She hated how bound she felt. She would never be able to live the life she truly wanted. Not so long as her biological family kept pestering her. There were hundreds of messages on her phone from her mother. Zara hadn’t opened any of them. How her family got her new phone number was beyond her.
Her hand was just about to push open the Art Center door when someone called out her name. Thinking that Asher had found her again, she spun around with what felt like butterflies in her stomach. One by one, they withered and died when she saw the man walking toward her. Her heart leapt into her throat. She froze, unable to run or hide in the Art Center.
“Zara,” he said again. Her ex-fiancé. He’d grown soft around the middle. His glasses were thicker than she remembered.
“What are you doing here?’ she growled the words, feeling her teeth grow sharp.
“I came out to talk some sense into you. This rebellious phase of yours has gone on long enough. Your family misses you. Come back, get married, and everyone will forgive you. They won’t even remember this phase when your first kit comes. They’ll be so distracted by a new child.”
“Marry you. That’s what you mean.” The words were sour in her mouth. She hated the taste of them. “If you haven’t noticed by now, I’m an adult. I make my own decisions.”
His nose wrinkled. “You’ve made me wait too long, Zara. We were meant to be together. Our bloodlines will create the next generation of kits. Don’t you want to start your future now?”
She looked to the art behind the window. Her heart cried out for it. That should have been her future, but it couldn’t be so long as the foxes kept pestering her. If she raised her grades and got into a good job, then she could escape this man forever.
He didn’t give her a chance to argue, though. He grabbed her wrist and forced her to look him in the eye. The way his eyes roved over her face was nothing like the way Asher looked at her. This man seemed to despise everything he saw in her.
“We will get married, and you will be a good wife. The first thing to go will be this ridiculous make-up of yours. You look like you rolled out of bed with it on. Clean yourself up a bit more.”
Her lip curled. “I did in fact roll out of bed with it. I rolled out of a dragon shifter’s bed this morning. Do you want me to give him a call? A man like you would be just a snack for him. He could pick his teeth with your bones after.”
She couldn’t believe herself. The vicious streak inside her had never been available when she stood before her ex-fiancé. He’d always seemed larger than life, capable of breaking her if she spoke out of turn the same way her father had broken her mother. Zara had grown since she last saw him. He didn’t seem so big anymore.
Especially not when she had Asher’s number in her backpack.
But her ex-fiancé was unrelenting. “Go ahead. Call this dragon man that doesn’t exist. I’ll wait.”
She wrenched her arm out of the man’s grasp and staggered back. “If you insist.”
She didn’t know how he got there so fast. One moment, the silence between her and her ex-fiancé was growing uncomfortable, the next Asher had appeared. His warmth washed over her back, letting her know he was there. It was like he had no regard for pretending to be human in public. At least, not when she was in trouble.
The smell of vodka wafted from Asher, but she didn’t say anything. She would bring it up later, concern for her new friend making her stomach churn.
Her ex-fiancé took a fumbling step back, eyes wide. He truly must not have expected a dragon shifter to show up at her beck and call. Most likely not the most famous of them all, Asher Knuden.
“What are you doing, cavorting with the likes of him?” her ex-fiancé hissed. “You were meant for foxes. Our kind stick together. You’ve managed to spit in the face of every tradition.”
Asher growled and stepped around Zara. She had to reach out and grab the back of his shirt to keep him from hitting her ex-fiancé in public. She wanted to let Asher unleash on him, to teach him what it felt to be smacked around, but she didn’t want to draw too much attention. Already, someone across the street had stopped and was pointing at them.
“I hope you fall into a hive of wasps,” Zara told her ex-fiancé as she dragged Asher into the Art Center.
The glass and metal door swung shut behind them. The familiar smell of paint and turpentine greeted her. Asher sneezed, shaking his head.
He didn’t complain about the smell, though. His attention was already on the window, watching her ex-fiancé on the other side.
“Who the hell was that? Your biological father?”
“No. He’s the man my biological parents expected me to marry.”
Asher immediately tried to shove past her. She had to spin on her heel and lunge to grab his arm. Still, he was so focused on his target that he dragged her a couple of inches before they both came to a stop.
“Don’t make a big deal out of this,” she begged. Zara hated the tone in her voice, how desperate it sounded.
Running into her ex-fiancé had shaken her. She hadn’t expected to find him here. Nowhere was safe so long as he stuck around. She didn’t know how far his dedication to returning her to the fold would go. She couldn’t call Oscar to come out here. Her adoptive father had a pack to run. Regina was a fox just like her.
While foxes could be clever and quick, they weren’t frightening. But Asher…well, everything about him screamed menacing as he glared past the glass window. Heat rolled off him. She could see it warping the air. It burnt away the last traces of vodka that had been clinging to him.
“I don’t like him,” Asher growled. He finally turned back to her. The beast still showed in his eyes. “I definitely don’t like that he came all the way from California just to harass you. He seems like a lowly piece of—”
“Asher, please. I just want to forget about him.” Zara wanted to be free of the tremble that was slowly taking over.
She didn’t want to be a scared fox for the rest of her days. If she could just get Asher to sit down, then maybe she could get herself together. She could come up with a plan to outsmart her ex-fiancé then.
