by Lila Felix
There was absolutely, without a doubt, zero decent reasons to sit there. Close proximity to him had my body overruling my brain and that was not acceptable. I had far more at stake than a spring break fling. I had a future to prepare for. A future that included a career and… ugh, why was my brain leading me back to kissing him, because right now all I wanted to do was to feel his lips against mine. Using every last stupid bit of willpower I had, I broke the spell I was under and sat at the seat as far away from him as the seating arrangement allowed. I had things to discuss, and if I stayed where I was those things would become moot and fast.
“Guilt for sure.” It was true, the guilt of leaving him stranded, even if it were only a few miles away, didn’t sit well with me. It was far from the entire story, but not a lie. “I did steal your truck.” Looking down, I avoided his eyes. I knew from his actions he held no anger about it, but that didn’t make my actions right.
“I gave you blanket approval.”
I bent down to tie my already tied shoe, giving me a valid break from the conversations. Just a bit of time to recoup my mission out of my far too fuzzy hormone driven brain.
“As a joke,” I huffed out and forced myself to bring my eyes back up to meet his face.
“Or guised as a joke so you wouldn’t worry about it if it became necessary.” The honesty that his voice held, mixed with the sincerity in his eyes had me about to jump over the coffee table and into the seat beside him or on his lap, whichever I could get to first. “Guilt is only half the reason I’m here,” I said in a voice that was one hundred percent stage voice and not at all my own. If I allowed this moment to morph into anything other than I intentionally planned, I would kick myself as my dreams of law school plummeted.
“Why are you here then?” He cocked his head and I caught a shimmer of something. Was he wearing an earring? I always liked the bad boy. Not the actual, real bad boy, because in my dream world my life would end with my own law firm, a white picket fence, 2.5 kids and a husband who adored me. No, I liked the look of a bad boy with the heart of good guy. They had to exist, right?
Scolding myself for my wayward thoughts, I found myself twisting slightly to get a better look. My perusal after grand theft auto was unwelcomed if his quick head turn and hair shake was any indication. It was bad enough I was ogling him. Now that he knew, I wanted to crawl in a hole.
“Because of Liam.”
His shoulders tensed. Liam was a sore subject with him. Was it because of his father or grandfather, whichever the case may be, or was it something else? My guess was it was more that Lian was a meanie-head jerk-face mixed with whatever mess I stumbled upon.
“What. About. Liam.” Possessive. His voice was possessive. The words could mean pretty much anything, but I had zero doubt that it was anything but possessiveness that guided Knox at the moment. How? I would process that later, but I was certain. And for the love of law, why did that have my heart in such a flutter?
“He was messing with files before he gave them to me.” That had him squirming. The weird possessiveness of earlier was there, but his inability to school his emotions felt like a win. It was clear, I had hit a nerve.
“And do you know what those files said?”
“That Liam is a piece of shit not doing the job he was hired for?” Well that answered that. He knew or else he wouldn’t have been like that. Suck. Part of me really hoped he was in the dark so that he could help me.
“If he was hired to hide the fact that your family was part of the murder case, then he is doing a splenderific job.” I crossed my arms in front of myself, to show my… heck, I don’t know what, but I did it slowly and deliberately as if proving a point.
“My family?” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. His relaxed pose was anything but. The disappointment of knowing that he was part of this hurt far worse than it should have. He was just a guy. A guy I didn’t even know and one that was deceptive.
“Your father was one of the intake officers at the scene.” I stopped my tapping foot, a nervous habit I tried numerous times to unsuccessfully break.
“My grandfather was the police chief, not sure what that has to do with anything.”
Grandfather. Of course. I jumped straight to father because it fit my narrative forgetting that this happened before I was even born. Maybe he wasn’t hiding anything.
“It has to do with Liam trying to hide that from me.”
He gave a subtle nod of agreement.
“Do you know why?”
“Because he’s a shit.” He rose from his seat and I copied the gesture. He was either pulling a power move or he was about to walk out of the room and neither worked for me.
“Or because you know more about the case than you want me to know.” He turned to leave the room and I grabbed his shoulder to stop him.
“I’m sticking with my first answer, he’s a shit,” he mumbled, his body still not facing mine. At least he didn’t pull away from my touch. A touch I needed to not focus on because if I allowed myself down that rabbit hole, I would end up wrapping my arms around him like some floozy.
“I think you’re hiding something.” I tugged on his shoulder, to force him to either face me or turn around. I wasn’t sure which was better. Walking away would increase my anger and cause some hurt, but if his proximity was already causing flutters, feeling his breath on my face was going to undo me. “I saw it flicker through your eyes.”
With that he turned around. We were a mere six inches away and my breath hitched at the same time his did. At least I wasn’t the only one affected by whatever the heck this was brewing between us. I felt his indecision at our closeness, and before he could back away, I leaned in slightly. By goodness he smelled amazing. I was going to see his earing if it killed me. Part of me hoped it was a piece he made in a gauge I wouldn’t dare try while pursuing a career in law. As my head tilted sideway, I gasped. It wasn’t an earring. It looked like he had some piercing on his face, but that didn’t make sense. My hand reached up on its own accord, trying to touch the glimmering jewel, or whatever the heck it was. “Wait, what’s that on your face?” He grasped my hand, pulling it down between us as he tilted his head to obscure my view. “It wasn’t there before.”
