room. Maybe the sun had broken through the clouds outside, but it certainly seemed to do so only for Mina.
Together, they laughed and danced for an hour. If Mina noticed what he’d tucked into her palm, she didn’t show it. Not until the stereo ran out of songs in the playlist and their feet began to slow. It was as if her mind had caught up and she’d realized something, stumbling out of his embrace.
She stared down at her open palm. Ryker’s heart raced nervously. He couldn’t read the expression on his face. While his beast growled, his mind dredged up every bad thing that could happen. He clenched and unclenched his fists in the hopes that it would leech off a bit of the nervous energy rattling his mind.
“I don’t think I understand,” Mina said, finally looking up to meet his eyes. Her own were glassy with unsteady tears.
At first, he opened his mouth, but then he closed it when nothing came to him. In her hand was the key to the house, but to Ryker it was so much more. He wasn’t the kind of guy to talk about his feelings. He was more about getting things done. It was something he was actually good at. People listened to him when he told them what to do. He didn’t balk at doing new things.
Yet, faced with this step in his life, he found himself struggling. All he needed to do was explain how he felt. It was simple, actually. No matter how he tried, nothing came out.
“Is this a key to your house?” Mina’s hand closed around it and his heart swelled with hope. “This better not be an invitation to clean after you on my days off.”
He laughed. The sound was strangled and surprised him, but it loosened the knots in his chest all the same. Ryker was a big and commanding man, but this small woman managed to shake him up until he was nothing more than a racing heartbeat.
“It is not an invitation to clean,” he clarified. “It’s just an invitation. You’re welcome here whenever you want. The door will always be open for you.”
Mina was silent. The minutes ticked by, and Ryker thought she might throw it back in his face after all. He wished he could sweep her up once again, press his body into hers and show her all the ways he wanted her. His beast thought that would change her mind, but he refused to coerce her. He wouldn’t force himself on her or even try to seduce her.
He needed Mina to choose him, to come to him. He knew it was the only way this would work. If he kept pushing and fighting for her, she might keep running.
“Ryker, I…”
Chapter Eleven
Before Mina could finish what she’d been about to say, a roar split the air. Their heads shot up. Outside the glass windows, Mina spotted the familiar gold shape that was Jasper. This time, he wasn’t alone.
Ryker cursed. He raced toward the nearest door. Mina followed hot on his heels.
“Stay here,” he warned her, yanking his shirt over his head.
Jasper cried out in pain, the sound twisting into a roar of anger. Her stomach clenched. There was no way he was leaving her behind. Ryker might have been part of the king’s court, but Jasper was her king too. She couldn’t leave him alone.
Especially as no other mountain dragons rose to help him. Ryker tossed his shirt to the ground. His form rippled and grew larger, the sheen of steel emerging from his spine. Mina carefully placed the key he’d given her into her pocket before peeling off her own clothing. They would have to talk about what the key meant later.
While it seemed pressing, the thought of what it might mean making her head spin, there were other problems at hand. Ryker shoved off the ground, great scaled wings hoisting him into the air. Moment
s later, she followed. Her own small form split through the air. She was much faster than Ryker. She would reach Jasper and the other dragons before he did.
Mina tried not to think about what that meant. She focused on the fight ahead. The closer they got, the better she could see. Jasper fought three dragons. Two held onto his back feet while one wrapped around his neck. He tossed his head this way and that, but he couldn’t break free of the third dragon.
Fighting wasn’t exactly Mina’s area of expertise. She’d only ever flown by herself. Avoiding the other chromatic dragons had helped her avoid fights. Only once before had she flown into one and that’d been to detain Jasper. This fight felt more dangerous. There was more at stake.
She folded in on herself and became a streaking bullet. Just as she was about to fly past the dragon on Jasper’s neck, she lashed out with her claws. Small and sharp, they sunk into the unfamiliar dragon’s scales. She used her momentum to tear the unfamiliar dragon off Jasper.
