For the first time in what felt like forever, Cora could breathe. Her lungs filled with air and her toes tingled. She realized the sensation was belonging. She should have pushed it away, should have left, but she didn’t want to give it up. These women had already folded Cora into the clan.
Because she was Jasper’s mate.
It all made sudden sense. They didn’t accept Cora blindly. The bond Cora shared with Jasper made her part of the family by default. As much as Cora wanted to think these women were being nice because they genuinely liked her, she knew they were being nice because they had to be.
“Has anyone else tried to enter the guest house?” Lilah asked with a spark in her eye.
“No,” Cora responded with no small amount of alarm.
“When Griffin and I lived there together, it seemed like the entire court of metallic dragons was constantly in and out of the house. They let themselves in whenever they felt like it. Especially Ashton.”
Mina shot Lilah a glare, the look filled with things unspoken.
Ashton wouldn’t be paying Cora any visits any time soon. As far as Cora knew, he didn’t yet know that Cora was responsible for the fire. The guilt Cora carried was nothing compared to the rage she expected. It didn’t matter that the fire had been an accident. It’d still been Cora’s fault.
Lilah waved her hand in the air. “I was just trying to explain that everyone here is super friendly. If you decide Jasper isn’t worth your time, you still have friends here.”
Cora’s head shot up. That was not what she’d expected to hear.
“We’re trying to get a girl’s night started,” Mina added. “Something quiet like a monthly spa visit.”
“Or a movie night,” Lilah suggested.
“That works, too. You’re welcome to join us. You could probably use a massage.”
Cora laughed and rubbed the back of her neck. “I could use a shift.”
Both Lilah and Mina watched her, brows raised. Cora hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but it’d slipped anyway. It’d been what? Five months since her last shift?
While Mina eyed her, Lilah went on.
“Kennedy and Makenna aren’t shifters,” she said. “They wouldn’t be able to join us for that.”
“Oh, right.” Cora tried to play it off, like she hadn’t just admitted to hiding her beast. She was sure they suspected it, but neither said anything.
The small talk was starting to get to her. Cora had craved interaction, but now that she had it, she found herself fumbling through it. No words she picked were right. Everything she did felt awkward. To her relief, neither Mina nor Lilah acknowledged it.
They let every misstep slide like it was never there. Once her initial embarrassment faded, Cora relaxed a little more. In the back of her mind, she kept herself pulled back. She didn’t give herself over to the conversation nor did she fully allow herself to see them as friends.
Not because she didn’t want friends, but because she didn’t want to abandon friends again.
***
Walking the streets of Grove with her coffee in hand, she caught snapshots of life. People were herding their kids into SUVs, each child dressed for a different activity. There were couples walking from shop to shop on dates. Life kept moving forward, regardless of the war Jasper started over her.
A hand closed around her heart. There were shifters, both dragon and animal alike, that lived in the town. They didn’t ask for the fight Cora and Jasper brought to their doorstep. Their lives went on, with the many demands that went along with it. Cora hated herself for interrupting it.
She hated that her own fight for freedom had brought the war to Jasper’s mountains. They didn’t know about the fire she’d started, either, the one that had eaten its way down a mountain. No one scowled at her or threw things at her, but she wished they would. Instead, people raised their hands and waved as she passed. A couple of cars pulled over to offer her rides. Everyone was too nice.
Cora didn’t want to care for these people.
Running away from her clan had been to save herself. A new life awaited her, one in which she could write her own future without the bindings of some man determined to make her into a commodity. Freedom was all she ever wanted.
Yet, every step she took, Cora felt herself bound to Grove and the people.
Chapter Five
The afternoon had slipped by back at the guest house. There was nothing good on the TV. It was so quiet, she could hear the electric wires humming in the walls. She cursed herself for not buying some books while she was out.
Padding down the hallway, she debated going outside again. When she tested the bond, she felt Jasper on the other side of his house. There was a chance she could leave again, and he wouldn’t notice. Cora reached for the door but paused at the sound of howling outside. She snatched her hand back.
“Where is she?” a shifter roared. “Where is that Firestarter?”
Her heart leapt into her throat. She stumbled back away from the door.
This was a cloud that had been over her head for some time. Cora knew it would end in a storm eventually. There was no other way for this to go. Her own deeds had caught up to her.
Swallowing, Cora stepped forward. She gripped the door knob and tried to summon the strength to face Ashton head on. Her knees shook, and her stomach churned. In that moment, Cora realized she’d truly hoped to have a future here. That future might not have been by Jasper’s side, but she’d wanted to find her freedom in Grove.
The idea that she would be able to stay shattered in her hands.
***
Jasper ran toward the source of the wall-shaking sound. Ashton stormed around the courtyard between the two houses, heading straight for the guest house. Jasper launched himself across the courtyard before he could even think, colliding with Ashton. They fell to the ground. Ashton’s elbow hit Jasper in the jaw, making his skull rattle.
A snarl ripped out of Jasper as the beast clawed its way up to the surface. While Jasper pushed it back, Ashton landed another blow to Jasper’s face.
