Carrie and the Dastardly Dragons: A Paranormal, Bully Romance (Fated Mates Book 1)

by Ava Mason

  “Carrie, right?” the chick asked.

  I looked at her. “Who’s asking?”

  “I am. Obviously.” She walked to me and looked me up and down without ceremony. She had bright blue eyes, eyes like the ocean. When they landed on mine, it was unsettling in a weird way. “Sawyer, and we’re going to fix that.”

  “Wha—?”

  Without explanation, she shoved me back into my room. “Wash your face.”

  “I just put more make up on!”

  She ruffled through my clothes, throwing them behind her. “Exactly. And that’s your problem. Wash that blue off. It doesn’t go with this decade.”

  “I like it!” I folded my arms across my chest, staring in shock at the mess she was making.

  She turned to me and raised an eyebrow, staring me down. “Wash it off.” Then she walked back out the door.

  “Where are you going?” Was she leaving?

  “I’ll be back,” she called back, not bothering to shut the door behind her.

  I huffed. Ridiculous. I hastily cleaned up her mess and went back to my bathroom to study my makeup in the mirror. I liked the way the blue brought out the brown in my eyes and skin. Sighing, I grabbed a toilette and rubbed it off. After a few minutes, she came back, her arms filled with clothes. Lizzy’s clothes.

  She held up a dress, eyeing me speculatively.

  I stared her down. “I’m not wearing a dress. Besides, my boobs are bigger than Lizzy’s. It won’t fit.”

  She grinned, showing shiny teeth. “I knew you would say that.” She threw two of Lizzy’s dresses on the bed and held up a black crop top and black leather skinny pants.

  I crossed my arms. “I don’t have shoes for that kind of outfit.”

  “It’s a good thing I’ve got a spare set in my car.” She threw them at me. “You’ll look great, trust me. And you’ll fit in better.”

  “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” I looked down at my plaid shirt and jeans.

  “You look like a wolf, that’s what’s wrong.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?”

  “’Cause.” She came to me and started undoing the buttons on my shirt. “Lizzy might get a pass because the Queen backs her up, plus who she’s shacked up with, but most dragons don’t like wolves around here.”

  I gripped her fingers, stopping her. “Fine. But I can undress myself.” I wasn’t shy - growing up in a wolf pack, you got used to being naked, but I certainly didn’t need her to undress me.

  She stood back, holding her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Be my guest. But hurry, we need to get there before the crowd gets too thick and someone takes my seat.”

  By the time we left, I had smoky black and silver makeup, Arabian style, she called it, and was squeezed into Lizzy’s tight leather clothes. They clung to every single curve of my body, making my boobs look bigger than normal.

  I eyed Sawyer as we walked towards the parking lot, passing what looked like guards along the way. Noticing my eyes on her, she flipped her dark hair back and gave me a grin. “I like your new look. You look bad ass.”

  Her hair was shaved short around the sides and back, the top long enough and styled so that it hung down the left side of her face to her jaw.

  I sighed. Even though she looked like a sexy female version of James Dean, her features were slim. Everything about her was small and delicate. I wished I could be like that. My Hispanic genes required strong, thick bones, big boobs, and wide hips.

  “Thanks. It feels kinda weird though. Not myself.”

  “Then be someone else, just for tonight.” She shrugged, opening the door to her car. “No one knows who you are and that means,” leaning over, she disappeared into her car, then came back out, “you can be whoever you want.”

  She held out a pair of strappy black heels covered with fake rhinestones. I leaned in to stare at them. Nope, those didn’t look fake. They were real. I took a step back. “I can’t wear those. What if I break them?” They must’ve cost thousands of dollars.

  She pushed them into my arms. “I don’t care; they’re not mine. A friend of mine left them in here. I keep telling her not to leave her shit in my car but she says she forgets.” Sawyer grinned at me, and it made her face light up. She was striking in a very unique way. “Throw them in the lake at the end of the night if you want, I don’t care.”

  Frowning, I slid them on. They actually fit pretty well. “Are you sure?”

  Sawyer shrugged. “I don’t even think she’ll miss them.”

