by Katie Reus
She took a deep breath, centering herself and forcing herself to remain calm. The thought of him being under the same roof as her was too much. Especially since her strange dreams were getting her all amped up lately. “We don’t have the room.” That was a lie, one he probably scented. Damn it.
“Then I’ll sleep outside in my animal form.”
She let out a growl of frustration. Instead of responding, she simply turned and yanked the front door open.
She’d barely taken a step when she heard Cody say, “I call dibs on Bella.”
She stopped in her tracks and turned to glare at him. She was ready to rip him a new asshole for talking about her friend as if she was a piece of property when she saw the mischievous look in his eyes. He was simply messing with her.
Sighing, she strode outside, not bothering to shut the door behind her.
“I’ll see you soon, lass,” Lachlan called out, more than a hint of wicked promise in his voice.
Gah. She really wanted to argue with Lachlan about staying at her house. The frustrating male hadn’t even asked her. He’d simply packed a bunch of bags and informed her they were coming over. And he wouldn’t have even given her a heads-up; he’d been planning to simply show up.
Who does that?
Ancient, stubborn, sexy dragons apparently, that was who.
She let out another growl of frustration as she started striding down the sidewalk, earning her a wary glance from two jogging females.
She grabbed her hoodie and tugged it over her head. Then she shoved her hands in her pockets and picked up her pace. Now she had to tell her crew that a bunch of dragons were on their way over.
A secret part of her was glad for the extra protection, especially if Oscar was on his way here. Or even here already. And at that thought, she started jogging faster. She needed to warn the others immediately.
* * *
As dusk fell, Star stood on the top step of the front porch as the four dragons headed up the walkway to the door. She’d expected Lachlan this morning but he’d been called in to see King, at least according to the text he’d sent her. So she and her bandmates had actually gotten some practice in. Singing and working on a new song had been a good way to mentally distract herself. Though nothing could fully distract her from thoughts of Lachlan. Especially considering the fact that she’d seen him naked. More than once.
Lachlan’s mouth curved up into a sexy grin as he and his three dragons approached, his gaze sweeping her from head to foot.
She had to pretend she wasn’t affected, but damn, it was hard. She cleared her throat. “The fact that you guys are here is ridiculous but I’m going to let it happen. You’ll also be bunking with each other. I don’t care how you figure out your sleeping situation, but there are only two extra rooms. One has twin beds.” And she had no clue how they were going to even fit in them. “And the other is an office with a pullout couch.”
“I could just bunk with you,” Lachlan said mildly, even as heat flared in his eyes.
She rolled her eyes. “Second, if any of you make my girls, or Axel, feel uncomfortable, not only will they let you know in the form of a punch to the dick, but you will be out of here immediately, if not dead. I appreciate you helping us out, but you respect my rules.”
“I like this one,” the one named Teague murmured, a small grin on his face. “Already talking about dick punches and we haven’t even crossed the threshold.”
The one named Cian simply grinned in response.
“Damn, you really are Alpha,” Cody added, his grin firmly in place. He looked similar to Lachlan, but there was a boyishness to him, even though she knew he had to be nearly as ancient as Lachlan. Unlike Lachlan, he seemed more playful, but maybe that was a symptom of being a younger sibling. His hair was also cut shorter, and his eyes, while indigo, weren’t the same deep shade as Lachlan’s, but a bit lighter. Still, he was huge in the way dragons were, built as if he’d been cut straight from a mountainside.
She gave him a hard look, and to her surprise he averted his gaze after a brief staring contest. Ugh. She hated it when people tried to stare her down. They always lost.
Lachlan raised an eyebrow at her.
“What?”
He lifted a shoulder. “We will respect all of your rules, though the second one is unnecessary. We respect all beings, lass.”
She nodded then, ignoring the way her insides melted when he used the word lass. “Good.”
He motioned to the other males. “Star, this is Teague and Cian, though I have a feeling you know that already.” There was a slight question in his voice.
And yes, she knew their names because of Lola’s research, but Lachlan and his clan were very good at keeping a low profile so it had been hard to mine much information. Instead of answering that question, she simply smiled at the males. “It’s nice to meet you.” She really hoped she wasn’t letting the enemy into her house right now. Her other half scoffed at her, which actually made Star feel better. Her instincts had never steered her wrong. “Lachlan, you and I are on patrol now.” If he’d decided to come to her place, then she was putting him to work with her.
“Not a problem.” He handed his bag to his brother, and Cody and the other two filed inside.
“It’s been pretty quiet around here so I’ll take the east side, you take the west.” It would give her a little space from him at least, but not nearly enough. When she’d thought he was returning to Scotland earlier some deep part of her had panicked, felt out of control. She didn’t like or understand the feeling. But she couldn’t deny the attraction between them. Or those damn dreams that kept haunting her. And she wasn’t sure why she was thinking of those dreams and Lachlan in the same breath anyway.
His dragon peered back at her for a long moment. “What’s it going to take for you to trust me?”
“I don’t not trust you.”
He scoffed slightly. “I helped get your sister and your crew out of Wales. I dinnae have any ulterior motives.”