“Your woman nearly destroyed half our home and you don’t care!”
“We both know that isn’t what this is about,” Jasper growled, trying to pin his youngest cousin to the ground.
Every mischievous smile Ashton ever wore was gone, replaced by a ferocity he’d never shown before. Makenna was no longer in danger, but she had been. The fire nearly claimed her life right when Ashton had just reconnected with her. Had Cora’s fire taken Makenna, there would have been a hole in Jasper’s court.
But Makenna had survived. The fire had been an accident.
For the first time in a week, the courtyard filled with shifters. Ryker appeared, stopping dead in his tracks and making Mina slam into his back. Wyatt held his arm in front of Kennedy when he saw the fight. Even Griffin and Lilah landed nearby, both in dragon form, probably just finished with a flight lesson.
“Ashton!” Makenna shouted. Her voice was raspier than usual, probably from yelling at her mate earlier.
She surged past Kennedy and Wyatt, stomping toward her mate. Pinned to the ground, Ashton thrashed. He growled at Jasper, but Jasper was stronger. He was the king for a reason. Paver stones shattered beneath Ashton’s kicks. He beat against Jasper’s shoulders with the same force.
“You turned your back on us for your own selfish reasons.”
Jasper leaned in close to make sure Ashton could hear every word he spoke. “I did nothing of the sort.”
Ashton pulled his lips back from his teeth. Jasper was done with the display of fury. He grabbed Ashton by the front of his shirt and flung him. Away from the guest house.
Griffin and Lilah lunged out of the way so that Ashton’s body went flying between them. They both looked back at where Ashton landed. Behind Jasper, Makenna sighed. It was a deep and long-suffering sigh. Not long later, she ducked her head and went in search of her mate.
Jasper stood, ris
ing to his full height. All this time, he’d been letting the world go on, letting it spin without him. He did his best to keep his beast controlled and not much else. It was time to stop, to make his mark on the world.
Or, at the very least, his clan.
“Since you want to forget yourselves and act like a bunch of fools, I’m calling a family night.” He pointed to the main house. “Inside. All of you.”
No one moved.
Ashton appeared at the edge of the woods with a fire in his eyes, aimed at Jasper. “Cora, too? Or are you going to let her continue to hide from us?”
Jasper was tired of this. He dashed toward Ashton, faster than he’d ever moved, and pinned the young shifter to a tree. When he was certain he had Ashton’s attention, he spoke.
“She’ll come out when she can trust us. I don’t think you’re doing anything to help.”
He let go of Ashton and turned back toward the main house. His gaze slid to the guest house. The door was cracked open. Cora peered through the gap. The sight of her made his heart stutter, but her gaze wasn’t on him. It was on Ashton.
He didn’t point it out, didn’t go to her. Instead, he let her presence remain unseen. Cora would come to them when she was ready.
The beast lashed at him. Go to her. Mark her as your own before she can escape.
He told his beast to calm down. It did little to mitigate the situation, the fight in his mind. The creature had been scouring the mountains for Cora for months now. Her proximity only made the creature more forceful. More impatient.
Mark. Her.
Jasper fumbled, feet tripping over one another when his beast seized control. He quickly reclaimed it but wondered who had noticed. Everyone was exchanging glances. Griffin and Lilah were back in human form. Jasper noted that her shifting was smoother; she was accepting her new life much better.
Lilah’s existence as a shifter was his fault.
It was one of the things that weighed on his conscience. The creature inside him reasoned that it had been Lilah’s fate all along. One way or another, Lilah would have found her own beast. Jasper wished he could have saved her some trauma. Being bitten by a dragon during an ambush had shaken her. The road to healing would be long for her, a path she and Griffin would have to traverse before their lives were normal.
Jasper was king. He should have prevented it from happening. He should have stopped this war long before it started. Yet, here he was, trying to put the pieces of their lives together to make something whole.
One by one—or, more accurately, two by two—the others followed him inside. Jasper threw open the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the deck. He dumped coals into the grill and let his frustration simmer on his tongue before releasing the flames onto the coals. No other dragon in his clan could blow flames like he could.
The grill took another two bursts of flames before the coals ignited. They burned, getting hot, as shifters filled his living room. Lilah lounged on the chaise part of the sectional, Griffin tucked neatly behind her. He’d never seen his brother so happy. Though Griffin was the son of a silver dragon and Jasper the son of a gold dragon, he considered Griffin his brother. The direction his life had turned gave Jasper hope.
Perhaps, he too, could convince Cora to pretend a romance with him. Maybe then he would get the chance to garner her trust.
“What are you making?” Kennedy eyed the grill.
He didn’t know. All he’d wanted to do was release some of the fire burning inside him.
There’s some ground beef in the fridge, his beast reminded him.
“Burgers.”
Kennedy nodded and went back to the kitchen to help prepare things. For a human woman who’d known nothing about shifters before visiting Grove, her assimilation had been near flawless. She’d leapt into their lives and hit the ground running. Jasper still remembered the night she’d mocked Griffin when he’d been in the sourest mood.
