While her words would have earned her a smack if she’d been with her Uncle, here she was greeted with respect. Jasper nodded and ran his hands over his face. He promised to do what he could. Mina accepted his words and knew he would follow through with them.
There was no way of knowing when Cora would show up. Mina had to trust that Jasper would do his best to mitigate any future battles.
Chapter Eighteen
The house smelled of Ryker, coffee, and pancakes. It was a wonderful scent to wake up to. Mina rolled over and hugged the nearest object, rather disappointed that it wasn’t Ryker. She squeezed the stuffed dragon once before kicking off the blankets.
It’d been two weeks since the battle at the edge of the mountains. Two weeks since Mina had moved into Ryker’s house. It could have been considered longer, but Mina didn’t count the days she’d slept away. Nothing had changed in those days, while the past two weeks had brought quite a bit of change.
Mina had found a few second-hand records to add to Ryker’s collection. She’d bought a set of brightly colored china to add to his cupboards. Little by little, she left her touch on the house until it became their home. Ryker still played his music a bit too loud, and Mina now sang along to it.
As she padded into the kitchen, his music greeted her. It wasn’t as loud as it could have been, which meant he wanted to talk. Her stomach flipped. Nerves blossomed into butterflies. She knew he wasn’t going to ask her to leave. They were mates. There was no question about it.
What else could Ryker want to talk about?
A stack of pancakes layered like a cake sat on the kitchen counter. It was flanked by two steaming cups of coffee. Ryker leaned against the counter. He wore nothing other than his boxer briefs, which made Mina pause in the hallway to admire the view. His muscled back led into the burgundy fabric tightly hugging his ample behind.
He wiggled his butt, and she let out a laugh. When he threw a smirk over her shoulder, the butterflies in her stomach eased a bit. Still, Mina couldn’t fight back the wariness of uncertainty. She struggled to remind herself to breathe. No errant thoughts entered her mind, which was a sign that things had changed for the better.
She didn’t worry that he would ask her to leave, that he would tell her he’d gotten bored. Yet, the mystery of what he waited to say boggled her.
“Have some coffee,” he said, pushing a light blue mug toward her. “And don’t forget to eat.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. She knew the men liked to make sure their mates were well fed, but there was an underlying tone to his voice that set off alarms in her head. Not scary alarms, but that she was missing something.
Mina didn’t have to scent the air to know that Kennedy hadn’t visited that morning. The kitchen sink was filled with dirty dishes, evidence that Ryker had taken the time to make the stack of pancakes. Truth be told, she hadn’t thought he could cook. It was obvious he couldn’t clean up after himself, though.
“This is…weird.” Mina couldn’t take it anymore.
Ryker toyed with the spoon in his coffee, taking his time.
“Something is going on and I don’t like it. If you don’t spit it out, I’m going to go turn up the music.”
When he did finally look up at her, there was an honest clarity in his eyes that shook her. She saw worry, fear, and love, but she didn’t know where any of that had come from. Their relationship had been fine. He knew her boundaries and no longer asked her to sing karaoke with her. She had gotten used to the sound of his music while she fell asleep.
There was nothing wrong!
“I found…” Ryker struggled to express himself. “I found something…in the trash. I’m not sure…I didn’t know that you wanted…”
Mina felt the blood drain from her face. She raised her hands. “Oh, no! That’s not mine. The pregnancy test isn’t mine!”
Ryker shot upright. If they hadn’t been having a conversation, Mina would have leaned to the right to watch his cock bounce from the sudden movement.
“Kennedy came over yesterday,” Mina explained. Wyatt’s mate had needed a friend. Since they were both new to the family, Kennedy said she found it easy to talk to Mina. So, when she was panicking over not knowing if she was pregnant, Mina suggested she come over and try a pregnancy test. That way, the result could be buried in their trash where Wyatt would never have to see it.
“Thank god,” Ryker breathed after she explained.
Mina couldn’t help it; she laughed. She rounded the kitchen island and laid her hands on Ryker’s chest. Instinctually, he pulled her into an embrace.
“I guess it’s time to have a conversation about children,” Mina said with a smirk.
“I know I’m supposed to as one of Jasper’s court, but I just…” Ryker trailed off. Mina waited patiently for him to go on. She could see that he had a lot to unpack. “I don’t think I’m cut out to be a father. I just never saw it in my future. Babies are just so breakable. Everything about them is small and fragile.”
He grimaced, as if he expected Mina to put up a fight. People acted like children were the height of a woman’s life, but Mina had expected to be nothing more than a breeding mare for some dragon. The future she’d found instead kicked out every expectation and gave her room to examine what she actually wanted.
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” Mina whispered as she wrapped her arms around Ryker’s neck. “The court is enough for me. I don’t want kids. If it happens in the future, then so be it, but until then I am blissfully happy that it is just you and me.”
