***
Griffin could already hear the sounds of his cousins and their mates inside. He scowled and turned toward his door, hoping to avoid them altogether. He was tired of their attempts at family days. At trying to be anything more than the jumble of messed up people that they were. All he wanted was to be left alone.
Instead, Kennedy called out to him. She stood on the front steps, waving her arms to get his attention. Of all the mates, she was the one he couldn’t ignore. And she knew it. He narrowed his eyes at her, shoved his hands in his pockets, and slowly approached.
The sun had come up and was now glaring in his face. It taunted him with light while his head throbbed. Perhaps he shouldn’t have finished off the bottle of whiskey. While his bank account barely budged at the cost of the bottle, his fortitude was not as strong as he’d thought.
“Are you just now crawling back for the day?” Kennedy scolded him with a smirk.
He wanted to mock her and trudge back to his door, but that would mean giving up her salted chocolate chip cookies. And her inevitable charades performances where she mocked one of the dragons. As a human woman, it was endlessly entertaining. Especially when she pretended to be Jasper pinning the tail on a paper dragon.
“What do you want from me?” He shielded his eyes from the sun as he spoke.
She wrinkled her nose and waved at the air between them. “You need to brush your teeth. You smell like a liquor cabinet.”
“That happens when I drink a whole bottle.”
“You drank it all by yourself?” she asked, her voice rising several octaves.
“Actually, no. I didn’t drink it all by myself. Though, I did drink most of it.”
Excitement lit across Kennedy’s face. Her jaw dropped and she clapped her hands together. Griffin was two seconds away from bolting for his door. He’d outfitted it with a wooden bar, but that wouldn’t stop Ashton from crawling through a window once Kennedy ran inside to tell the others that Griffin had been with someone. His youngest cousin had no pride whatsoever.
“Don’t get so worked up. There was some other lonely fool at the bar, and I bought her a drink,” he lied. “We didn’t even speak.”
He thought of Lilah, missing her with a sudden ache. He wanted to drag his phone from his pocket and check to see if she’d called, even though he knew she wasn’t going to contact him. He’d ruined all chances with her. All he could do was move on. And that meant lying to his family. If he didn’t, they would hunt Lilah down and bother her to no end.
“You’re hopeless,” Kennedy groaned. “Before you disappear to sleep the day away, Wyatt wanted you to know it’s your turn to keep an eye out for Jasper.”
Griffin’s lip curled. “Make someone else do it.”
He’d been chasing after his older cousin for years. It was all he’d ever done with his life besides replacing broken tables in that house. Now that the others had returned, they could start to make up for all the years they’d left Griffin to handle this on his own.
Kennedy scowled, though. “No. I want a date with my mate. I think all the girls are missing their mates because of this damned fight. If the guys aren’t on patrols, they’re waiting for Jasper to snap.”
As much as he wanted to growl at the human woman, he couldn’t. Not at Kennedy. Maybe if it’d been Makenna, he would have been able to say his piece. If it’d been Mina, he would have frightened the shifter back inside.
Griffin had worked too hard to be pushed back into servitude so quickly. Just because they had mates now, did not mean they could shirk all their duties to take a quick visit to pound town. His jaw clenched as he tried to think of an excuse that would free him from her plea, but he came up with nothing.
In the end, he ran his hand through his hair and told her he hadn’t slept. He would be of no use to anyone without sleep. Kennedy wasn’t moved.
“Whose fault is that?” she asked, a subtle blow to the gut.
“I hope someone eats you,” Griffin mumbled under his breath.
Kennedy chuckled, clearly having heard despite her human ears. “My mate does every night.”
Griffin grimaced, knowing he brought that on himself. It was not a mental image he needed. His mind saved him, plucking Lilah from his memories. Though her face was shrouded by the shadows of the night, the only way he’d seen her, he could still clearly imagine her face painted with pleasure.
