“You mean down in that mine?” Kent asked, panic welling in his chest.
“The dragon-shifters will be out in full force,” Mr. Mills said. “They will probably believe that the statue’s power is heightened on the solstice and attempt to access the full wishing state, whether they have the girl or not. But with all of us there at once, it’s bound to be a massacre. I need to know that you can guard my daughter with your life while Blaine, Coty, and I work the spell to destroy the statue once and for all. There is nobody else who can do it, Kent. We’re counting on you.”
Kent let the information slowly sink into his brain. So, Adrian’s father had been a psychotic diplomat who had caused all this grief. He was the kind of man who didn’t seem to take the needs of others into much consideration… and he was extreme. Maybe even a little bit of a drama queen.
Apparently the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, because Adrian was as emotional as they came. But who could blame her?
“What happened to Adrian’s old man, anyway?” Kent asked. “I mean I can kind of guess, but…”
“Oh, the dragon-shifters captured him long ago. The wish he made backfired. The only way to get him out of that little problem was to send him to the afterlife, where nothing would ever trouble him again.”
Kent looked down at his hands. It was a harsh fate, but at least the short-sighted and greedy man wasn’t calling any more shots for anyone anymore.
“I can do it,” Kent said firmly.
“What’s that?” Logan asked.
“I can protect Adrian. Those dragon assholes won’t know what hit them.”
Mr. Mills grinned, and suddenly Kent realized that what Logan had said was true. He really was proud of him. A surge of warmth spread through Kent’s chest and he stood up, crossing the room to shake Mr. Mills’ hand.
“I know you can,” Logan said. “Now go and get some sleep. You’re going to need to be rested up. This next week is going to be a doozy.”
“Yes, sir.”
He left the lodge feeling both heavier and lighter than he had when he’d gone in. While it felt good to know what the hell was going on, now he was more concerned than ever. The idea of Adrian being such a target, and for something that hadn’t even been her fault in the least, made him sick to his stomach. If her father was still alive, he would have gone out to find him and put an end to his bullshit right then and there. As it was though, there was nothing that he could do about it except fight.
And fight he would.
14.
Adrian hadn’t heard from Kent all week; not since the incident at his childhood home. Although she felt terrible about it, she still hadn’t received an adequate apology. Sure, he had said he wanted to apologize, but had he?
Maybe she hadn’t given him a chance to get around to it. She was an impatient person and could be a little bit of a hot-head, but that didn’t mean that he should just let her walk away feeling angry. Men were so clueless sometimes.
Or maybe she was just too sensitive. She couldn’t help but feel responsible, and really, she had no idea how someone was supposed to put up with a relationship with her, not when she was so quick to fly into the worst case scenario in her head. If she was wrong, then it could mean she had a lot to apologize for herself.
Maybe she should go out and find Kent. He’d been trying to share a piece of himself with her, So perhaps she shouldn’t have been so hasty. What if he did like her, just as much as she was trying not to like him? There was no way of knowing for sure, not with the way things had been going.
Adrian sighed. Whether she was right or not, it didn’t give her the right to turn his tragic backstory into an opportunity for conflict. She should find him and apologize. He deserved that much. He’d just been trying to tell her he was sorry and explain why he had acted the way he had. Maybe if she hadn’t been so angry she would have been able to see that a little bit more clearly.
With this new resolve at heart, Adrian grabbed her purse. She would go find Kent and let him know exactly what she had been thinking. Maybe then she’d be able to clear her conscience and start focusing on something other than his obnoxiously handsome face and ridiculously toned body. Honestly, who had the time to work out like that? Apparently a bear-shifter.
It was when she got to her car Adrian realized she had no idea where Kent lived. The realization took her by surprise. He had taken her practically everywhere on the mountain, meeting people she would probably never speak to again whose names she often forgot the same day she met them, simply because she had met so many people that day already. Still, it was more about them knowing her than vice versa. With the exception of Coty, none of them had given her any indication they might be willing to help her out in a time of need.
Adrian pulled her cell phone out of her purse and dialed her father’s number.
“Dad? Do you know where Kent lives? I wanted to stop by to drop off some freshly baked brownies. I thought I could use them as a thank you for being kind enough to show me around the mountain.”
“Oh!” her father said. He sounded surprised to hear it. “Well, Kent is a busy man, he might not be home.”
“That’s all right, I just need the address. If he’s not there I can come back. It’s no big deal.”
Her father hesitated for a moment, and Adrian frowned. Was something wrong?
Before she could pursue the thought, he laughed brightly.
“Well, Kent is kind of a health buff, but I bet he has quite a sweet tooth behind closed doors. I’ll give you his address and you can find out for sure for yourself. How does that sound?”
“Great, thank you,” Adrian said.
She jotted down Kent’s address and chatted a little bit longer with her father, who seemed a little bit off. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Then again, he was always kind of like that, especially when he was stressed out with work. He never really went into details about how he was feeling though, so she had learned by then it was better not to ask. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what was going on with him.