Behind her, Ryker roared. The sound rumbled through her. She couldn’t tell if he was mad that she’d joined the fray or if it was a warning to the unfamiliar dragons. There was no way she was leaving. She met his gaze and yanked her claws out of the unfamiliar dragon’s scales.
While she was watching Ryker, the unfamiliar dragon she’d engaged spun around. She blocked against his claws but didn’t see the barbs on the end of his tail. It hit her in the side. The sharp scales dragged along hers, making her hiss in pain. She flapped her wings to put space between them, but the tail was stuck in her side.
The dragon jerked and drew her back in. Mina knew she’d made a mistake, but at least the dragon was no longer bothering Jasper. That was all she’d wanted to do. The pain burning in her side was acceptable.
Ryker didn’t seem to think so. He bypassed his king and went straight for the dragon clutching Mina. She wanted to tell him not to worry about her, to go back to Jasper, but she saw the gold beast reach down and rip the two dragons off his hind legs in one swoop.
Oh, she thought.
The metallic dragons were so much stronger than she would ever be. Their brute force turned this battle around. She was just an annoying fly buzzing around them.
Ryker’s claws closed around the unfamiliar dragon’s neck. Wind buffeted them all from his great wings as he hovered near them. Carefully, he reached forward and unhooked the barbed tail from her side. There was a moment of relief, but it didn’t last long, hot pain lancing through her ribs once more.
Mina cried out, but she managed to stabilize herself before she plummeted. The ground below seemed to roll in waves. She knew it was the pain playing tricks on her eyes, but the sight still made her stomach churn.
When she looked up, another unfamiliar dragon was rushing toward her. They’d identified the weakest, she realized. Her heart thudded right before she shot upward. Just when she thought she’d escaped the dragon, she jerked to a halt. A clawed hand gripped the tip of her tail. The dragon jerked and she spiraled.
Before she could get too far, the dragon spun around and slapped her with his own tail, as if he was playing baseball. She spun. Her mind swam. She had no fire to fight with, no weapons in her arsenal beside teeth and claws.
And speed.
Mina’s wings snapped open, stabilizing her in the air. Instead of turning back toward the fight, she kept flying straight. When she had gone a good distance, she arched up and swooped around. The three unfamiliar dragons were still harassing Jasper and Ryker. She quickly scanned the sky for more of Jasper’s court, but no one appeared.
It was just the three of them versus the three unfamiliar dragons. Mina wished she could have been more help. As it was, she worried this would not work. Air rushed past her ears, thunderously loud. She pulled her limbs tight to her body and sped up.
Ryker was going to be mad that she came back at all. He would just have to deal with it. There was no way she could leave them on their own; even if she was only a little help, she was still helping.
Jasper and Ryker moved out of the way. They didn’t see her; it was only a lucky happenstance. They created a window through which she could see one of the unfamiliar dragons; the same one who’d stabbed her.
Exhilaration pumped through her veins. If she’d been in her human form, her hands would have been shaking from the adrenaline of it all. One moment, she was streaking between Jasper and Ryker. The next, she collided with the unfamiliar dragon. The sound of crunching bones filled the air.
All other sound paused. An ache bloomed in her shoulder, warning her that she’d crunched more than the other dragon’s bones. Still, her wings worked, keeping her afloat. She watched the other dragon race toward the ground, feeling triumphant. Now it was a fair fight.
Mina wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around her. She didn’t see the shadow looming behind her. One moment, she was gloating, the next, a darkness rose and claimed her.
Chapter Twelve
Ryker sat on the edge of his seat. He was close to sliding off, nothing more than a sack of bones and exhaustion. Nothing in this world ever struck him quite like this. He waited, as if standing on fractured ice. At some point, the rest would have to break, and the cold waters would rush up to greet him with an unimaginable truth.
Mina had been sleeping for days.
Days.