“What were you doing here?” Asher asked, finally looking around.
There were all sorts of different art on the walls, from landscapes to abstract self-portraits. They walked under a mobile, careful not to disturb it as they claimed a seat. The woman behind the counter at the back eyed them warily. She was probably terrified of the scene Asher had just made. Only seconds ago, Asher looked like a killing machine.
Zara dragged Asher into a seat. The table was covered in smears of paint from past classes. She traced her finger along the marks, thinking of Jo.
“I was distracted by the window display,” Zara confessed. “My ex surprised me.”
“Ugh, don’t call him that. He was never your ex.” Asher’s voice was one step away from a snarl. Every few moments, he looked over his shoulder like he was waiting for the man to come flying through the door.
Zara felt safe with him around. Her heart rate settled and the tremble that had gripped her was starting to fade. She reached out and took his hand, and a little more of the fear slipped away. Asher squeezed reassuringly.
“So, this place. What about it stopped you?”
His knee bobbed under the table. The whole building was starting to shake.
“I’m sorry. I never should have bothered you. If you’re uncomfortable here, you can head back home.”
“Don’t go soft on me now, goth girl. Besides, it’s not that I’m uncomfortable. I’m trying to keep my beast from hauling me back out there to hunt him down. I hate everything about him. He shouldn’t be on this territory. I want to…I want to hurt him. There’s no easy way of saying that.”
But Asher forced himself to stay put for her sake.
“Keep talking. Talk about anything you want. Eventually, my beast will give up on the hunt.”
“Alright, I can do that.” She chewed her lip and wondered what she could talk about.
There was one thing, stuck in her chest like a lump, that she hadn’t told anyone yet. “I came out here to be a business major, but I managed to tank all of my classes. I absolutely hate them, but they’re my only chance at escaping that.” She gestured vaguely to where her ex-fiancé had stood.
“Why business?” Asher’s knee never stopped bobbing. The table vibrated beneath their hands.
Zara shrugged. “It’s my one ticket to freedom. If I can become a manager or maybe even a CEO of a company, then they won’t be able to bother me anymore.”
Asher cocked his head. His bouncing leg was slowing. “What about a business job will keep them away?”
Zara opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She didn’t exactly know. In her head, it all made sense, but when she had to put it into words the holes in her plan became apparent. Zara didn’t quite know what about her plan would actually keep her safe. Her lips flapped as she searched for the answer, but she came up with nothing.
An uncomfortable silence settled over her as she resigned herself to the truth. She’d clung to this idea for so long, her surety growing every time she reminded herself of why she was here. Her conviction ran so deep that without it, she felt like nothing. It was as if a huge part of her had turned to sand and blown away in the wind.
“You said this place caught your eye. Why is that? This isn’t exactly the kind of place a business major would be interested in. Business is all about making money. Art centers are, like, for community support or some shit. Right?”
The woman in the back made a noise in her throat, like she had something to say to that, but was still too terrified of Asher to say it to his face.
“I used to paint a lot. I haven’t since coming out here to Michigan.”
“So, you’re an artist?”
Zara shook her head. “No. No, nothing like that. I just…painted.”
Seconds ticked by. “So, that makes you an artist. I can ask the lady back there, but I’m pretty certain that makes you an artist.”
“That’s not a real job, though. Being an artist means I won’t make the money I’d need if I have to pack up and move to hide from the foxes again. It means that I won’t have people looking for me if I go missing. Being an artist means being broke and alone and I can’t afford that.”
There it was. All the reasons Zara threw herself at the business major. She hadn’t forgotten them but speaking them into the universe left a bad taste in her mouth. They were the words of a coward. Zara never thought of herself as one, but it seemed fear had warped a part of her that she’d ignored.
Asher had been conversational, but upon hearing her argument, his expression became grim. She leaned back and tried to take her hand from his. Asher held on, though. He gently pulled her back toward him.
“You shouldn’t have to live in fear of them,” he whispered to her. “You shouldn’t throw your life away, doing something you hate just to know that you can run if you need to.”
She pressed her eyes shut, fighting back tears. The wall she built around herself with her stoic goth girl attitude was crumbling. She didn’t want to fall apart anymore. All she wanted was comfort and love. It seemed like those things would never come.
9
“While that guy is in town, you’re living with me. I won’t take no for an answer. My truck is up the street a bit. We can run by your apartment to pick up more of your things.”
Zara objected, but he didn’t hear a word of it. His blood was still boiling. The beast growled in his ears, rattling his skull. The need to hunt and hurt filled him. He had to clench and unclench his hands just to bleed off a bit of the violent energy still churning inside him.
She must have relented because she sighed and got into the truck along with him. Between his dragon metabolism and the heat produced by the beast inside him, all traces of the vodka was gone. He hadn’t had enough time to get wasted anyway. Not like that time he crumpled in Jude and Cole’s cabin, crying his eyes out.
He was still trying to forget that day.