“You want to get me naked.” And why did she have to go and say the word naked? Now she was thinking about getting him naked too. Something she’d been fantasizing about far too often lately.
“True, but I’m not hiding that. And I want more than just a quick roll in the hay.”
Despite the tension coiled inside her, a smile tugged at her lips. “Look, you’re a dragon, so the fact that I’m letting you and your clanmates in my house at all is a big deal.”
He went still. “You have a problem with dragons?”
She was silent, watching him carefully. Her instinct told her she could trust him but she couldn’t afford to put anyone in danger. “I don’t know you enough to trust you. Not with everything.”
“Fair enough.”
She stepped off the porch and headed in the opposite direction of him. She took her patrols seriously even if they had set up a few traps. She needed to tell Lachlan about a couple of them and turned to do just that when she realized he was standing right next to her.
“You’re quiet,” she muttered, her heart fluttering with him so near. He smelled incredible, and all she could think about with him this close was that scorching kiss, and the damn dreams that left her aching for release.
“Aye.” He lifted a broad shoulder. “When did you get chickens?” he asked, eyeing the new coop.
“Today. Bella has been a busy bee. She said she wants fresh eggs every morning so she made it happen. I honestly don’t even know where she got them or who she got to build the coop.” Star had come out from her practice earlier in the afternoon to find Bella ordering some guys around as they built the coop. And she had an instruction manual on how to care for chickens too.
“Impressive.”
Feeling her cheeks heat up at his nearness, she cleared her throat. “Oh, we also set up a few traps around the property. Specifically for dragons. Nothing that will kill anyone, but they’ll get tangled in the wires should they try an aerial attack or landing.”
/> He nodded in approval. “Just tell me where they are.”
She motioned toward the locations as they reached the eight-foot-high outer wall. Without waiting for him, she jumped up and pulled herself over the ledge so that her legs were dangling off the side. The street was quiet tonight and since Taya was also on patrol—something she wasn’t telling Lachlan about—they had extra eyes in the sky.
She wasn’t surprised when moments later, Lachlan crouched down next to her on top of the wall, then stretched his long legs out, letting them hang over the side too.
“We’re supposed to be separated.” But there was no heat in her words. She liked sitting next to him, breathing in his scent.
“I saw one of the tigers headed toward the west wall and Axel is in the backyard. And…I suspect you have another lookout somewhere.” He simply pointed at the trees but in no particular direction.
“How do you know that?”
He gave her a sideways glance. “I can smell them.”
Right. His olfactory senses were much stronger than hers. Since she was supposed to be a snow leopard, most shifters assumed her sense of smell was on par with theirs. But at this point, Lachlan knew she was something else.
“So did you always know you wanted to be a singer?” he asked as they watched a couple of wolves and a bear strolling down the street. The bear actually lifted a big paw and waved at them.
Star waved back, smiling at the brown bear. They were pretty rare as far as she knew. “I always liked to sing, but I only started performing on a bigger scale because I needed to save my sister. Between Lola and Bella, geniuses that they are, they understand branding and stuff like that. They helped get my name and voice out there and things took off.”
His eyes widened in surprise.
“What? I never wanted to be famous. Not like I am now. I love performing on a local scale—I’m from Saint Augustine originally, which I think you know—but I never had aspirations of worldwide fame. Especially since I’m…supernatural. We’d already talked about how I would fade from fame and then start over somewhere eventually. Now I won’t have to.” Which was a relief at least.
“Your talent never would have remained a local thing.” There was conviction in his voice.
She snorted softly. “I put on a good show.”
“That you do. But you’ve still got incredible talent, lass. Someone would have discovered you no matter what your intentions.”
She lifted a shoulder, feeling out of sorts with the praise, mainly because he was so blunt and matter-of-fact about it. And sexy. Far too sexy for her liking.
“Are you going to tell me what you really are?” he asked softly.
She froze. “What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. Because you’re certainly not a snow leopard. Or not fully, anyway.”
“It’s rude to ask someone what they are.”
“Yes, and I’m so worried about civility.” Now he snorted.
She simply cleared her throat and glanced down the sidewalk as two female vampires strode by, their fangs on full display. One of them glanced up and gave her a half-wave. The other winked at Star and licked her lips.
All right, then. She waved back, laughing lightly.
“So how old are you exactly?” Star asked, deciding to ignore his question. Besides, if he wanted her to trust him, then she wanted more details on him. Because Lola had only been able to find surface information.
“I dinnae even know anymore. I went into Hibernation thousands of years ago. And I was thousands of years old then. Time is different for me.”
She knew dragons often went into long sleeps and it made sense. The mind wasn’t made to exist for thousands of years. That was far too many memories, too much pain, too much everything to store up for one individual. Jeez, talk about getting PTSD.
“Since you willnae tell me what you are, how about we talk about that fire show you put on in that alley?” Okay, so he wasn’t giving up.