Ryker was starting to worry that she would never wake. He was moments away from shooting out of his seat and marching over to the encampment of dragons on the edge of the mountain territory. The dragon that’d hit her with its tail must have had some sort of natural poison. Ryker was sure of it.
Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to leave her side.
When she’d fallen, he’d caught her and taken her back to his home. There was no way he would leave her in her uncle’s charge. Ryker had gone to visit the man, mostly to gather some of her things so she would have them when she woke. He’d marched through the house and into Mina’s room. Her uncle shouted after him the whole time, asking where Mina was and why Ryker thought he could enter his home.
There had been no trace of his ferocious dragon woman in that house. No photos of her framed on the wall. No cute trinkets she might have picked out sitting on the shelves. The only thing that gave away her presence was her own bedroom.
Ryker had gathered everything he could, from her quilt to the ludicrous dragon he’d bought her—which had been tucked into the bed at the time. When he’d turned to leave, her uncle had filled the door frame. It was then that the man noticed the cold steel in Ryker’s eyes.
His mouth flapped and Ryker was sure a crap apology was on its way. He didn’t stay to listen to it. There was no difference between Ryker and Mina, none that would make anyone treat them any differently and yet it seemed the whole town walked all over her. He was tired of it. She was the bravest soul he’d ever known.
The woman had been stabbed by a barbed tail and still chose to fight. In fact, she’d managed to knock out a dragon all on her own. Ryker hadn’t even seen her coming. She’d been nothing more than a dark blur before he’d heard the crunching sound of bones. Alarm had hit him, but it quickly turned to pride when he saw the falling dragon.
He’d been watching the dragon plummet. His attention should have been on Mina. Another dragon had come up behind her. Perhaps angered by the treatment of his friend, the unfamiliar dragon had knocked her out cold. While Ryker rushed to catch her, Jasper chased the remaining dragons back to their encampment.
Ryker wanted to know what had started the fight, but he couldn’t leave Mina.
Jasper had promised to wait, to give the dragons time to leave. No one thought he would go hunting the unfamiliar dragons, but they should have. Jasper’s beast was unstable. They all knew that. It’d only been a matter of time before he did something to put them all in danger.
Ryker dropped his face into his hands. His groan became a roar of frustration. Beside him, a small sound came from the bed. Mina’s brows furrowed an
d her lips pursed. She moaned, grumbling something he couldn’t understand as she turned on her side and curled around the massive stuffed beast.
His heart soared. He leapt to his feet only to crouch beside her bed, taking her hands in his. Once more, Mina mumbled something. It was only when her nose twitched, taking in his scent, that she stopped grumbling. A look of satisfaction crossed her lips.
Ryker wanted to crawl into bed with her. He wanted to leave his mark on her skin so that all others knew she was not to be messed with. Until she woke and gave him permission, he would do neither. Everyone in Mina’s life had pressured her, beat her down. Ryker wanted to give her freedom to be whoever she wanted to be.
Even if that meant being without him.
The thought physically pained him. It sent his beast into a rage, but he refused to cage her like so many had done. Mina deserved better than that.
***
A familiar scent tickled her nose. It pleased her, whatever this scent was. It calmed the beast inside her and set her at ease. She snuggled deeper into the blankets, even as pain sparked along her ribs.
Little by little, the fight came back to her. Before she recalled any of that, she remembered singing and dancing with Ryker. She remembered the key tucked in her jeans pocket. Just thinking of it filled her with warmth. When she got out of bed, she was going to drive out to see him.
If her body agreed. Her every muscle ached. Eyes still closed, she tested them one by one. Each muscle twitch, each stretch, brought back a moment of the fight. Mina had taken one of the dragons down. All on her own. Yet, it had cost her.
She scowled, thinking about it. It’d been a foolish mistake, not watching her own shoulder. Next time, she would do better. Next time, she’d protect Jasper. She’d fight alongside Ryker.
“What are you doing in there? Dancing?” Ryker’s voice was filled with laughter. It was bright, tinged with something else. Fear. Worry.
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