Ryker grinned. The expression made his eyes shine like stars. Elation filled her chest. When he leaned in and claimed her lips, Mina knew her place in the world. It was not, as her uncle had always told her, at the bottom of the clan, but beside Ryker and the other metallic dragons. There were no rules barring her from their world, and even if there were, she would have smashed them all.
She had the strength to do anything.
GRIFFIN DRAKE
Emilia Hartley
Chapter One
Lilah couldn’t believe it. She was late again. Cursing under her breath as she breezed through the door, she stopped dead in her tracks when she noticed her manager standing with his hands on his hips. The dark look in his eyes said enough.
Nothing Lilah told him could save this job. She pressed her eyes shut and swallowed, trying to come up with a miraculous excuse. Perhaps she could say she stopped to help an innocent fawn out of the road. Maybe if she told her manager that the fawn had been injured and she had to whisk it to the veterinary hospital, then she would still have a job.
None of that was true, of course. The only thing that had waylaid Lilah had been her own flesh and blood. Her manager wouldn’t care that her sister appeared on her doorstep again. That her sibling kept her up all night, making her sleep through alarm after alarm. All that mattered was that Lilah had been late.
Again.
She followed her manager into the office, avoiding the gaze of the girl standing behind the checkout counter where Lilah should have been. The manager said exactly what Lilah was expecting. A sense of dread and finality should have dragged her stomach to the floor, but Lilah only felt a dead resignation.
Another job gone.
The curse had struck again.
Lilah told herself it wasn’t the end of the world. She had some savings, just enough to buy food for a few days, and could look for another job while she changed the locks in her doors. Maybe, if she kept her sister out, then she would finally be able to hold down a job. Her references would be absolute crap, but she could start fresh. She’d work her way from the bottom to the top again.
She reached into her purse, fully intending to buy herself a drink, but her fingers found nothing. Panic crackled in her chest. It crept up, tightening her throat, when she jerked her purse open. Where there should have been a wallet was only an empty space.
Her resignation finally cracked, and dread pull
ed her into the sidewalk. She should have known better. If it was the work of the curse, then the only way this night could go was down. The lights strung from post to post glittered happily around her, only serving to remind her that the world kept going on while she fell apart time and time again.
“Fuck you, too, little sister.” Lilah grumbled.
She sighed, feeling tears burn her eyes, and slumped against the building. Any minute, the manager would come out and accuse her of loitering, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. She felt adrift. One moment, Lilah had the strength to rebuild her life, and the next, it crumbled into ashes.
Knowing her little sister, she had already taken her cash, withdrawn whatever she could from her debit card, and was working on the credit cards. Lilah knew she needed to call her bank, but it broke her heart. No matter how many times she tried to help her sister out of the messes she got herself into, she would walk right back in.
Lilah had listened to her mother’s final wishes and done her best to stand by her sister, but if she kept destroying her own life…well, Lilah would have to cut her off. She had to start thinking of herself.
***
Griffin was tired, too tired to deal with his family. The numbers kept growing. Each cousin that returned home suddenly found themselves with a mate, turning a group of five into a group of eight. Griffin couldn’t handle everyone who came and went, their shrill laughter and tendency to seek him out as if he actually enjoyed their presence.
On and on the mates would go about his inability to find a woman. He, it seemed, was the only metallic dragon who had not yet found a mate. Even Jasper had found a woman, though she rightfully ran away from him.
Served Jasper right, Griffin thought. Jasper was the king of fools. He’d inherited the mountains and all who lived in them, but Griffin couldn’t help but think Jasper took it all for granted. While Jasper was losing battles to his own beast, Griffin had been the one there to pick up the pieces. He’d replaced damn near every table in Jasper’s house, gone to fetch the blasted beast more times than he could count, and kept it all under wraps so no one had to know they were an absolute mess.
What did Griffin get out of it? A whole lot of nothing,
He walked the streets of Grove, in the small bubbles of glowing light over the sidewalks, just to escape the chaos that his home had become. His father would have called him ungrateful. He would have smacked Griffin for the bitter thoughts crouching in his mind. Thankfully, his father was long gone. Almost all of the former court had passed.
The bright light of a convenience store spilled out onto the street, almost garish. What stopped Griffin was the silhouette leaning against the window. His heart beat quickened, though he didn’t understand why. The closer he came, close enough to reach out as he passed by, he realized it was a woman. She barely spared him a glance before her eyes went heavenward again.
Griffin was struck by the clean line of her cheekbones, by the puckered pout of her dark red lips. She reached and swiped at her cheek. Griffin meant to keep walking. Whatever she was going through, it wasn’t his problem, but he only got a few steps past her before he paused. The beast rose with an echoing growl.
Griffin had no time for beasts or women. He wanted nothing to do with either. He would have welcomed a thousand-year fairy sleeping curse just to get the peace and quiet he craved, but he turned back toward the woman instead.
He didn’t know what he was thinking. If anything, he blamed his beast for putting him on autopilot. Yet, when he reached her, the beast released it’s hold on him and left him wordless.
