Dallas wrapped his hand around Lily’s and shot the healer a worried look. “You all right?”
Fiona blinked before frowning up at him. “I’m fine, why?”
“No reason,” Dallas muttered, dragging a hand down his face. His face softened as he looked down at Lily. “Ready, mate?”
Her heart thundered so hard against her chest she was sure all of Los Angeles could hear the pulse. Mate. She grinned up at him. “No, but when you call me that, it makes me feel better.”
He winked at her. “Good to know.” He waited until Fiona grabbed her oversize Boho bag out of the truck and shut the door before he tightened his grip on Lily’s hand and led them across the street.
Fiona glanced at her as Dallas opened the apartment complex’s door for them. “Is there anything I need to know about him before we get to your apartment?”
Because she didn’t like the thought of what she was about to say, she moved toward her mate slightly. “If he’s himself, he won’t let you anywhere near him. He doesn’t want to be fixed.”
Fiona’s perfect face screwed up in a frown. “And if he’s not himself?”
Lily’s gut clenched, her hand tightening around Dallas’s. “I don’t know, but expect violence. He won’t recognize anyone, and he’s seeing everyone as a threat.”
“You won’t be alone with him,” Dallas added, his voice gruff. He hit the button for the elevator, and as they waited, he pulled Lily in front of him and hooked his arm around her waist. “Lily and I have things to do, but there are other dragons that will stay until you’re ready to go.”
“We’re leaving?” Lily asked at the same time Fiona asked, “You’re not staying?”
He leaned down to brush a kiss over the top of Lily’s head. “We still have apartment shopping to do.”
Lily scowled at the elevator doors before they opened and they stepped in. She turned in Dallas’s arm to shake her head at him. “That doesn’t have to be done right this second.”
“Yes. It does.”
Lily shook her head at him. There was an undertone to his sudden mood, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “Dallas, we can’t bring Fiona here and leave her with a bunch of tense, stressed-out dragons. We can go shopping later.”
“Lily,” Fiona murmured, laying her hand on Lily’s arm. “It’s fine, really. Thank you for worrying about me, but they aren’t the first group of dragons I’ll have been around, and they won’t be the last.”
Lily was sure the woman had a screw loose somewhere. Lily trusted all the dragons with her brother, but Fiona didn’t know them from the Dragan underworld. How could she know she was safe?
“Fiona’s a big girl.” Behind her, Dallas cleared his throat. “When we get inside, make a list of everything we need in an apartment.”
Fear skittered down her spine, and she wanted to scream with it. “He’s my brother, and he’s wholly unstable. If he tries to hurt Fiona and I’m not there to stop the dragons, they’ll kill him.”
* * *
DALLAS GROUND HIS back teeth together as the elevator doors slid open on his floor. He couldn’t stand this fear ripping at his mate. He’d put a bullet in Cage’s brain himself if Lily wouldn’t hate him forever for it.
But her brother was the least of his problems at the moment. Although, convincing her to leave him at the hands of an unknown healer and several over-protective dragons wasn’t going to be easy.
Luca yanked open the door before Dallas could slide his key into the lock. “We’ve got a problem.”
Dallas went rigid as the presence of unknown Hunters assaulted his senses. He shoved Lily behind him with one hand and pulled a fixed-blade knife out of his ankle sheath with the other. “What the fuck is going on?” he roared, torn between shoving his way into his apartment and decimating the unknown threat and getting his mate the fuck out of there.
Luca held up his hands and stepped to the side, allowing Dallas to see the bastards taking up space in his home. There were two of them leaning against the wall across from Daniel, their arms braced across their chests as they watched Dallas and Lily enter.
The bigger of the two was an inch or so taller than Dallas’s own six-feet-six with chin-length jet-black hair wrapped in a red bandana and a scarred black leather jacket. He jerked to attention, rage darkening his dark features. “Let her go, Destroyer.”
Dallas snorted while pulling Lily in closer to his back. “Fuck off, asshole.” Barely sparing him a glance, he shifted his gaze to Daniel, then Cage, before finally landing on Gabriel. The behemoth didn’t seem to be the least worried about the appearance of Cage’s clan, his unblinking, blank gaze instead trained on Fiona. It didn’t make Dallas feel any better. “Does someone want to tell me what the fucking hell is going on, or can I kill them for invading my territory?”
Lily’s fingers dug into Dallas’ sides. “Caleb?” She looked around him, and Dallas could feel the tension in her ease back the slightest bit. “What are you and Rafe doing here?”
The blonder, stockier of the two let out a low sound that had the hairs on the back of Dallas’s neck standing up. His arm hooked out behind him, hauling Lily in closer.
“We could ask you the same thing, Lily. We went by your apartment, and it looked like a bomb went off inside. Are you all right?” the asshole asked.
Dallas bared his teeth. “She’s fine. Now get the hell out of my apartment.”
The first asshole nodded, his blue eyes hard and cold. “Give us Lily and Cage, and we’ll walk out of here and forget all about this.”