They were both silent as he drove. Zara pointed out the upcoming turns to get to her apartment while he kept his eyes peeled for the man from earlier. The guy Zara said her parents had matched her with was much older than her. He would have been an adult when Zara was born. Asher’s lip curled at the thought, wondering how old Zara had been when they made the decision to give her over to that guy.
He made a mental note to himself to send her adoptive parents a hefty gift. Asher had enough money in the bank, and the couple had done something amazing for Zara. They made sure she was safe from those foxes. Asher would pick up where they left off. No fox was ever going to touch her again. He would rip off a hand before it reached her.
“You’re growling again,” Zara muttered. She didn’t seem afraid, though, just annoyed.
He sucked in a breath through his nose and tried to quiet his beast. “Sorry. It’s been a while since my last fight. I’m a little…tense right now.”
She was quiet, but she watched him like she could peel back the pages of his book and read everything about him. “Is that why you fight in the ring? Is it something you need to do?”
Asher knew the answer would scare her away. Zara had been bullied by everyone in her life. She didn’t need to know that he craved pain the way others craved sweets. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her either. She deserved to know who he was.
“It is, isn’t it?” she said all on her own. “If someone doesn’t sock you in the jaw every now and then, you get restless. You have a whole clan of dragons you can ask to smack you around. Why don’t you go to them and let them help you?”
He flexed his knuckles around the steering wheel. “We just came back together. Things are good with the clan for the first time in a decade. I shouldn’t fuck things up.”
“I don’t know if asking for help is exactly fucking things up,” she said, leaning her head in her hand. “With a face like yours, I bet most of them are just waiting for the chance to punch it.”
There was his snarky goth-girl. Asher grinned. She liked his face, and he knew it, so her words didn’t hurt. He liked the verbal jabs with her. It was kind of like being in the ring. He didn’t know how to dodge these blows as well as a fist or a knee, but he could learn.
They stopped outside her duplex. She let out a sigh that sounded awfully relieved. When his brows furrowed, she told him her roommate wasn’t there. Understanding dawned on him when he remembered the overly ambitious blonde who kept trying to get his attention. Asher felt like he deserved a sigh of relief, too.
He followed Zara inside. Her room was small, but the whole apartment was small. Evidence of her life was limited to her room, though. Nothing about the rest of the apartment reminded him of her. Everything was shiny and glittering and fake, kind of like her roommate. He dared a peek inside her room and found a black futon with a black faux-fur pillow. That was more like Zara.
Across from it was a desk and an easel. Paint tubes were scattered across the desk, but as she gathered her things, she made no move to grab any of it.
“Are you just going to leave this all here?”
Zara spared her art supplies a glance, her lips twisted like she tasted something sour, then shrugged and quickly looked away. Asher didn’t like that response. He took it upon himself to grab her art supplies. When she protested, he told her it could take up space in his place just like it took up space here. It didn’t matter where it gathered dust.
She scowled, but Asher wasn’t to be stopped. He gently laid the easel in the back of his truck and pulled out his phone. Using a shopping app, he bought a bunch more supplies while she gathered her things. By the time Zara came out with two bags and a stack of schoolbooks, he’d finished his little shopping spree.
Zara was none the wiser that while they were on their way back to the lake house, new supplies to inspire her were also getting ready to be shipped. He had splurged on next-day shipping, but what was all that money he’d made good for if he could
n’t use it for someone he cherished? How quickly Zara had become a part of him should have scared him, but Asher was ready to love someone. The lonely part of him that had broken down and cried on a cabin floor was being repaired piece by piece.
Even if she kept her distance. Even if she put up wall after wall between them. Even if she told him no every day for the rest of his life.
Uncertainty wormed its way into his chest. Zara evaded him time and time again. He couldn’t push her into anything because everyone else in her life tried to box her in. He needed to be careful and slow, but he ached so much that he didn’t know how long he could hold out for her. Asher suspected that she was the one.
His mate.
Why else would he feel so strongly? It could have been loneliness making him attach himself to her, but he didn’t want to believe that. When he looked to her and saw the curve of her nose, his heart fluttered. When she slowly drifted to sleep in his presence, he smiled.
Back at the lake house, he carried her bags and the art supplies inside before waking her. He gently opened the passenger door, grateful that the seatbelt held her in place. With her cheek pressed against his chest, he reached around her to unbuckle the belt. She wouldn’t fall so long as he was there to hold her.
How many times had he carried her now? He was getting used to the feeling of her in his arms. She smelled like pumpkin, or maybe he was making up the smell as he stared at her foot tattoo. The scent wrapped around him and settled the bloodthirsty beast. He should have carried her to bed, but he sat on the couch and held her in his arms for a little while longer.
Was this what it was like to love someone so completely? His soul felt at rest. He’d never felt this with anyone else. He’d taken many women in his past, but those nights had been filled with frantic and passionate energy. This was calm, like the lake on a windless day. It was the serenity of sunrise and the soft hum of dusk.
His clan was probably wondering about him. It wasn’t like him not to wander the cabin property like a lost puppy. The others must have gotten used to having him around to help out here and there. It wasn’t like they weren’t capable of helping themselves. Alec was handy and Heath was determined. Between the two of them, they could fix anything.
Asher (Keepers Of The Lake Book 4) Page 8