“I’m going to get going now,” Adrian said finally. It was always nice to chat with her stepdad. He really was a loving and intelligent man. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“All right, honey. Take care,” he said with a smile in his voice that made her forget all about the weird tone that the conversation had lurking beneath it.
Adrian grabbed the brownies she had baked that morning. They’d been intended for herself, but now that she was thinking about Kent, she really wanted to bring him some sort of peace offering, and if there was one thing she was good at, it was baking.
Without a second thought to deter her from doing the right thing, Adrian left the cabin. She had a vague idea of how to get to where her stepfather had directed her, but it was going to be okay either way. She would find it eventually and apologize to Kent for acting so harshly. She had been very hurt at the time, and re-living past hurts was hard for her to do. At least there was a chance to make reparations, and if she couldn’t, she would feel better knowing that she had tried. If her best wasn’t good enough, then that was that. At least it could be good enough for herself.
Adrian drove through the winding mountain roads, her chest tight. Something seemed a little bit off. It was probably that weird vibe she had gotten from the phone call with her dad. Sometimes shifter business was a little grisly, and she was probably picking up on some of it. She was bound to now, living on Oak Mountain. It seemed more outwardly violent than Stonybrooke, but that was probably just because the wolf-shifters did their very best to create a good face to the human world. It was their effort at fitting in and creating an acceptable community. The bear shifters didn’t give a shit about convention. They did what they wanted, and how they wanted to do it, no regrets or qualms about it. Although they had a set of laws they abided by to co-exist peacefully amongst humans and upheld that law strictly, they handled their own business however they saw fit, and there was nothing anyone could say or d
o to change that. Oak Mountain was bear territory, plain and simple.
She supposed she could’ve been a little bit more understanding of Kent. He was a bear-shifter. They dealt with things a lot differently than humans, with a fierce independence that she didn’t really understand. Yet they were loyal to a fault, willing to do whatever it took to take care of their families, even if that family consisted of a certain, non-biological child.
When Adrian finally rolled up in front of Kent’s house, she was awe-stricken. It was huge. The roof reached above the tree line and there were tremendous skylights that allowed the bright sun to stream inside. She hesitated before approaching the door, intimidated by the architecture. It was unlike anything she had ever seen on Oak Mountain. The cabins were usually simplistic and rugged, kind of the bare bones of a human dwelling. This was something else entirely; like a combination of everything interesting and unique about architecture merged into one beautiful building that almost looked like it had come out of another world entirely.
She knocked nervously and heard a sudden commotion inside. It was startling; almost like the sound of a brawl.
“Are you okay in there?” Adrian asked before she could stop herself. “Kent?”
Kent was suddenly at the door, his chest bare and heaving. He was out of breath, as if he had been running, or maybe doing something else. He was wearing nothing but a pair of flattering jeans, and looking at her as if expecting her to speak first. Or maybe he was just trying to catch his breath, because when he finally took a deep gulp of air, he smiled at her.
“Adrian, hi. What’s up? Everything okay?”
In a way, she couldn’t help but prickle, wondering if maybe he had someone else in the house with him, but something about the way he was looking at her made her doubt it, so she went back to being worried.
“I was going to ask you the same thing. I heard some loud noises.”
“Oh, that? I was exercising,” Kent said quickly. “Come on in.”
Adrian followed, feeling a little bit put off by the whole thing, but was quickly distracted by the beauty of Kent’s home. The sun shone through the ceiling as if there weren’t even a roof over it, and the whole place felt open and airy and free. It was absolutely breathtaking.
“It’s beautiful in here,” Adrian whispered, wishing she could take a picture or something. Nobody would ever believe her if she tried to describe it. She probably wouldn’t even be able to explain it if she tried. She wanted to keep an image of it forever.
“Thank you,” Kent said. “I designed it myself.”
“You did?”
She had a feeling that Kent was good with his hands, both in and outside of the bedroom, but seeing the proof of that was something new entirely. She had nearly forgotten about her peace offering until Kent turned to her, his eyes kind and his handsome face smiling patiently.
“What’s all that?” he asked, nodding toward the tin she was carrying.
“Oh. I made you brownies,” she said, laughing sheepishly. “Mainly because I felt bad about how our last time seeing each other ended. I wasn’t very kind to you. It can be hard for me to believe that anyone is being genuine with me…”
Adrian trailed off, lost in the caring, concerned depths of Kent’s brown eyes. She wanted so badly to believe that maybe this man had the best intentions at heart, but there was still something about the whole situation that was making her uneasy. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she knew she wanted nothing more than to have that feeling go away so that she could move on. Maybe with the feeling gone, she would be able to look at her feelings for Kent objectively without feeling like no matter what he did, he would always be a piece of shit.