  I swallowed, considering her words. Sawyer had friends who were rich enough that they forgot about thousand dollar Gucci shoes. I wasn’t quite sure I would fit in here.

  “Come on,” Sawyer growled out. “Get in and quit worrying about the shoes.”

  I teetered on the heels as I shuffled around her car, noticing for the first time what kind of car she drove. It was a Porsche race car, although it was an older model, probably from the nineteen-eighties. It was also a bit beat up and painted matte black. A home job? Probably.

  My dad liked to tinker on race cars, so I was familiar with some of them. Back in the day, this one would’ve cost a lot of money but definitely not now, especially in its current condition.

  So Sawyer had rich friends but probably didn’t have money herself. That made me feel a little bit better. I climbed inside, squeezing myself into the bucket seat. The interior was just as old as the exterior, with cracked tan leather seats and one of those hard plastic steering wheels.

  “Are you sure this will take us to—” I cut off. “Where we’re going?”

  “Why?” She popped a bubble. “You think my car’s a piece of shit, or something?”

  I stammered for an answer but Sawyer grinned and tapped the top of the car lovingly. “I’m just kidding. Lennon will get us there. She doesn’t look like much but we’ll be fine. She purrs like a kitty under this crappy hood.”

  “You called your car Lennon?”

  “Yeah, why not?” She didn’t look up at me, popping another bubble while she fiddled with the radio, trying to find the right station. Sweet Child of Mine crackled over the speaker. Old school; I liked it. I relaxed a bit.

  “Let’s go.” Sawyer sucked her gum back into her mouth and turned the engine over. It sputtered to life, and Sawyer revved it a few times for good measure. The people walking past glanced in our direction, frowning. I didn’t like so many eyes on us. Dragon eyes were damn unsettling.

  “You certainly know how to make a scene.” I glanced at a pair of guys watching us. The music was so loud, they could probably hear it down the street.

  “I’m not driving this baby to blend in. It’s not my style.”

  That was an understatement. “I’m getting that.” I turned to her. “So, where are we going?”

  Sawyer pulled out of the parking lot without checking whether the coast was clear and a car honked.

  “Fuck, sorry man!” She stuck her hand out of the window, then muttered under her breath. “Sorry you can’t drive.” She floored it, and the car shot like a bullet through traffic. I gripped onto my handle, praying for my dear life that the other drivers were looking out for us, because Sawyer certainly wasn’t.

  “Wow, your car’s fast.”

  “I got someone to modify the engine a little. It’s not exactly according to the regulations, but they haven’t caught me yet.” She laughed, throwing her head back and shifted the gears with a scrape. She couldn’t drive stick worth shit.

  “Where was it you said we were going?” I asked again when I had realized her erratic way of driving wasn’t altogether unsafe and that I might live to tell the tale.

  “I thought a bar crawl would be nice.” She turned onto a busy street, barely scraping by as a row of cars caught up to us. I now knew why it was necessary for her to drive a fast car. It literally saved her life.

  “Really?” I asked. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “If you want to see what Aerwyna is really lik
e, then yeah. I mean, I could take you to all the la-di-da places, and you can marvel at the architecture and all that crap, or we can do what the locals do, and you can get a taste for what it means to be a dragon.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Did I really want a taste of what it was like to be a dragon? It sounded like a tall order. Plus, it’d been a while since I’d been out drinking and dancing. But at the challenging look on her face, I steeled myself.

  I was a wolf, for fucks’ sake. I could handle this.

  So I nodded. “Let’s go, baby.”

  She grinned. “That’s more like it.”

  While we drove, she pointed out a couple of things, like a parliament building that had been built in the sixteen hundreds, Lover’s Lane, which she called Idiot’s Lane, where couples walked hand in hand and stared deeply into each other’s eyes.

  And despite her driving, I got a feel for the city. It pulsed with magic that was foreign to me. It reminded me of Lizzy’s guys and how it felt when they were around, but it still wasn’t quite the same. It was a little different, and a lot stronger.

  “Tell me about yourself,” I said. “Do you have a family?”