This time, she righted herself and cleared away any evidence that she’d been crying. Griffin searched for the right thing to say but came up empty-handed. He could do anything he put his mind to, but when faced with a woman, he became useless.
No wonder he couldn’t find a mate.
He sighed. “You look like you’re having a rough night. I was just on my way to get a drink. Do you want to come with me?”
He hadn’t been on his way to get a drink, but she looked like she could use one. Once he mentioned it, a drink sounded like a good idea. He craved a glass of good whiskey. Especially since Jasper had taken to stealing any bottles that were brought anywhere near the manor grounds.
At first, she said nothing. Griffin found himself staring at her lips again and forced himself to look away. Which only brought his gaze lower. His beast stirred and his cheeks warmed.
“I, ah,” she stumbled over her words.
Griffin realized that the beast had crawled into his eyes. He could feel the changes there, the way his eyes tingled as the silver flooded them. There was no hiding what he was. She must have been a local who knew what he was because she began to shrink away from him. The gesture, no matter how instinctual, hurt.
He hadn’t expected that kind of rejection to sting, but it had. Most of his life, he’d used his intimidating presence to keep people away. The one time he actually wanted to get closer to someone, the blade became double-edged.
“It’s my treat,” he added. “If you don’t come along, I’ll have to drink on my own, and we both know how pathetic that is.”
“I would never call someone like you pathetic,” she muttered.
Griffin knew she was referring to his beast, the creature inside him, but he couldn’t help the pathetic feeling lurking within. He wondered why he’d yet to find a mate. Even surly Jasper had found a woman. What was so wrong with him that he was forced to stand on the outside of everything? Always alone, always apart from the joy around him, Griffin had started to think he would never find someone willing to deal with him.
The bitterness that had festered inside him for years was partially to blame. As was the intimidating look that always graced his face. Both kept everyone around him at a distance. If he let go of either, then there was a chance he could feel close to someone. Griffin didn’t know how to do it. He was no more able to let go of the bitterness than to ignore the beast inside him. It just didn’t work.
But, the woman fighting a full breakdown beside him vanquished the bitterness with one glance. Being in her presence made it easier to breathe. Griffin wondered what sorcery this was but didn’t want to ask for fear of breaking the spell.
Chapter Two
The bar was dimly lit. It smelled of leather, whiskey, and the ghost of cigar smoke. She followed the dragon man through the room, expecting him to settle on a bar stool at the counter. Instead, he gave a nod to the bartender before pushing open a door at the far end of the room. It opened into a sterile stairwell where the scent of fresh air tried to greet her.
The dragon man looked back at her and must have seen her hesitation. “I promise you I’m not trying to lead you into trouble.” He jerked his chin toward the narrow and winding stairs that seemed to climb infinitely. “The bar can feel too small for me, so I drink on the roof.”
“The roof?” Lilah repeated. She felt like a fool in front of him, like a speck that he could crush in the blink of an eye.
Yet, there was something about the careful way he spoke, the way he reassured her time and time again, that told her he would always be careful around her. She was not insignificant to him, but she couldn’t imagine why. They knew nothing about one another. He was a dragon shifter, one of the metallic beasts that secretly ruled over Grove. She was just a human who happened to live among monsters.
Lilah had wanted to escape this town for as long as she could remember, dreaming of cities far away, like Seattle and Portland. Her sister’s bad habits had kept her firmly planted in Grove, where a dragon could burn down half a mountain and it would be just another Tuesday.
The beasts were truly terrifying, but here she was, having a drink with one.
It was a strange day, indeed.
Lilah followed him up the several flights of stairs. She expected to find one lonely table waiting just for him, but the roof was outfitted with several now that the snow had begun to melt, a ra
re burst of warmth for early April that had cleared Grove. There were even towering heaters turning the space into a private getaway. It felt intimate, in a way. Especially since there was no one else drinking up here.
The dragon man took a seat near the edge of the building, where a small wall rose to keep them from falling to the ground below. Lilah glanced at the door behind her, thinking of running while he was staring at the town below. She surprised herself by stepping toward him.
Lilah had nothing to fear. The dragon men were intimidating, but they weren’t murderers. She finally pushed herself forward to claim the seat across from him. His hair was tied back, silver white like the moon above. He must have been the silver dragon of the court.
Though she knew he’d never left Grove, he’d gone mostly unseen. Lilah had lost count of the number of times she’d seen the king flying over town. Now that more of the metallic dragons had returned, she’d caught glimpses of them, too. The silver dragon, though she knew he existed, was far more reclusive.
Lilah caught herself wondering why as she stared at him. Then, his gaze slid to her. His expression was somber and hard to read. She couldn’t see past his mercuric eyes to whatever lay beneath. Hell, she hardly understood why he’d invited her to have a drink with him. It had been completely unexpected.
Perhaps it had been for him, too. She struggled to envision him bringing woman after woman to this roof. It would have been easier if he’d been slicker with his words, but he seemed to fumble with them just as much as she did. There was no practiced ease in the way he’d invited her. He sure as hell didn’t know how to start a conversation.
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