“It’s nothing.” He dropped my hand and took a step back. “You should go now.”
“It’s not nothing.” If it was nothing, he wouldn’t be walking away from me. He would be allowing me to see the thing that illuminated his face.
Shit, was it a gang symbol? I went through all the school warnings about gangs, but never thought I would come face to face with a gang member, especially not in a rural town like this. Of course I didn’t, because my idea was stupid. Knox was not a gang member. How did I end up there?
“Go. Now.” His words slammed into me. And when I say slammed, I mean slammed. I felt them like a wave and it caused me to stick my heels in further. If his jewelry had him more on edge than me accusing his family of something related to a crime, I had to know why. I shook my head adamantly.
“No,” I whispered, the strong woman in my head not presenting herself as I had intended. His reaction to that one word, that barely audible two letter word was nothing like I expected. His eyes lit by what I could only assume was desire, and I, like any chicken would, scampered out the door.
9
Knox
No, I wouldn’t let her leave like this.
Kallie’s feet were still making tracks in the dirt on the way to my truck when I caught up to her and with one hand on her waist, spun her, turning her to face me.
“You can see it?” I asked her, pointing to the scale on my face, on my neck right below my ear.
Still in shock, she choked on her words. “Thought it was an earring or a piercing or one of those dermal piercings-something. Yeah, I can see it.”
Both of my hands were kneading her waist through her shirt. It was uncontrollable, the sheer need to get through the fabric to touch her skin j
ust once.
“No one can see those. No one.”
Her eyes narrowed, but never left the gaze with mine. “I see them. I see you.”
She didn’t know the full impact of those words.
“You told me to leave,” she said with a tear brimming at the corner of her eye. With some force, she blinked it back, determined to turn her back on it altogether.
“I did. I still want you to leave, but not empty-handed, not like this.”
She tried for an instant to wriggle free. It was haphazard at best.
“I’m not sure you can get rid of me now, female.” I leaned down, feeling her breasts brush against my chest and I got so close I could whisper in her ear.
I didn’t hold her tight. She had every opportunity to free herself from me with one tug. “I can do what I want, when I want,” she breathed.
“That’s what I like about you. You won’t be tamed. Instead, maybe you can tame me.”
She backed away then, just enough that her eyes were connected with mine again, but not so much to free herself from my hands fisting the sides of her shirt. Her chin, with the tiniest dent in the middle quivered for a second while the redness in her cheeks returned. She was pissed, and I wasn’t going to stand for it—for very long.
I did the only thing I thought could possibly shut her up. Before one syllable could exit her mouth, I bent down, just the slightest and with as much restrain as I could, pressed my mouth against hers in a release of pent up want and passion. Her lips were rigid against mine for a few seconds before, with a sigh, she relented to what we both wanted, and she moved with me. Her hands grabbed onto my back and pulled me closer as though even the small space between us was too much before trailing them up to the back of my neck, desperate for me to deepen what I’d started.
With a growl that was half human and half dragon, I slid my tongue into her mouth and just as I got lost in the taste of her, the sounds from her, the way she melded into my body, it was over. With one shove of her hands on my chest, she tore me out of the bliss and back to Earth.
“What are you doing?” That was the first question that came to my mind.
“I’m doing what you said, remember? Go. Now.” She mocked me with a tone that wasn’t too far from the truth and began a slow and smoldering walk to the truck. I should’ve caught her and asked her not to go.
Instead I stood in shock at the pure and unadulterated knowledge of what I thought I’d known all along.
Kallie was my mate.
She saw my scales and kissed me like she and I were both about to die in a fiery apocalypse.
Now I had to tell her that she was the mate to a man, and a beast.
As soon as my truck was out of sight and I could no longer hear her heartbeat between my temples, I pulled off my shirt, closed the door that she’d left open in complete anger, and hauled ass out the back door toward the mountains. The trees that so well hid my house passed through my vision. I allowed my dragon to take center stage in my consciousness so I speak to my brother. There was only one person in the world that I could talk to about the shit storm that Kallie had brought into my life.
Best shit storm I ever got into.
Samson, meet me at the mountain. Now.
It took him a minute to answer me which was odd. Usually, even if he was still in human form, he answered immediately. That’s why he was the beta—he was to be available to the clan at all times.
Yep. Give me ten.
Ten? Ten! I was an asshole. He had a mate and a child on the way. If he needed ten minutes to meet me then it must be for a good reason.
I stuck my clothes into a hole in the last tree before the cliff. I’d dug out that hole with my father because after my first spontaneous change, I’d come home naked and ravenous.