“Brownies, huh?” Kent asked, stepping forward and taking the tray from her. “They smell great. However, you have nothing to apologize for.”
He walked to the big island that acted as a partition between his huge open concept living room and kitchen and sat the brownies down. He took one out and started eating it, leaning against one of the tall barstools and grinning at her. “These are good.”
Adrian felt a flush creep across her cheeks. Maybe it had been a mistake coming here. No matter how attracted she was to him, there was no way that things would work out with the two of them. They were from two different worlds and they would probably never understand each other.
“Thank you. I’m glad you like them. I just wanted to give them to you to kind of say no hard feelings. So… now that you have them, I guess I should go.”
Adrian gasped. Kent’s strong hands were suddenly on her. He had crossed the room like lightning and now his handsome face was staring down at hers, causing her heart to pound hard in her chest as they stared at each other.
“No hard feelings,” he said, pressing his thigh into her and leaning in to kiss her. She gasped softly as his tongue slid into her mouth, sending shockwaves of pleasure surging through her body. She gasped as her body was awakened by a now familiar jolt of longing, and surrendered briefly to his touch, letting herself forget for a moment that things between them were impossible. They would never work out. She wasn’t even going to live on Oak Mountain forever. Someday she was probably going to return back to Stonybrooke and start the life for herself that her degree dictated. Some kind of business, with some random companies she cared nothing much about.
The kiss was brief, but it felt like an eternity. By the time she finally forced herself to pull away, her heart was pounding rapidly. She had to get out of there and try to process what was going on. She couldn’t just let herself be swayed by impulsive feelings. There was just too much going on for her to think straight. Too many changes.
“I’ve got to go,” she mumbled, pushing away from him and moving quickly to the door. She let herself out and didn’t dare to look back. She had a feeling she knew exactly what she would see if she did, and didn’t trust herself with the inevitable hurt in his deep brown eyes.
She would just have to focus on herself for now. It wasn’t fair for either of them for her to jump in before she was ready. It would just make everything even more needlessly complicated, and she would ruin whatever progress she had made with him.
Adrian sighed, heading back to her car. She had dropped off the brownies. She had made her peace. And now, she was going to have to pretend that the feeling of his kiss wasn’t left to linger on her lips, making her want to turn back around and go into Kent’s luxurious house so she could finish what he had started.
15.
“It’s tonight?” Kent asked, his stomach fluttering nervously. “I don’t know if I can do that. Putting her in danger like this seems so wrong.”
“Kent, it’s the only way that we can fully destroy the statue and save her life. Without that power hidden within her, the dragon-shifters will lose interest. But if they succeed, they will not only take away the most important person left in my life, but they will have all the power they could ever wish for. It would be devastating to everything we know. Our very way of life would be threatened, and my daughter would be dead. There would be no hope left.”
Kent studied the worn-out face of Logan Mills and felt his chest tighten. He didn’t like the idea of taking Adrian to a place where there were bound to be a huge hoard of dragon-shifters ready and willing to kill her at a moment’s notice. And yet, Mr. Mills was right. It was the only way to rid her of this curse once and for all. They had to do something, and if they couldn’t at least try, it would be unfair to Adrian. She would be in danger for the rest of her life. He couldn’t allow that to happen.
“I understand. I’m just concerned…”
“I know you are, Kent. But that’s why we chose you for this job. If you can pull it off, you’re going to be among the legendary bear-shifters on Oak Mountain. There is only enough room in the mine for the four of us, and I don’t know how many dragon-shifters are planning on coming after the statue. Coty has been keeping watch, but we must get there and set up before the dragon-shifters. I need you to go get Adr
ian. Blaine’s posted outside her house right now, but he has to go to town to finish gathering the supplies for the spell. I believe we can pull this off, but there is a timeframe that will make that a lot more possible. Please, let’s work on this sooner rather than later so we can all meet up at the same place, at the same time.”
“But why would Adrian come with me? She doesn’t even know what’s going on. That isn’t fair to her.”
Kent had been thinking about that for weeks now. Why would the secret hurt her now that it was nearly dealt with? She would need to know why she was stuck on Oak Mountain if they weren’t able to destroy the statue. It was only fair.
“You’ll find a way to make her come with you. I trust you on that part. She likes you, Kent. She doesn’t make brownies for just anybody.”
Kent couldn’t help but smile. How did Mr. Mills know what she’d done? He must have been the one to give her his home address. It had been quite a surprise to get that phone call from Logan, telling him he had to beat Adrian back to his house so he could pretend he’d been home the whole time. He hadn’t realized Adrian must have been asking about where he lived to her stepdad so she could drop off her little gift. He still had most of the pan. For some reason, he felt reluctant to eat them all. It was nice to have a little piece of her around when things got lonely, even if she acted like she hated him. He was starting to know better though. Maybe they just had to be a little clearer with each other.
Dragon Protector (Dragon Dreams) Page 32