Tipping The Scales: Knox (Mate Craze Book 1)

by Lila Felix

  Her eyes finally left my motorcycle and returned to meet mine. “I didn’t know you were that kind of— I mean you’re like a…”

  There were a thousand ways I could’ve finished that sentence. Idiot-moron-dork?

  “What?”

  She blinked and the fear was gone, replaced by something I recognized from earlier in the day. “You’re like a nerdy bad boy.”

  I winked at her. “I don’t like labels, darlin’.”

  “Really? It looks like you kind of enjoyed that one.” She reached out and stuck a finger in my dimple at the side of my mouth.

  “I did, actually. So what’s your poison? Motorcycle or truck?”

  She looked at them both. “Motorcycle, please.”

  Thank goodness I’d remembered to bring more than one helmet, not that I usually wore one.

  “Here. Strap this on. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

  She looked at me while she put the helmet on and fumbled with the strap. I reached out and smoothed the hair from her face, attempting to help.

  “Thanks. I’m nervous and I have no idea why.”

  I didn’t answer her—couldn’t. My stomach was churning at a mile per minute. Most shifters didn’t have to do this. They didn’t have to worry about explaining what they were to a human, much less one they expected to love them despite who they were and the fact that they turned into mythical beasts.

  “Get on. Hang on tight.” I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding while her hands rounded my waist and enfolded above my belt. Her hands on me was all I needed, and I took in the sensation, not sure if she would ever want to repeat the motion again.

  We rode through the winding streets that turned into roads that few knew. Halfway up the mountain, I turned onto the street with no name and drove until we arrived at the place that looked as if it didn’t belong.

  “Here we are,” I said casually, knowing that she knew exactly where we were.

  “It’s nice,” she mumbled.

  “Same as you remembered?” I questioned as casually as I could possibly get.

  “What? I? What?” Kallie wasn’t one to lie or ever be the littlest bit dishonest. I knew that purely from instinct.

  “Come on, darlin’. I know you were here last year and you know it too. You and I go back further than three days ago.”

  Even in the dim light outside the bar, I could see her blush perfectly. She needed some calming, I thought, and honestly, so did I. Grabbing both of her hands in mine, I waited for her eyes to rise.

  “Hey, it’s okay. There’s actually a lot we need to talk about tonight. This is just the beginning. This is where we began.”

  “How did you know? The girl at the diner?”

  I laughed and put a hand on the side of her neck for my own selfish need to feel more of her skin on mine. “Yeah, that and some other things. Relax, okay? I promise, it’s fine. I’m glad you were curious that night. Otherwise, I might’ve never found you.” I pressed one kiss, sharp and quick, to her lips and slowly pulled her toward the entrance with a deep breath. This was it. Kallie, my mate, the other half of me, was about to find out everything.

  We walked in to the darkened joint, lit only by the neon signs above the bar and the single-bulb fixtures above each table. To a human, it was probably grainy and shady, but to us, we could see just fine.

  Every head bowed a little in response to my entrance. It was out of respect to the Alpha of the clan. An Alpha was nothing without the respect of his clansmen—nothing.

  “What the hell was that?” she whispered.

  “Come on. Best burgers you’ve ever eaten.”

  I made sure she sat down in the corner booth before turning to our audience, and with a tilt of my head, responding to all of their acts of respect. The place went back to usual as soon as I did. We would be under a good deal of scrutiny here, but at least I was among my own.

  She looked at the table when Geneva approached. There was an attitude in her walk and gait. “Good evening, you two. What will it be?” I met Geneva’s eyes. She got my drift: less attitude. She cleared her throat and her voice was changed. “It’s been a long night. Sorry, y’all. We basically serve two things here: burgers with fries and steaks with mashed potatoes. Keeps the grocery list to cow and taters. What’s your pleasure?”

  “Burger for me, Kallie?”

  I recognized the look on her face—she was trying to figure this place out. Already she knew something was different.

  “Same for me. Coke, please?”

  Geneva looked at me. “Scotch rocks, water after that.”

  “Got it. About ten minutes.”

  In less than three, she brought our drinks.

  Kallie continued to sigh and look around. “I sat outside that backdoor for two hours.” She said the sentence so fast that even my dragon hearing almost missed it.

  “I was told that, and I could smell you after I went out there. They should’ve told me sooner.”

  She stopped with her Coke halfway to her lips. “You smelled me?”

  I nodded. “I have a keen sense of smell.”

  She had no idea what to make of that.

  Our burgers were served faster than promised. They were huge, even with my constant hunger. We had flash metabolisms and often had to eat massive amounts of food to keep up our strength.

  “What did you want to tell me, Knox? I can’t even eat. It’s too dark in here. Too many eyes on us.”

  She wasn’t wrong. There were not only eyes on us but every two or three minutes, a comment about the human Alpha female, good and bad, came from somewhere in the room. I didn’t have the strength or will to address the culprits.

  “There’s some things I have to explain to you and I have just one request: that you stay until the end before deciding what you want to do, how you want to handle this. Also, I want you to know that you are safe here; anywhere I am, you are safe from anything and everything.”