The thought made him pause. If it crossed his face, Kennedy didn’t see it because she was already leaving. He came crashing back into reality once more, and felt a divide split open between him and the rest of the court. Though he could claim friendship with Kennedy and familial ties with the other dragons, Griffin couldn’t have felt more alone.
None of them seemed to take the time he’d already paid into account. They never once stopped to ask him if he was falling apart. He pulled his spine straight because he had to, kept moving forward because he had to.
Chapter Four
Lilah woke with a start. She panicked and reached for her phone, only to remember that she hadn’t set an alarm because she no longer had a job. The phone slipped from her fingers to fall on her chest. She lay there and stared at the ceiling for a long while.
While she tried to gather her options, one she thought had been thoroughly dismissed returned to the forefront. Before she could think long about Griffin’s offer, her phone vibrated on her chest. Dread curled in her stomach. It was probably her sister, looking for a place to crash once more. Vivi probably wanted more money and was lurking to see if she could root through Lilah’s drawers for a hidden stash.
But the message wasn’t from her sister.
It was from her service provider. The bill was too long overdue, and her service had been shut off. Lilah threw the phone across the room and pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes to stem the flow of hot tears. She hadn’t even known the bill was late. It came in the mail like clockwork, which she always paid moments after opening. Everything seemed to be falling apart all at once, and she didn’t know how to keep it together.
Her job was gone. She was being evicted from her apartment. To add to that, her phone was now shut off. Even if she wanted to call Griffin and accept his weird offer to be his stand-in girlfriend, she couldn’t. The only thing that could make her situation any worse was if her car broke down. She prayed her thoughts wouldn’t come true.
Bumble gracefully stomped across the bed in a way that only a cat could and stopped just short of her face to yowl for food. The cat’s hot and fishy breath propelled her out of bed once and for all. Lilah knew her life wouldn’t stop just because she wanted to stay in bed all day. The world would keep spinning.
She needed to start applying for new jobs and find someplace to live until she could save for another security deposit. But she had no one to turn to. Of course, she had a few friends in Grove. Many were old coworkers. Most of them were allergic to cats or had dogs that wouldn’t get along with Bumble.
She dumped half a tin of wet food into Bumble’s dish. Her best friend was a fuzzy, black and orange feline. No matter what position she was in, she wouldn’t get rid of him. She would just have to find a way to buy a little time.
Collapsing into a kitchen chair with a cup of black coffee, she watched Bumble pull his wet food out of the dish and eat it over the floor. It brought a resigned sigh to her lips, and she let her head fall into her hand. When the cat was done, he leapt atop the table even though she’d worked hard to teach him he didn’t belong there. Bumble pressed his head into her cheek.
His little chirpy sounds twisted her heart. She pulled him into her arms and held him like a stuffed animal. He’d let her do this a few times before, always when she felt her lowest. Bumble always seemed to know. His purr rumbled through her chest and slowly eased the ache that had been building there.
Little by little, reality came crashing in. Her shoulders dropped. She fingered her phone, a useless hunk of technology, and realized she
couldn’t log into her bank account to see how much Vivi had taken from her. She couldn’t even call her bank to cancel her cards. Sighing, she dropped her face into her hands.
She didn’t even know how her phone service got turned off!
“Should I call the dragon man?” she asked her cat.
The feline didn’t speak, just kept on purring.
“You’re right,” she told the cat. “It’s such a weird offer. Who asks someone to pretend to be their girlfriend?”
She set the cat down on the floor and left her coffee. Lilah had no time to waste. She needed to be on the street, filling out applications and speaking to managers. If she could leave a good impression, then there was a chance she could have a job by the end of the day. After that, she could look into new apartments.
On her way into the bedroom, she paused near her tipped purse. It looked like Bumble had tried to get into it at some point. The cat had pulled Griffin’s business card out and chewed on the corner, if the tiny teeth holes were any indication. While the number on the white card briefly made her reconsider her decision, she realized she had no way of getting ahold of him.