After a while, I had learned to have some control over my change, until last summer, when Kallie had visited. The pieces didn’t come together in my mind until a few days ago. It was her—it was all her—the way it was supposed to be when a dragon found his female—his eternal dragon mate.
And there laid the problem. The woman I was sure was my mate, down to the throbbing of my scales, was a human.
Fuck me sideways and call me Sally.
I stood at the edge of the cliff a little too long for my dragon’s liking. He pushed through, taking advantage of the scales that wouldn’t quite go away and expounded on their presence. Skin turned to scale, hardening while taking on a glimmer of teal and red, the colors of an Alpha dragon. My toes and fingers lengthened and became talons meant for tearing apart flesh and my jaw enlarged and became capable of crushing bone in one blow. In all my dragon’s beauty there was danger that lay just beneath the surface.
After a short flight in and between the puffy clouds that hugged the tops of the mountains, I landed next to my brother who had managed to get there before me despite his ten minute supposed delay.
“I’m just letting you know that I’m not doing that.”
I pulled on a pair of shorts and rolled my eyes. “What?”
“All that screwing you sideways, Sally.”
I’d forgotten that the channel to my brother was still open when I shot out that thought.
“Yeah, that wasn’t really to be taken literally.” I wrung my hands and stepped from foot to foot, waiting for him to stop being a dick and ask me why I wanted to meet him there.
“Okay. What was so important that I had to leave my Kærasta?”
Forcing out a weighted breath, I let it all out. “Because it’s true. You were right. I’ve found my Kærasta, since we’re on the subject.”
His smile said it all. My brother, on his mating day, wished that I would soon find my mate, but that was a few years back.
“Nice. Who is it?”
Now I was ready to choke him. “You know who! Kallie. The human girl. Which is the reason I needed to talk to you.”
“She’s human? You sure she’s not part dragon? Have you had Ramses do the tree?”
We had a clan member whose sole responsibility was to keep track of the dragon family tree, at least the ones that we knew of, where they came from and how they connected back to Mímir, the original dragon father.
“There’s no need, brother. She is not part dragon. I would be able to scent it on her.”
He looked to the skies. “There hasn’t been a dragon mated to a human since…”
“Since Grandmother. I know.”
Samson raised his eyebrow. “But she was fierce as a dragon. Fierce as our talons. Free as our wings. She wasn’t some nosey law student with a Sherlock Holmes complex.”
My entire hand was wrapped around his throat before my human side could even comprehend what he had just said.
My dragon knew exactly what the idiot said and wanted him to pay for it.
“Look at me, Knox. Slow down. It’s the Mate Craze talking. I was just joking. Calm the fuck down.”
His eyes had flashed dragon, gold and royal like his scales and indicative of his place in the clan. “Release me, brother. I can…”
He would’ve said ‘I can’t breathe’ if I hadn’t clinched down harder. His Adam’s apple began to move inward with the force of my hand. I had to stop before I crushed his larynx.
“Don’t you ever speak about Kallie in that manner again if you value your ability to breathe.”
My voice, mannerisms, and demeanor had phased to Alpha in a flat second. I could feel the power of my command flowing from me and infiltrating his consciousness. He had no choice but to obey.
“I understand. I’m sorry.”
“Shit,” I said, not only fully letting go of his throat, but stepping back to ensure I didn’t do it again, barely hanging onto the rage of my beast. “It’s not impossible. It’s not like we can’t mate with a human; it’s just rare.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” His back was to me now. I wasn’t the only one barely holding on to a shred of control.
“There’s some complications,” I said more to myself
than him.
“You’ve got two choices here. One: You can tell her you’re a dragon first and she runs like hell until she remembers that she’s totally got the hots for you. Two: You make her fall for you first, then tell her you’re a dragon later. Then she feels betrayed and runs anyway. I don’t envy you, I can say that for sure.”
I didn’t envy me either. My dragon had a third plan, but it involved a lot of biting and commanding and holding her hostage in a cave until she relented to love us. I wasn’t sure if I had a dragon or a caveman inside me sometimes.
“Damn it. Neither one sounds good.”
“Well, if she is your mate, remember that it’s not just one-sided. She will feel the pull too. Eventually, she will come back. She won’t be able to deny it. Then again, humans are stubborn little beings. They have no animal-sense to fall back on.”
“Puny little humans,” I mocked him and quoted Hulk at the same time.
“Pathetic,” he joined in but his hesitance was palpable.
“I already love her, Samson. Two days and I swear I’d kill for her.”
The big brother, I’m proud of you, smile was back. “That’s how it goes. Attraction, protection, love—always in that order.”
“I have to tell her. I can imagine how that’s going to go down. She thinks our family murdered her grandfather.”
He walked to the edge of the cliff and sat, dangling his feet over the edge, fearless. Then again, if he fell, he’d just sprout wings and fly back up.
Perks of being a dragon.
“I’m probably supposed to give you some kind of advice, but I don’t have anything in me but sarcasm.”
Sitting beside him, the scales were painful now, already warning me of the pain I’d face if I denied my mate—as if I could deny her. “Hit me with it.”