Too bad for him; she wasn’t having this conversation. Jumping to her feet, she easily balanced along the top of the wall. “Not gonna happen, dragon.” She headed east, keeping her strides steady though she was trembling inside. She didn’t like all this pushing. “Stay on your side of the wall and I’ll stay on mine.”
To her surprise, and maybe disappointment, he didn’t follow her. It was just as well. She needed to focus on her patrol, and if she was too near Lachlan—well, her focus was on him instead.
Chapter 18
Star hurried down the stairs at the scent of bacon. After the night patrol shift, she’d showered and now she was starving. For more than food, but that was pretty much beside the point because that wasn’t happening.
“How was patrol?” Aurora asked from where she stood at the stove, making scrambled eggs. A plate of bacon was sitting off to the side.
Star eyed the food, inhaling deeply. “Nothing exciting, which is the kind of patrol I like.”
“I heard a party going on nearby last night.”
“Oh yeah. A bunch of shifters were throwing down about two blocks over and the noise carried.” The noise was better than silence in her opinion. It meant people were living their lives and trying to get back some semblance of normalcy. But after two in the morning, they needed to shut the hell up and go to sleep. Gah, she felt like a cranky old lady some days.
“Have you seen your boyfriend this morning?”
Star jerked slightly as she added sugar to her coffee. “Don’t you start. That dragon is not my boyfriend. And he’s a freaking dragon. Don’t forget it.”
Aurora lifted a shoulder, her oversized sweater falling down one shoulder as she added more cheese to the scrambled eggs. “Pretty sure I’m a good judge of people at this point, and this is a good group of guys. They’re not like Oscar’s clan. Not like the dragons who killed Mom and Dad.”
She bit down hard before pushing out a breath. It was hard to think about what had happened to their parents. Aurora had been so young when they’d been murdered, but Star remembered everything in clear detail. “Maybe, maybe not.” Okay, there was no maybe. They were good guys. She was just letting the past color her thinking.
“Star, it’s not like dragons are the only ones responsible for killing our kind.”
“I know.” And this was a conversation they’d had many times.
“Anyway, since you haven’t seen your not-boyfriend, look,” Aurora said, holding a spatula up and pointing out the oversized window over the sink.
Warm mug in hand, she peeked outside and couldn’t stop the startled burst of laughter that escaped.
Brielle and Harlow each had a volleyball and were tossing them at Lachlan, who was on his back in dragon form. He gently swatted the balls, as if he was a soccer goalie or something. But when he swatted them, the twins raced for them, trying to knock them back at him. It was like a bizarre game of ping-pong. “What the hell is wrong with them? Has the world gone completely mad?” she said more to herself than her sister.
“Pretty sure you know the answer to that.”
She snorted because okay, it was true. “Still, this is…”
“This is your crew burning off some steam.”
“True enough.” Even Taya and Kartini were out there getting in on the action, throwing more balls at the giant dragon. “Where’s Lola?”
“Sleeping. So is Bella. They’re exhausted.”
“They should be. I heard them playing poker until well after one in the morning.”
“Pretty sure they cleaned those dragons out for everything they were worth.”
Now that made Star smile. “Good.”
“Have you heard any news on Aunt Cliona?”
Before she could answer, her phone buzzed in her pocket. “Maybe,” she said when she saw the name on the caller ID. The back door opened then and Cody strode in, smiling at both of them as he rubbed his stomach. “Something smells good.”
Star gave him a brief smile and answered her phone, then nodde
d once at Aurora who knew exactly why she was leaving. She didn’t want anyone to overhear this conversation.
* * *
Lachlan stood as Star hurried outside. He’d been playing a ridiculous game with various sports balls that the females had been throwing at him. He wasn’t sure why they’d been doing it but it had seemed to amuse them. Finally, he’d shifted back to human form and now all amusement fled as he saw the worry etched onto Star’s face.
She flicked a glance at him, barely acknowledging his presence, and his dragon roared to the surface. But he kept him at bay even though his beast lingered, annoyed at being dismissed. Silly female, his beast thought. Then, You need to court her better, his dragon reprimanded. Bring her food. Meat. Females like that. Mmm, so do I.
He closed his eyes for a moment and ordered his dragon to simmer down even as he agreed with the beast. Maybe he should bring gifts like food. It was a primitive way of courting, but he was a primitive male at his core. He needed to do more than simply protect her.
“I have some errands to run,” she said vaguely, even as she gave her sister a meaningful look.
And he didn’t miss the subtle glances between the twins and the others. His own males were currently on patrol as he had ordered them to give Star’s people a break. They deserved one after all they’d been through.
“I will go with you.”
Now she looked at him, one eyebrow raised. Her dark hair was pulled up into a loose ponytail today and she wore jeans and a formfitting sweater that molded to all her curves. “I didn’t invite you.”
“Yet I am going.”
She gritted her teeth, staring at him hard. “I’m not going into town. I have to make a trip out to the bayou.”
“For what?”
“None of your business, nosy dragon.”
“I can fly you. You’ll get there much faster.” He had a vague knowledge of where there were swamp and marsh areas surrounding the city as he had studied the geography before coming to New Orleans.
Her expression didn’t change.