Daniel stepped forward then. His fury and power pulsed out like a separate entity, his voice deceptively calm. “You can go now that you’ve seen Lily and know she hasn’t been harmed in any way. Cage came here on his own steam. You want either of them, you’ll have to come through all of us. If not, I suggest you turn and walk the fuck out of this apartment now before I forget we’re still under a peace agreement.”
Fiona was the one who spoke up before the Hunters could let loose their tempers, placing her slender body in the middle of the room—dead center of the chaos. Every male in the room went rigid, warning sounds rumbling through their chests, but the healer ignored them all. Instead, she met their gazes head-on, one at a time, before she focused on the Hunters. “I’m Fiona Corr, healer from Serenity. Dallas and Lily came to me, asking if I could come examine Adrian Cage. Now, I’m walking in blind to this situation, but it doesn’t look to me like Lily is here against her will considering that pretty mate mark above her heart, and if you let me do my job, I can figure out what the hell is wrong with Adrian.”
“Fuck no.” Cage surged to his feet, his dark green eyes dazed with madness as they focused on Lily. “You’re fucking mated to him?”
There was sheer unadulterated murder in his eyes as he leapt at Dallas. “I’ll kill you.”
Lily shot around Dallas, putting herself between them. Dallas barely had time to move her out of the way before Cage hit him with the force of a freight train. They flew backward, Dallas’s body crashing into an end table and reducing it to splinters. He shot his fist up, connecting with Cage’s nose, and then used the sheer, unharnessed power of his dragon to head-butt the asshole.
Gabriel caught Cage when he staggered backward and held him in place with nothing more than a hand wrapped around the back of his neck. “Enough!” he roared. “Settle the fuck down, Cage. It’s done. She made her choice.” His ice-blue gaze locked onto the petite healer’s. “You. Figure out what the fuck is wrong with him.”
Cage snarled. “No one is getting anywhere near my fucking brain, do you understand me?”
As every male in the room growled in reaction to Adrian’s bellow, Fiona dropped to the ground and covered her head with her arms. After a moment, she peeked up and glanced around before she carefully got to her feet to see them all staring at her. She smiled weakly. “Sorry. It’s my experience that this many pissed-off males usually means something is going to collapse.”
Dallas s
ighed impatiently as he grabbed Lily and wrapped his arm around her. “Reinforced frame. It’s not going anywhere.” He turned his attention back to the bastards who looked way too fucking comfortable in his home. “This is your last chance to walk out on your own steam, or we will remove you.”
The bastard named Rafe looked at him for a long moment, then shrugged and dropped down into the seat Ashborne had vacated. He sprawled out, hooking his arms behind his head as he crossed his feet at the ankle. “Sorry, asshole, but we’re not going anywhere until we get some answers. You were the last people to see Cage before his disappearance, and now he shows back up in one of your apartments. If you think we’re going to ignore that coincidence, you’re stupider than you look. And you look pretty fucking stupid.”
* * *
LILY REACTED BEFORE she’d even realized she’d moved. Her arms banded around Dallas’s waist as his dragon leapt toward the surface, prepared for war. “Ignore him, Dallas,” she pleaded. “He’s baiting you.” When he snarled in reaction, Lily did the only thing she could think of. She tightened her arms around him and pressed her face to his back. “Please, Dallas.”
Luca stepped up in front of them so he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Daniel, blocking her and Dallas from the Shaw brothers. They weren’t evil. She actually kind of liked them, but they were pissed and, between the two of them, they could piss off the sweetest nun in a convent. Especially when they were worried. And if they’d braved the Destroyer’s apartment, they were worried.
With only a few moments to think and make a plan, she blew out a breath and went on her toes to murmur in her mate’s ear. “Come on. I thought we were going shopping? I’m not in danger from them if I’m not here, and we need to get what we need to make this apartment feel like home.”
“It’s not,” he gritted out through clenched teeth, his gaze never leaving the Hunters making themselves at home. “It’s my place. Not yours.”
Hurt flashed through her with so much force she staggered beneath the onslaught.
Determined not to show her pain in front of the others and only fuel the tension, she stepped back and grabbed Dallas’s hand on her way toward the still open door. She didn’t want to leave her brother with this powder keg of lit fuses, but Dallas’s sanity was at the breaking point. She had to get him out of there. “We can talk about it while apartment hunting.”
For a single heartbeat, she was sure he was going to rip her arm out of its socket by simply not moving. Instead, he nodded once and followed her out.
She didn’t let out the breath she’d been holding until they were in the elevator again. When the doors slid shut and the two of them were alone, she raised her gaze to his. “This isn’t open for discussion, Dallas,” she said softly. She could panic or she could go with reason, and it was too damn late for him to back out now. “We can’t make this mate thing work if you won’t even let us live in the same apartment.”
“You are not living in that apartment, Lily, and that is all there is to it.” He cursed and dragged a hand down his face. “Ryuu. None of this is coming out right. I’m not used to explaining myself.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and raised a brow at him. “You better get used to it because I’m starting to think you want this mate thing in name only.”
“It’s not that.” He grabbed her around the waist and lifted her off her feet, but when she went rigid against him, he set her back down. “I don’t think that apartment is the right place for us.”
She nodded slowly, the knot in her heart loosening slightly. “Okay, that sounds a little bit better. Go on.”