It was his favorite memory. Even his beast had gotten a good laugh at it.
Jasper hoped there would be more days like that to come. The tension swirling in the room made him uneasy. It set his teeth on edge and had his beast snarling uncouth things in his ear.
He was a useless king. His family had been doing nothing more than chasing him for months. They’d wrestled his beast back to the ground and fought the dragons his beast had started a war with. They were all exhausted.
And he didn’t know how to make them happy.
He knew that pushing out the other clan of dragons was only the start.
***
Everyone disappeared.
Cora let the door swing open. She stood in the courtyard with her arms wrapped around herself. Jasper had commanded his court like a king, showing his strength. Cora hadn’t enjoyed watching him throw his shifters around. Especially when she knew it was her fault. There wouldn’t have been any conflict between them of it wasn’t for her.
“For the record, I’m not mad.” Ashton’s mate approached, hands in her pocket. Her voice was hoarse, husky.
Cora stepped back, apprehensive.
“I understand that the fire was an accident,” Makenna went on. “I don’t blame you. Ashton is…well, protective. They’re all a bunch of fools barely holding themselves together. Some more than others.”
“You mean Jasper.”
Makenna shrugged.
Her heart stuttered when their eyes connected. Jasper paused at the end of the hall as if stricken by her presence. He had every right to be. Cora still felt like she didn’t belong. It was what had her hiding in the shadows, away from the rambunctious voices. Every bit of her wanted to run back to the guest house.
Well, almost every bit of her.
Some part kept her where she was, close enough to hear the happiness Jasper’s court shared. Everything she heard from the next room over reminded her of a time she could never get back. They seemed like an actual family. While every family fought, they still loved each other at the end of the day.
At first, Jasper didn’t move. Cora felt a tug in her lower stomach right before Jasper turned toward her. He took one step. Then two. She lowered her gaze as she should in the presence of a king and listened to him move forward.
Just when she expected him to close the gap and take hold of her, he stopped. She looked up, confused. The sight of his smile stole her breath away. He looked like a besotted teenager at a loss for words. Gone was the man that had thrown a shifter across the courtyard almost effortlessly.
He was a man looking at the woman of his dreams. It stirred her heart and made her feel things for him that she wasn’t ready to feel. Affection. Infatuation.
Cora took a step back.
His smile faltered and a bit of reality seemed to set back in. “It’s good to see you outside of the house.”
“I left earlier, actually. I just…made sure you weren’t there to notice.”
His brows rose, eyes widening with pleasant surprise. Cora leaned against the wall. He inched a bit closer. She didn’t run.
“Well, I’ve caught you now,” he whispered.
The sound danced over her skin and left her shuddering. A warmth pooled in her core, a sensation that left her craving more. Jasper didn’t disappoint.
“What should I do with you now?” He leaned against the wall, too, mirroring her. “I could pull you into the living room and make you join us. I could drag you out the door and take you somewhere we could be alone.”
The second option stole her breath from her and filled her mind with tempting thoughts. She leaned into him, greedy for his scent. It was smoky and laden with fine whiskey. Her stomach tightened, and not because she was hungry. It was a different need that roused her.
Jasper tucked a bit of her hair behind her ear, letting his fingers trail over her temple. Cora savored the feeling but tried to keep from showing how much she wanted to be near him. Now that there was no door between them, she could no longer ignore the way she wa
s drawn to him. Nothing stood in the way of the bond trying to tie them together.
Cora told herself it was just the bond. They were mates and so they would always feel this way. It wasn’t because she admired the way he’d handled his court. It wasn’t the stealthy way he took care of her, leaving gifts on the doorstep so she didn’t have to see him before she was ready.
It was none of that.
Just a bodily reaction to a beautiful man.
Then, his fingers grazed her jaw. A low growl rumbled in his throat as he cupped her cheek. His eyes turned molten. She thought the heat in them would melt her. There was no way she could survive the hunger she saw there.
Then a shape appeared at the end of the hall. Cora jerked away from Jasper. The heat that had been his hand on her cheek disappeared to be replaced by a chilling cold as Ashton stared her down.
Her stomach flipped.
Cora never meant to join the group. She only wanted to see Jasper’s definition of a family night, having never heard of anything of the like. The sounds of joy had kept her rooted for too long. Now, she was trapped by two beasts.
Three if she counted the demon inside Jasper.
“What is she doing here?” Ashton’s voice was cold.
All sound from the other room paused. Silence fell like a blanket over everything. All Cora could hear was the thundering pulse of her heart. There was no running anymore. She couldn’t close the door to the guest house and wish this all away. If she never faced the consequences of her actions, the court would never fully forgive her.
Ashton would never move on.
Cora stepped around Jasper. He reached out to her, hand on her shoulder for only a second, then he let her move on. He didn’t pull her back or try to tell her what to do. Such a small gesture stole her breath. This was her decision. It was her reckoning to face.
Aurum Court Dragons: Boxset Books 1-5 Page 57