Her phone had been disconnected.
Unless she wanted to hunt down a dragon man, his offer was no longer valid. While Lilah told herself she wouldn’t know where to begin searching for him, everyone in Grove knew where the dragons could be found. The massive cabin-inspired manor on the side of the mountain was the home of the gold dragons, a popular place for the others to convene.
Lilah remembered little of the current metallic dragons from her days in high school. She’d done her best to fly under the radar and stay far, far away from them. There had been fearless girls, like Makenna, who flocked to the dragon shifters, but Lilah was not one of them.
Not with the curse that hovered over her head.
It was said that ages ago, one of the James women crossed a witch. When Lilah’s ancestor unwittingly stole a suitor from the witch, a curse was placed on the entire family. This curse was to blame for the string of bad luck that followed Lilah and Vivi everywhere they went, from Vivi’s failed business ventures and unfaithful lovers to Lilah’s complete inability to hold down any kind of job. The curse was also the reason their parents had been taken away from them in a car accident.
Lilah couldn’t imagine what kind of havoc the curse would cause if it got tangled with a dragon shifter. Just the thought of fire made her swallow the lump building in her throat. Lilah refused to be caught up in that kind of horror. She would keep to herself and keep her sister at bay. Maybe then she would be able to build a stable life.
Dressed as if she already had an interview, Lilah stepped outside. The air was beginning to warm. It still held a chill if the wind blew too hard, but the snow was melting under the intense rays of the bright sun overhead. The change of seasons breathed hope into Lilah. It was the start of something new.
Taking the first step forward, she paused when her neighbor appeared with a stack of letters. The guy looked positively guilty, his brows pressed into one line and his shoulders pulled tight.
“Good morning, Morty,” Lilah said.
“Ah, yeah. I, uh, have been out of state for a while. Mom was sick and needed help.” He went on with unnecessary details about his mother’s illness before finally thrusting the stack of letters toward her. “It seems that I was getting your mail for a while. I’m sorry I couldn’t get it to you before now.”
Lilah stared dumbfounded at the stack in her hands, while a red-faced Morty retreated to his house. Flipping through them, she saw a familiar logo on many of them. She counted five bills from her service provider and one angry letter from her landlord, among various other things. The sound that should have been a groan turned into a roar of frustration.
Her cell phone bill hadn’t been paid because she hadn’t been getting it. With her sister constantly in and out of the house, Lilah hadn’t noticed. She’d been too wrapped up in putting Vivienne back together and helping her onto her feet.
Lilah hadn’t thought about herself. The curse hadn’t let her, so that it could do its work. Lilah pressed her eyes shut and put the issue to the back of her mind. She wasn’t going to get anywhere if she let the curse constantly prod her. She wouldn’t fall to pieces.
She wouldn’t.
Yet, when she turned the key in her car, the engine made no sound. It didn’t even try to turn over. The bright feeling of hope she’d tried to regain crumbled once more and left Lilah bemoaning the curse. She punched the roof of her car and left her knuckles throbbing. She hunched over the pain, fighting back tears.
It wasn’t like her life had been all that great to begin with. She hadn’t been on high and this was a sudden fall. If anything, Lilah felt like she’d just learned to stand when a rug was yanked out from under her feet to reveal a bottomless pit underneath. What could she do other than fall?
She stared out the car window. The walk into town wasn’t long. She could make it just fine if she changed her shoes and threw on an extra jacket. The wind would muss her hair, for sure. No matter what she did, she would look a mess if she walked, but if she didn’t walk there would be no job opportunities at all.
She couldn’t even call a taxi.
Each passing moment made Griffin’s offer even sweeter, but Lilah refused to give in. She wouldn’t step into his world to play the besotted lover. Not when her curse could make things so much worse if it could get its claws into a dragon man.