He snagged her hand as they stepped out of the elevator into the lobby. Nodding at the doorman, he led her out onto the sidewalk. For the first time, she noticed the wide berth people made around him, as if his size had a force field of its own.
“Dallas.” She tugged on his hand when they got to the curb.
The muscle under his eye ticked, and he shook his head. “Look, I’ve had other women there, all right? And I’m not going to build a home with my mate in a place where I slept with other women.” He went green suddenly and looked more miserable than she’d ever seen a male. “We need a new bed while we’re at it.”
Chapter 20
DALLAS WAS GOING to be sick. He’d slept with another woman in his bed the night before he’d met Lily. How the hell hadn’t he thought about that shit before he’d mated to her? Not wanting to see her face or how she was reacting to any of this, he tugged her toward the building. She could hate him all she wanted, he’d deal with that, but they were stuck together, and he knew she would eventually get over it.
He hoped.
His thoughts switched directions as they stopped at the first of the addresses Broderick had texted him. Her teeth worried at her bottom lip as she studied the vacant storefront. It didn’t look like anything spectacular. The large bow windows on either side of the door were covered in filth and grime, the dark brick of the façade was crumbling in places, but it wasn’t anything a good cleanup, a pretty bench, and flowers couldn’t fix.
She glanced at him as he punched in the code for the door’s lock box. “How did you know the code?”
“It’s a dragon owned property, and it’s not hard to guess which date Ashborne would use.” He opened the door and held it open for her.
She smiled her thanks and walked into the dark, dusty space. “His and Shelby’s anniversary?”
“The day he met her.”
She gaped at him for a second. “Who would have thought the dragon king has a big soft side?”
Dallas let out a snort as he leaned against a broken beam and crossed his arms over his chest. His gaze tracked her every movement as she carefully picked her way over the scattered debris. It looked like a tornado had ripped through the space, leaving only brick supporting columns in random spots around the room. They appeared to be more ornamental than functional. The occasional unbroken shelf mixed with upturned chairs and garbage. The area was large and spacious, big enough for her flower fridge and a staging area, along with a counter for taking orders and ringing them up.
She studied every inch of the abandoned space. “Well?” she asked, holding her arms out as she turned in a slow circle. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re beautiful,” he murmured quietly before he realized she wasn’t talking about herself. He cleared his throat as her smile went brilliant, lighting her up. “I think it’s up to you. It has good bones, and you have all of us to help with the manual labor.”
When he handed her his phone with all the information on it, the properties dimensions and price, her perfect brow furrowed as she tried to do the math in her head. “I need Luca for this part,” she murmured to herself, so quietly he barely heard her. “I hate numbers.”
The muscle under his eye ticked. “I told you. I’m paying for this.”
The look she shot him made him wince. And then grin. He liked the spark of temper in her. “I’m not worried about the money. I’m not in love with this place yet, and I’m not sure if it’s economically smart to gut and completely remodel this place or find something else.”
“Easy. We keep looking.” When she glanced at him, he ran his finger down her nose. It was such a cute nose. “If you’re not in love with it, we keep looking.”
She braced herself, stiffening her shoulders. “I think we need to find some place with an apartment attached. Neither of us want to live as a mated pair in a place you…well, took other women.” She paused and scowled at him before she continued, “And I don’t have anywhere for us to stay.”
“Look, Lil, about that…” he started, dragging a hand through his hair. “They didn’t mean—”
She held up her hand and moved over to poke him in the stomach. “Stop. I’m not mad at you about your past.” She moved past him toward the door. “It is what it is.”
He reached out and snagged her hand. He didn’t blame her for being angry, but he wasn’t going to allow her
to hide that shit from him. “You look pissed.”
She continued to face straight ahead as she let out a small frustrated sound, before she turned to glare up at him. “I’m not mad at you for your past, Dallas. I’m scared, not insecure.”
He wasn’t sure that was much better. He didn’t want her to be jealous of a past that didn’t matter to him, but he sure as hell didn’t want her scared. Not of his past or of him.
He pulled her around to face him and shot his other hand out, wrapping it around the back of her neck, holding her where he wanted her. “You have no reason to fear my past, woman. I meant forever when I mated to you.”
“I’m not afraid of your past. I just don’t want to think about it.”
“Then what the hell are you scared of?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and glanced around the building again. “I have nothing left of myself at the moment. My home is gone, my business is gone, everything I own is gone. I have a mate, which is amazing, but my future depends on everything between us working out. And us agreeing on what those plans should be.”
The pad of his thumb skimmed her full bottom lip, then he lowered his mouth to hers. The light kiss he’d intended heated to an inferno when his little mate went on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her tight body into his as she kissed him back with all the passion he’d never known was missing from his life.
It amazed him that one tiny, inexperienced woman had the ability to knock him off his feet, but as he staggered back into the beam behind him, bringing her with until her body was caged in between his legs, it was exactly what happened. She knocked the ground out from under him.
But when the earth started to shake, he forced himself to drag his mouth away from hers as his instincts started to hum. His mate never failed to surprise him and keep him on his toes, but he wasn’t sure even she had the power to literally make the earth move.
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