by Ruby Dixon
“Big garage,” Gabe says, gesturing at the open space around him. “You’re welcome to wherever.”
“Okay.” I start to say more, but Liam’s arm snakes around my waist and he buries his face against my neck, inhaling deeply, and I’m too distracted to continue. I touch his cheek, worried that he needs these touches…and just as worried that the more I caress him, the more I’m pushing him toward the edge.
But what other options do I have?
“I’ll take you up on that coffee,” I say, caressing Liam’s arm. My fingers brush over one of the spikes and I notice that Gabe’s gaze lingers there for a moment, his mouth flattening.
The dragon roars overhead once more, and the entire parking garage seems to shake with the ferocity of her anger. In the distance, I smell new, fresh smoke.
It’s a welcome distraction. “Are you sure that the dragon’s going to attack all night? That’s not the norm.”
Gabe’s smile is tight. “Told ya. It’s because she likes me.”
15
LIAM
It’s only a matter of time before I completely lose control.
Being this close to Andrea, feeling her caresses, breathing in her scent, but not being able to claim her? It is torture, and I can only hold out for so long. Have I prided myself on my strength at holding my mental walls high for seven years? I am a fool, because I have never been truly tested until now.
The female drakoni roars overhead, venting her anger with fire and blistering fury on the building, and for the first time in a very long time, I understand her rage. I was near to that when the male suggested that Andrea service him. Even thinking about it, hours later, fills me with unholy anger.
After my initial snap, I managed to calm myself for a time. Andrea sat and drank the foul-smelling coffee with the elders, while the one with the dog—my rival—watched me from afar. I glowered at him as the others talked, letting him know my displeasure. He thinks I am not aware of his tricks? He invites my female to his home and entices her with gifts, parading his animals in front of her and appealing to her soft heart? He shows her that he can take care of elders and small animals, proving himself a good provider.
It is all a ploy to win her away from me. I know it.
If I were in my battle form, I would challenge him in a heartbeat. The thought of fighting him, tooth and claw, until his neck was laid open beneath my fangs and his blood spilling on the floor…a hot surge of pleasure rushes through me at the thought.
Except my claws are shorn down.
And I can no longer take battle form. Not without destroying myself.
So I must sit and suffer in silence, clenching my fists. I touch Andrea often, reminding myself that she is at my side, and showing the male who she chooses to be with.
It is brutal and wild of me, and I feel all the vestiges of humanity that I have worked on for so long shredding in the face of a rival. Andrea would make a fine mate for him. I know this. She is tall and strong and fearless and has the sweetest-smelling cunt. She is clever and loving, and I have no doubt that if I was not at her side, this male would be all over her, courting her with human words and human kisses.
But I am drakoni, and I have staked my claim on her. It doesn’t matter that I can’t take her as my own—not truly. I will destroy anyone that tries to take her from me, and that is a promise.
“Liam? Babe?”
I look up from glaring at the fire. Andrea is on her feet, a soft smile on her face. “Let’s go to bed, shall we?”
I glance at the others, still near the fire in their chairs. The elders watch me with wariness, but there is no fear on Gabe’s face. His eyes are narrow and his hand calm as he strokes his dog’s ears. He shows no fear and that makes me want to destroy him, to show him exactly what he should be afraid of.
“Babe?” Andrea asks again. “Bed?”
I look down at her once more. I can see the worry on her face. She suspects I am struggling…she just does not know how much.
A sudden thought occurs to me. Yes, we can go to bed. We can go to bed…and I can take Andrea in my arms and bury my face in her cunt. I can lick her until she is screaming with pleasure, filling the ears of the others with her joy. I want them to smell her cunt, soaked with need. I want them to realize that it is Atalim that possesses her, Atalim that mounts her, even if it is only with tongue.
And I snarl with pleasure, pulling her close to me. “Yes. Bed,” I manage, the words thick on my tongue.
She looks surprised at my reaction, but her arm goes to my waist and she smiles at the others, murmuring soft goodnights and reminding them to wake her at dawn so we can retrieve her brother from the fort.