  Sawyer glanced at me, one eyebrow cocked. “Are we here to tour Aerwyna or delve into the deep and wonderful mysteries of Sawyer?”

  “Come on, you can’t answer a few questions?”

  “I don’t do questions.” She hand rolled down her window and threw her gum out. When she saw me look at her, horrified, she pulled up one shoulder. “Job creation.” She reached into the glove compartment in front of me and rummaged around, finding another stick of gum.

  When her arm brushed against my knee, her magic jolted my wolf, and I growled. My magic flared up and was suddenly all around us in the car.

  “Woah, Furry, don’t get your panties in a twist. I didn’t mean to bump you. Calm down.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Don’t call me furry,” I said tightly.

  She laughed as if I was joking. “You can call me scales in return. It will be a beautiful cliché.”

  She popped the gum in her mouth, yanked on the steering wheel so that we careened around a corner at breakneck speed and finally, she slammed on breaks.

  “Here we are. The watering hole of the masses.”

  I unpeeled my fingers from the door handle, looking up at a sign that said, ‘Crosby’.

  “Is this a bar?” I opened my door.

  “Yeah, it’s as grimy as they get. I love it.”

  She hopped out of the car, and I followed. ‘Crosby’ was spelled out with a neon sign, flickering orange and tacky. The windows were lit, yellow light pouring out into the darkening street, and the sound of laughter floated out of the open door.

  She opened the door and loud music immediately enveloped me. Everyone turned and stared at us.

  I halted, surprised. I wasn’t used to people even noticing me when I walked into a room, and now, everyone was staring at me like I’d walked in here in my underwear. I glanced down, checking to make sure.

  There was only one man not staring at me. His dark, custom-tailored Westmancott suit and polished wingtip Oxford shoes set him apart from the crowd, catching my eye. But his heated gaze was reserved for Sawyer. And when I say heated, I meant angry.

  “Come on.” Sawyer grabbed my hand, ignoring everyone. Trying to pretend I didn’t notice their looks, I studied the decoration in the bar. Everything was decorated in shades of brown and not all the furniture matched. Smoke hung against the ceiling like an artificial sky and the pictures on the walls were a mess, too, decorated with a mishmash of paintings and photos and posters. It was as if the whole place just didn’t know what it wanted to be.

  Sawyer scoured the crowd, looking disappointed. There was one open seat, right at the bar. As she pulled me through the crowd, I felt eyes on me. I studied everyone’s clothes, now grateful Sawyer had insisted I change. I would’ve definitely looked like a small town girl if I hadn’t.

  I pressed my lips together, scowling as I pressed through the crowd and meeting their glares. The dragons knew that I was a wolf, and they didn’t like it. As soon as we reached the empty seat, a single middle-aged man jumped off his barstool. Giving me a dirty look, he grabbed his half-way filled glass and pushed past me, brushing my shoulder as he walked by.

  “I don’t think anyone here likes me, except that one guy that seems to hate you.” I sat down on the newly vacated seat and she sat next to me, elbows on the bar, studying the bottles behind the bartender. Despite the looks and everything being so damn mismatched in the place, I liked it.

  “Everyone loves me.” She gave me a cheeky look, brushing off my comments. “But you - well, you’re a wolf. What did you expect?”

  The truth was, I’d expected a warm welcome. We were here to create an alliance between wolves and dragons. I knew, of course, that there were probably dragons that didn’t agree with the pending alliance, or dragons who didn’t like wolves. But I hadn’t expected there to be this many of them.

  “I thought wolves didn’t even know about your country.”

  She crumpled a napkin with her gum in it, waving her hand at the bartender. “They didn’t. Not really.”

  “Then why does everyone hate wolves?”

  “Because the only ones that have been in this country in the past the several years are the terrorists.”

  I coughed, surprised at her words, and the bartender walked towards us. His gaze took me in and a frown formed on his face.

  “Hey, Murray.” Sawyer gave him a sweet smile that I suspected was rare. “The usual, please. And for my new friend, too.”