  Her fingers tapped on the table. “I’m safe and stay until the end. Got it.”

  “You noticed that the people here bowed a little when I came in. That’s where I’ll start. I am the leader of them, of this clan. They bow to me out of respect for my position as their Alpha.”

  For a moment, I thought she was going to laugh.

  “Alpha? Like werewolves alpha? If you start sprouting hair, I’m not waiting until the end. I’m off like a dirty shirt.”

  There were some clansmen who didn’t have any success containing their laughter.

  “I’m not a werewolf, darlin. Canines are disgusting beings. You remember earlier, you said that you saw something shine on my neck?”

  “Yeah…” Her voice intonated like it was a question.

  I unbuttoned the top two buttons of my shirt and pulled it back from my skin at the collar to reveal something that no one had ever seen-only Samson. “You did see something. See how it changes colors? Glimmers? That’s only when…”

  She interrupted. “Can I touch it?”

  Another round of snickers from the bar. “Of course. Here.” I got closer to her, our hips and feet touching beneath the table.

  The female was fearless. She didn’t hesitate. Her hand glided along my scale, making it buzz while my dragon rolled and melted with the sensation of her skin, not only on a part of me, but a part of him too.

  “What is it? Why is it…”

  I put a finger over her lips before she could say vibrating or something of the sort. My clansmen couldn’t keep it contained as it was. I wished they would all go home.

  “It reacts this way because you are near. It’s me reacting to you. It’s how I knew, know that you are my mate.”

  I just let that sit in the air for a few minutes.

  “I need some air,” she finally said.

  “You have to hear everything I have to say, Kallie, and I’ve hardly gotten started.”

  With both hands, she grabbed the front of my shirt. “I want to hear everything. I just nee
d to get out of here.”

  “Let’s go then.” I got up and I guided her with my hand on her back toward the entrance. “Here. Better? We can walk a while. There’s a trail up there with an excellent view of the mountains.”

  She looked up where I was pointing, probably making a decision about whether or not she trusted me.

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  We walked for a while until we came to the cliff and both sat down.

  “What is that on your neck? Why does it mean I’m your…”

  She let go of my hand that she had taken somewhere on the trail. “It is a dragon scale. I’m a dragon shifter. The reaction of my scale to your presence means that you’re my mate—my soulmate—the one I’m destined to be with for the rest of my life.”

  With both of her hands now on her face, she spoke softly, trying to be as calm as possible, failing miserably. I could’ve heard her heart pounding on the other side of the country.

  “Is this like literal? Like your skin turns into scales and you fly and breathe fire? Or are we talking metaphorical, like you’re a real beast of a man inside?”

  It was my turn to laugh.

  “Kallie, I come from a long line of humans who change forms into dragons and fly and have scales and breathe fire.”

  That ought to do it.

  “And I’m your mate?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if I don’t want to be your mate?”

  Well, that stung.

  “Then you choose not to be my mate. It is your choice.”

  She sat silent for too long. I knew what was coming. “Show me. I can’t wrap my head around it.”

  “Remember that I would never hurt you.”

  “Yeah? What about… it?”

  “My dragon recognizes you as his mate. He couldn’t even find a way in his DNA to ever hurt you. You ready?”

  Her attitude had changed in the last few seconds. She was defiant and absolutely against believing what I had to say.

  “Yep. Show me.”

  I stripped as fast as I could, well aware that her eyes were on me every step of the way. I willed my dragon, who was completely eager to comply, to come forth. He wanted to show her, he wanted her to see, to show off.

  My ribs cracked as the change wrought its way through me. The first thing we did was breathe a gust of fire into the space between the mountain we were on and the next. While we flew around her, soaring high and low, her mouth was open wide. Her eyes almost as big as my beast’s.

  After a few minutes, I landed back next to her. I tucked my feet back so I didn’t accidentally hurt her with my talons of steel.

  “Is this fucking real?” she asked the night, standing up and approaching us. Most humans would’ve run or pissed their pants at the sight of such a thing, but my mate didn’t falter. She took what seemed like an eternity touching my wings, waving me forward so she could touch my mouth and nose, even ran a hand over one of my teeth.

  “Let me see your eyes,” she said and then giggled when I snorted, nearly knocking her off the mountain.

  “They are the same color as Knox’s. I thought they would be different. Can you change back to Knox now?”

  I did as she bid, slowly changing back. My dragon was okay with the change now that Kallie was close, but the scales remained on my human skin and probably would until we were mated. I slipped my pants on, forgetting the shirt.

  “Hey,” I said, hoping she would continue to look at me like she had before.

  “Hey. Damn, that was no joke, huh?”

  My female was formidable.

  “No joke.”

  I needed to be nearer to her, to feel her heartbeat, kiss her lips.

  “Knox?” I imagined all the things I wanted her to say to me. All the things I needed to hear from the mouth of the only one I would ever truly love. “I’m going to need some time.”

  That’s not what I wanted to hear.

  12

  Kallie

  I’m going to need some time. What kind of an idiot was I? I didn’t need time. I needed to wake the eff up. It was a dream. It had to be. Except I knew it wasn’t.