I do not care about dawn. My thoughts are of only the next few hours in the darkness and how many ways I can claim her. The breath pants from my lungs, and I can feel fire building in my chest.
No.
No. I must not. I cannot lose control. Andrea needs me. I promised myself this would not happen.
I close my eyes as Andrea takes my hand, leading me away from the fire. We grab our packs—I do not need eyes to snag mine—and I let her find us a private spot as I fight for control with my thoughts. I imagine cool walls, blocking out the flames burning in my mind. I imagine peace, and running water. I imagine Andrea’s sad face as I lose control and turn into another ravening monster.
My skin itches.
We head to the back of the garage and there’s a couple of cars fitted together at an angle, as if one was trying to leave and crashed into another. They make decent walls, so Andrea unrolls our blankets and makes a bed, while I stand and watch her, clenching and unclenching my fists, trying to get a hint of control back.
The moment she turns to look up at me, though, all of that control withers once more.
I drop to my hands and knees, grabbing at the front of her shirt. I kiss her, rough. She makes a little noise of surprise, her hands fluttering against my shoulders before she kisses me back, and that’s enough for me. I move to the waistband of her jeans, tearing at the fasteners. I want to sink my fingers into her cunt and cover my hand with her juices. I want them to hear me pleasuring her. I want—
“Hey, hey!” she whispers, pulling away from me. Her gaze is shocked, her mouth slightly open and wet from my kisses. “You’re growling!”
I pause, and in that moment, she pulls my sunglasses off my face, peering at my eyes.
“Babe,” she says with a little shake of her head. “Your eyes—”
“I don’t care,” I say harshly, sliding lower and burying my face against her pussy. I don’t care if she’s covered in clothing, I’ll lick her until—
“Liam!” She puts a palm on my forehead and pushes backward, knocking my cap off my head. “Stop!”
I snarl at her, lifting my head to glare up into her eyes. I’m feeling territorial, and the fact that another rival is so close by and she’s unclaimed is making me crazy. “You’re mine. No one else will touch you. If I can’t claim you, I’m going to cover you in my scent, instead. You’ll be wearing Atalim’s seed all over your soft skin and—”
She shoves at me again, hard. “What the fuck?” Her voice is a low hiss, and it occurs to me that she doesn’t want the others to hear us arguing. “Why do you think someone else is going to touch me?” When I’m silent, her nostrils flare and her eyes grow furious. “You think I’m fucking offering?” Her small fist hammers down on my arm, laughable in its strength. “You son of a bitch. I don’t spread my legs for anyone that says jump. Not anymore—”
And then she bursts into tears.
The sight of her making water from her eyes wakes me up. I jerk to my feet, pacing, as her soft crying rips at my spirit. “Andrea, please…I’m sorry.”
She sniffs, swiping at her face, as if angry that she’s weeping. “You think I can’t tell when I have to offer a little pussy to get what I need? I have tons of experience with that, thank you very much. But these people? They’re just being nice.”
What
does she mean, she has experience with that? I drop to my knees, crouching in front of her, and place one hand on the ground. When she doesn’t swat that away, I reach out and touch her knee. “Tell me what you mean, Andrea. I wish to know.”
“You want to know?” She sniffs again, blinking rapidly. “I was the fort ho back at Fort Tulsa.”
I don’t know what that is, but guessing from her tone, I can guess it’s bad. Her shoulders hunch with shame, and I reach out and brush my knuckles over her cheek, wanting to take away the pain of her memories.