***
Griffin watched Jasper pace the room for what had to be the thousandth time that morning. The sun was reaching high in the sky, perhaps nearing its peak, but Griffin wanted nothing more than to crawl beneath the sheets of any bed. Hell, he’d settle for resting his head on the unused piano he sat beside. Not even the rattle of the keys would wake him once he fell asleep.
“How can you be so calm?” Jasper asked his cousin.
Griffin had no answer. Jasper wouldn’t have liked Griffin’s response anyway. The only reason he was so calm was because he didn’t have the energy to care about anything. Jasper paced because his mate was still missing. The woman the unfamiliar dragon shifters wanted was still hiding somewhere in Jasper’s mountains.
It clearly bothered Jasper that the woman was too afraid to step forward. Even if Jasper was her mate, she kept a wide berth around them all. Griffin didn’t blame her. The theatrics of Jasper’s unrest in the past months made him seem dangerous and unstable. Which was another truth Jasper would not want to hear.
Griffin had learned to keep his opinions to himself long ago. No matter how Jasper valued what his cousin had to say, Jasper would always do what he wanted in the end anyway. It often left Griffin feeling useless.
There was a clatter down the hall and both dragon shifters startled, turning toward the source of the sound.
“Everything’s fine!” Ashton called.
He and Makenna were finally moving out. Their house had been built and was ready to be lived in. Any help Jasper needed in running Aurum Bank could be done remotely, or Ashton could visit. It wasn’t like he was leaving them altogether.
Yet, the change still felt awkward. The timing was all wrong. They should have been banding together, and yet it felt like they were drifting apart. The court wasn’t unifying to deal with the issue of the dragons crouching on their border or the war that Jasper had declared. It was as if they went about their days in blissful ignorance, willfully turning away from what happened only a short while ago.
Griffin wondered if it was all in his head. He didn’t have the daily distractions that the others now had, no women tugging at his sleeves and begging for a moment of his time. Nor did he have Jasper’s unrelenting hunt for a woman trying to avoid him.
All he had was a bottle of whiskey and a desire to sleep away the hours until someone woke him for war. The last battle showed the unfamiliar dragons that despite their youth, Jasper and his family were not pushovers. The only beast that sustai
ned any injuries in the fight had been Mina. Ryker had taken on three of the enemy dragons on his own and come out victorious.
Jasper stomped toward a decanter, pulling Griffin back to the present. Instead of pouring a drink, Jasper snatched the decanter off the counter and hurled it at the nearby fireplace. It burst in a ball of heat and glittering glass. Griffin sighed and looked back to his cousin, wondering if that expended any of the pent-up energy that was coursing through his muscles.
The hurried rise and fall of Jasper’s chest told Griffin that it’d accomplished nothing. Jasper’s bright golden eyes moved to the nearby door, grave silence settling over the room, and Griffin realized his king was going to bolt. Griffin leapt from the chair, but Jasper was faster.
No, the beast was faster.
It had overtaken Jasper’s mind once again. No one quite understood how their relationship worked. While Griffin had only a small voice that was mostly comprised of instinct, it seemed like Jasper carried an entire entity inside himself. The beast was intelligent; it carried its own desires.
Griffin was too damn tired of this. Too tired for this. With a snarl on his lips, he chased after his cousin. He found Jasper outside, only a second away from the change. The air around him rippled with magic, a shadow of his massive form rising to consume his body. Griffin wasn’t about to shift and chase his cousin through the skies.
Not today.
He pounced on his cousin like a linebacker. They crashed to the ground together. Before they could stop rolling, Jasper’s claws sunk into Griffin’s back. He swallowed a hiss and bore the pain, twisting to pin Jasper’s upper arms to the ground. Bringing a knee between them, he pressed it to Jasper’s chest.
Years of fighting, wrestling, and chasing after one another made Griffin adept at quickly detaining Jasper. Those same years gave Jasper time to memorize all of Griffin’s techniques. Though he was pinned to the ground, Jasper bucked and sent Griffin flying. He landed on his shoulder and bounced into a tree.
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