  Murray looked back at me. He had a bright blue mohawk and a black mustache that curled at the edges. His eyes were filled with disdain. Was he allowed to refuse to serve wolves?

  “Just because it’s you, Sawyer,” he finally said and turned away to get whatever “the usual” was.

  A moment later, he put down two shot glasses and filled them with tequila. He pushed a salt pot and a bowl with lemon slices at me.

  “Oh, no, no,” I said, shaking my head. “This is the worst way to start the night.”

  Sawyer laughed. “You shitting me? It’s the only way to start the night.” She threw back the alcohol without doing the salt-and-lemon routine or pulling a face at the aftertaste. Tough as nails.

  I hesitated.

  “I paid, you have to drink it,” she announced.

  “When did you pay?”

  Sawyer nodded at the bartender. “Murray puts it on my tab. That counts. Besides, I’m supposed to show you a good time. I can’t do that if you’re too uptight. You need to relax.”

  She was right. A wolf walking into a dragon bar felt like a rabbit wandering into a bear den. I needed to chill a little bit. I licked my hand and poured salt on it, holding the shot glass in one hand and the lemon slice in the other.

  Sawyer rolled her eyes. “We need to teach you how to drink.”

  I licked the salt, threw back the tequila and squeezed my eyes shut while I bit into the lemon. I shivered. Tequila was vile. But it burned through my body, the alcohol immediately making its way to my head, and I relaxed a little.

  “Much better. Your wolf isn’t sitting up with her lips pulled back anymore,” Sawyer said with a satisfied note, just as Murray put down two more. Sawyer picked one up and shoved it into my hand. “Drink.”

  I grabbed it and, shrugging my shoulders, threw it down. Closing my eyes, I felt it burn as it slid down my throat and my mind felt fuzzy. It had been a few years since I’d turned twenty-one and entered my bar hopping phase.

  Suddenly techno music blasted through the speakers and Sawyer yelped, jumping out of her seat and grabbing my arm. She dragged me to the dance floor and soon we were both jumping up and down, ignoring the wary stares around us. Everyone else finally quit looking at me and started dancing again.

  A guy stepped up to me, lightly grabbing my hips and dancing behind me. I closed my eyes, raising my hands and giving in to the
music. The base blared throughout the bar, thumping in time with my heart beat, and I let loose, feeling it flow and pound through me. The man’s fingers caressed my side, sending tingles up it, and his aftershave drifted through my nose. He smelled like clove and leather - horse saddle leather. I leaned into his firm chest, feeling aware of the way his fingers gripped my ribs. Sexual energy buzzed between us and I felt him begin to harden behind me. He ground his pelvis into my ass and his breath washed over my ear. Goosebumps prickled my neck and his hands slid up even higher, they were almost touching my breasts. My nipples perked in anticipation and I moved a little bit lower, encouraging him.

  It had been too long since I’d been touched like that, and maybe a make out session with someone I didn’t know was exactly what I needed.

  “I never knew wolves could be so sexy.” His deep voice rumbled against my chest and he moved his hand to my neck, clasping it gently, holding me to him as he bit my ear.

  Heat shot through my stomach and my eyes fluttered opened; I needed to see this guy.

  Sawyer was still dancing across from me, grinning wide. She also had someone dancing behind her but she seemed to be more into the music than to him. I meant to turn around but instead got caught up by the gaze of the guy dancing behind her.

  He was the sexiest man I’d ever seen.

  His hair was a stark black and contrasted sharply against his pale face. His eyes, dark blue and piercing, stared right into me, into my soul. Sex oozed from every pore of his skin, drawing me in like a magnet, as his hips seductively swayed to the music. His hand was on Sawyer’s hip, clasping her to his body, but his eyes were all for me. As if daring me to kiss him.

  I found myself willing.

  Then the corners of his lips lifted into a sneer and he turned his face, skimming them up the side of Sawyers face. Eyes still on me, he ran his fingers through her hair, kissing her cheek. His fingers were thin and nimble and I imagined they were very experienced. Scowling, Sawyer turned to swat at him. “Gross, Denver. Who knows what those lips have touched.”