“See, when the Rift hit, my dad died right away. Mom lived on for a few more months, just long enough to get me and Benny to safety at Fort Tulsa. But then she died, too, and we ran out of ways to support ourselves. So I did whatever I could, odd jobs here and there, mostly cleaning or cooking or doing laundry. And I met a boy named Grant. He was sixteen to my fourteen, and I thought he was the sexiest thing ever. We’d kiss and have fun just making out and being stupid. I lost my virginity to him a few months later, and I just loved being with him. But then, of course, we broke up. And I started hooking up with someone else, because it was fun and what else was there to do in a fort, right? And then I started hooking up with someone else after that. And he was a soldier, and we got caught fooling around. He bragged to his friends, too, making up all kinds of kinky-sounding stuff that I was apparently game for. And I got a reputation. If you wanted a girl that would jump in the sack, you talked to Andi Foster.” Her voice turns bitter. “The shitty thing about reputations is that even if they’re not true, they can end up that way. Here I thought I was in love, and the guy I was hooking up with just thought he was getting his dick wet. And then of course, he brought a buddy along, and because I was slutty Andi Foster, they were shocked when I said no. They threatened me, made it seem like I’d regret it if I didn’t do what they wanted. So I did. I learned the hard way that when you don’t have anyone to look out for you, you can’t say no. To anything.”
It grows quiet. The dragon roars overhead again, but it’s nothing compared to the anger blistering through my chest. Suddenly, I don’t want to blend in at forts. I don’t want to mingle with humans.
I want to burn everything to the fucking ground.
Andrea swipes at her eyes again, sniffing. “Anyhow, that’s why I left Fort Tulsa. And that’s why I was careful about who saw you with me back at Fort Shreveport, because I didn’t want to get a reputation again, you know?”
I reach out and tip her chin up, forcing her to look at me. Everything in my mind is going crazy, my thoughts blazing to wildfire, but I somehow find it in me to stay calm. Collected. “You are the only good, perfect thing in this world, Andrea Foster. I love you. And I never want you to feel as if I am forcing you like they did.”
She tips her head slightly, rubbing her cheek against my fingers. “It wasn’t really forcing. I went along with it, but—”
“But you didn’t have any other options,” I say gently, even though I have murder in my heart, murder for all of the males out there who would think to take from someone so precious. “That is forcing, no matter how many smiles you wore on your face.”
Her eyes brim with tears again, but she presses a kiss to my hand. “Thank you, Atalim.”
I am not worthy of her sweetness. But I pull her close and stroke her hair and curl up next to her, breathing in her scent, because I cannot murder all the awful human men that walk this world.
She has left her past behind. If I am to have a future, I must do the same. I must be Liam.
I must.
16
ANDI
I stare up at the demolished building in front of me. "Okay, you win. I wouldn't have found this place on my own."
Off to one side, Gabe grins, slapping a hand against his thigh to call Scooter back to him. The dog's bounding around with excitement as if he knows this place. Maybe he does. Gabe said he came from here once upon a time.
I'm glad he's with us, because I never would have found this spot. It's genius.
The “entrance” to Fort Justice is nothing more than a half-collapsed, nearly demolished moving company office. It looks like fire ate the entrance at one point, and rain and weather took care of the rest. It's large, the size of a small supermarket, and those ever-present rats scurry behind lumps of garbage in the street, as if waiting for us to leave. Behind the store, though, hidden in a blind alley and choked by dead vehicles and trees, is the real entrance to Fort Justice—a storage unit center once attached to the moving company's front office. Back in the day, I'm guessing that people rented a moving truck and had the option to store their stuff in the same place, but thanks to the geography and now the wreckage, you can't see the long rows of storage units from the street. You have to walk right up to the place to realize that they're even there.
As forts go, it's clever. A bunch of storage units might not be the most comfortable of locations, but you're safe from dragons thanks to the metal roof and walls, and you're safe from nomads thanks to the seclusion.
I glance over at Liam to see if he's appreciating the ingenuity behind the entrance to this particular fort, but he's staring off into the distance. His eyes are hidden with the sunglasses, and his cap is low over his head. Today, he's wearing long sleeves despite the fact that it's blazing hot, and I tell myself it's because he's trying to hide just how dragon-like he is from Gabe.
Sometimes I think the layers are to add another layer of protection between us, too. He's been vague all day as we traveled, not talking, not paying attention as Gabe and I made small talk. Every so often he would stop and drop into a crouch, or pause to stare at the empty skies, and it worries me.