  It. Was. Real. All of it from the being an Alpha to transforming into a freaking dragon. My gorgeous, beautiful, graceful warrior of a beast. Mine. Everything in my body sang with the truth of it. He’d dropped me off at the B&B less than three minutes ago and my body was already missing the warmth his touch brought.

  Letting him leave was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. The pull to jump in his arms made it nearly impossible to part, but I had to. There were too many things to process, including something I wasn’t ready to share with Knox yet. Sure, I knew his big secret, or secrets as it were, but this secret wasn’t mine. Heck, it might not be anything.

  When he mentioned I was his mate, I had a flash memory of my grandmother near the end of her life. It wasn’t unusual for her to cross my mind. She was my first actual loss that I remember, and that hits a girl hard, even if the loss was someone who was less than “there” long before they left this world. This. This was different. Worse in a way because it had me second guessing her actual dementia.

  One of the very last times I saw Gran, she had dozed off in front of the twenty-four hour news channel, once again. My mom and I often conjectured that it was part of the reason she was so hostile near the end. They never showed anything positive, and whomever the politician they were discussing was, they were evilness personified trying to make your life worse.

  I quietly went to leave, knowing she was a light sleeper, when she suddenly woke up screaming at me.

  “It’s all your fault!” She was shooting venom. Gran had never been a sweet, docile, old lady you would expect to be donning an apron and baking cookies, but I had never heard her like this before.

  “Gran, it was just a dream.” I rushed to her side, hoping to calm her. Her breathing was bated and sweat poured down her face. I grabbed her hand which she immediately pulled from me as if I touched her with acid. “I’m here in your room at the nursing home and everything is fine,” I lied. If she kept this up, she was going to throw herself into one of her breathing attacks and each one took her longer and longer to bounce back from. Everything was far from fine.

  “It will never be fine because of you.” At that, she spit in my face. Not on accident, but an actual I’m going to spit in your face spit. It took all I had to be calm and to not show my disgust. It wasn’t like she was in control of her actions when she was like that, or so Mom repeatedly told me when I got assigned Gran duty after her guilt finally hit for not having visited in more than a week. Apparently for my mother, I was an easy replacement.

  “Gran? Do you know who I am?” I was hoping she was going to say I was someone from the news because that would make sense, and after she fully came to, she’d be fine. Sadly, that wasn’t the case.

  “You’re one of Them.” The venom was back, full throttle. Them, whoever they were, they were evil in her eyes.

  The sweat was still coming, and it was all I could do to keep my voice light and calm. We had been here before, just not to this extent. Usually it was her thinking I was my mom just after she had announced her pregnancy with me and my father’s lack of actually wanting to… you know… father. That, I at least knew how to handle, after going through that roller coaster more than once. But this was all new territory.

  “Gran, I’m Kallie, your granddaughter.” I reached across her to press the nurse call button, hoping she wouldn’t freak out even further by my closeness. I dared not leave the room to get help at that point. “Let me call the nurse.” Not that she had a choice. She needed a sedative and pronto.

  “You are no granddaughter of mine.” Her feeble hand reached out to poke mine, accentuating each and every word. I instinctually took a step back and out of her reach. “You’re one of them. A disgrace to the family line you are.” I reached over and pressed the nurse call button again. What was taking them so long to respond? It wasn’t like we called every
time she needed a drink of water or a tissue.

  “I’m calling the nurse, Gran.” When her eyes met mine, I saw for the first time why my mother grew up so terrified of her. If her eyes were even the slightest inclination as to what was in her heart, she had nothing but hatred for who she thought I was. “Calm down and all will be right.”

  Before I could think of what to do next, the nurse responded to my call with a mumbled question through the call box. I assumed she wanted to know what we wanted, and I hoped they heard better on their end then we did on ours.

  “My Grandmother woke from a dream and is not okay,” I called back slowly, using every diction skill I learned in my public speaking class. They mumbled back what I assumed was a promise to come and help before the light on the call box went out indicating they were no longer there.

  “Gran, please, lay back down.” He body was rigid and at an odd angle as she tried once again to poke me. She was going to feel the pain from this episode later that night, to be sure. “You heard the nurse. She’ll be here in just a moment.”

  “Get out.” She reached out for me, almost tumbling out of bed. How bedrails became “restraints” was beyond me. Falling out of bed was worse than needing to press a button to lower the bedrails. “You disgust me,” she shouted just as two nurses rushed in. They must have heard more than I thought to be bringing back up, and I was glad. The last thing anyone needed was for a nurse to get hurt on top of everything else.

  “Ma’am, we have her now.” They shooed me out, and I was grateful for it. “Please wait outside and we’ll find you when she calms down.” By calm down, I knew they were going to drug her, which was honestly for the best. She had been so lost lately, not here in reality, that being medicated was probably the safest option.

  “Leave me alone.” She swatted away the nurse who was about to hold her down for sedation. You had to give it to Gran, she was nothing if not strong willed. “She’s the one you should be getting before she mates with that evil.”