He's acting less and less like Liam every day and more like…well, Vaan and Rast.
I worry our flirting is destroying him.
Another rat scurries over my boot, dragging my mind back to the present. I kick it aside, shuddering. "If this is the fort, they have a serious rat problem."
"Who doesn't?" Gabe drawls.
"Me. Where I'm from. We don't. You're just inviting disease with this shit." I shake my head. "So how big is this fort?" I ask as we approach the front of the burned-out store. No one's come out to greet us, but I suppose that's not surprising. I am a little shocked there are no guards up front, but that might destroy the whole “hidden fort” vibe they've got going on.
Even so…
"About thirty people?" Gabe shrugs. "A few more might have left since I was here. Like I said, they're kinda strict with the rules. I get it, what with two forts imploding out from under them, but I can't feel sorry for ’em."
"Two forts?" I ask, curious. "Seriously?" I pause as we head in to the store front, wondering if we're about to meet a fort full of the most unpleasant people ever. Then again, I can't blame them. I'm starting to get real annoyed with Gabe for sending my little brother here if they're dirtbags.
He nods, surveying the store front. "Fort Eureka and then New Fort."
New Fort? "Never heard of it."
"It was the first branch off from Eureka. Turned into a lordship pretty fast and he demanded tithes from everyone in the fort if they wanted his protection, so a lot of people left." He gestures at the store. "They made Fort Justice instead."
Ugh. Is there a single fort out there that's not full of assholes? Oh right, Fort Shreveport…but it's also ninety-five percent women and children. Figures. "So I guess you and Lester and Major and Charlie didn't want to come back to New Fort after Fort Justice booted you?"
Gabe gives me a disgusted look. "If it's all the same, I've had my fill of forts for now."
I know how that feels. When I left Fort Tulsa, I vowed to never be in another…until Gwen settled us and made Fort Shreveport. "I hear that." And I chuckle.
Liam starts growling, that ominous rumble building in his chest.
Fuck. I immediately move to his side and take his hand in mine. Every time Gabe speaks to me, I worry that Liam's going to lose his shit. He's acting jealous and more than a
little crazy, and I know it's not his fault. He's struggling. I just don't know what to do, though. So I squeeze his hand and wait patiently at his side until his growling subsides and he looks over at me.
"Andrea," he murmurs. "Sorry."
"It's okay. Are you going to be all right to go inside? There's going to be a lot of people in there." I know Amy has mentioned that Rast struggles when there's a lot of people around because of the smells and how they affect dragon-kind. Maybe Liam needs to wait outside…but I know that idea will never fly. He won't want to leave me alone with Gabe for a second.
He nods, the movement crisp. "The smells are not too bad here, which is odd." Liam runs a hand over his jaw, rubbing his mouth. "Unless I'm becoming immune to the stink."
"It's possible? Do you want to wait out here?"
He looks over at me, his expression unreadable thanks to the sunglasses and hat. "No. I'm not leaving your side."
"Are you sure? I know it’s difficult—"
Before I can say anything else, Liam wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me against his chest. In the next moment, his mouth is on mine, hard and demanding, and he's kissing me with such ferocious intensity that I'm left breathless and dazed. He releases me just as quickly and looks over my shoulder, and I get the impression that he did that for Gabe's benefit more than mine.
Which is irritating, but he gets a pass since he's really having a hard time today. I'd rather Liam be possessive-boyfriend Liam than crazy-staring-at-empty-skies Liam. So I hold his hand and walk forward with him.
Hopefully Benny won't be too weirded out by the fact that I'm hooking up with his buddy. I know he hero-worships Liam.
Gabe gives us a patient look, his dog sitting at his feet. Scooter seems oblivious, tongue lolling, but I sense Gabe's impatient. "Shall we go in or do you two need more time?"
"We're fine," I say crisply, stepping forward. "And if I were you, I'd tell your friends here at Fort Justice that even if they're hidden, it's still a good idea to have guards or lookouts, you know? We could be raiders. It seems foolish to not have eyes at the front of your fort."