by Amelia Jade
She stopped, and this time her eyes met his. Cowl was stunned by the haunted expression on her face, the dullness of her eyes, and the limpness to her mouth. Where was the woman he’d come to know, the one he saw at the bar most nights? She was gone, banished to somewhere else by this empty reflection of the real Andria. His heart nearly broke in two it hurt so bad. Was it really that tough for her?
“Stop them from looking at you?”
“Yeah. I, uh, sort of stand out.” He detested acknowledging his own looks and what they usually entailed to his mate. He didn’t want her thinking that he was enjoying them, or that he might be returning any of the stares, because he most certainly was not. Not when he had her now. Before Andria had come along Cowl had returned each and every stare, gaze, and look. Every one of them. There was a good reason. The best reason really; it was quite simple.
He’d been looking for her.
Now he had her, and the outside world didn’t matter a lick to him. If there were a switch he’d turn off the stares, the suggestive glances, and the jealous glares. Everything. The only one he wanted to look at him now was Andria, but he couldn’t tell her that. Not without driving her even farther away.
“You do gather attention.” Andria looked away and started walking again. Faster this time. “But trust me, they’re not looking at you. They’re looking at me.”
He frowned. “How do you know that?”
“Because they always do.”
She hurried off, trying to leave him behind.
With their difference in sizes that was impossible to do. Cowl lengthened his pace and in a few long strides caught up to her. He didn’t make an attempt to stop her, instead he simply walked just enough behind her that he was out of her peripheral vision.
His eyes roamed the people, hundreds of students walking through campus itself. The green manicured grounds were just beginning to show the barest hints of yellow and orange, the telltale signs of fall as it approached. Many of them were looking their way, and while he was receiving his fair share, a closer inspection proved Andria to be right. They were looking at her.
But why? She seemed unwilling to tell him what had happened to her, and at this point going and asking someone else would almost seem like a breach of trust. Cowl wanted to hear from her mouth, from her point of view, what had happened. He knew there was a different Andria in there, one that came out when only he was around. What he didn’t know was how to ensure that was the only Andria. Nobody deserved to feel the way she must be feeling right now.
“Where to now?” he rumbled, some of the anger at the situation seeping through into his question.
“The bar. Time to work.”
He nodded, glad for the distraction and topic change. “You work a lot.”
“Yes, I do.”
Cowl’s knuckles cracked with the frustration as she refused to elaborate or engage him in conversation.
“How come?” He forced the question out as calmly as he could, hoping his irritation didn’t show through. What had he done to deserve being treated like this?
About that time they ducked down a pathway between two buildings, heading for the back of the parking lot. Only two others were using it, a pair of males walking toward them. Cowl watched as they sized him up, then looked down at Andria. One’s eyes stared right through her, finding absolutely nothing of interest. The other though, Cowl saw his pupils widen.
He glanced over his shoulder as they passed by each other, watching him as he elbowed his friend and said something excitedly under his breath. Both of them looked back, but upon seeing Cowl glaring at them angrily they spun back around and hurried off.
What the hell was going on? He would give her a little more time to tell him herself, but not much. How was he supposed to help if he didn’t know what was going on?
“I work a lot because I don’t actually have the money for grad school.”
His head whipped around, bones popping in his neck from the effort. She was talking, opening up to him now that nobody else was around.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly that. I told you already how I had to save up—taking three years off before I even started university, then another two before my Master’s. Those weren’t for personal reasons, or to ‘explore the world and find myself.’ They were because I had no money. I’m not going to the banks. Those bloodsuckers aren’t getting a penny from me. But because of that, it means funding school through other means, including working nearly every hour I can that isn’t filled with studying.”
“You’re a very admirable woman, Andria. You’ve accomplished a great deal.”
She snorted. “I haven’t graduated yet, and if I don’t work enough, I won’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the money isn’t there for second semester. It doesn’t exist. At the rate I’m going, I probably won’t have enough by January either.”
His growl set off several nearby car alarms, but he ignored them and the startled look from Andria. How was it that a world such as this could take someone as determined, strong-willed, and obviously intelligent as Andria, and prevent her from achieving an education she so obviously deserved?
If Cowl could have done so, he would have given her a chest full of gold or other valuables to pay for any further schooling she desired. Mate or no mate, she deserved to finish school.
Unfortunately he had no funds. Not yet at least. The army had agreed to pay them a hefty amount of money if they agreed to fight, and even to fund an expedition to try and retrieve their treasure.
But right now, seeing as he was the one with the job, all the funds that were available had gone to his brothers. Apparently they had not planned ahead for the possibility of a trio of dragons being awoken at once, and none of the systems in place were designed to handle the tripling of all the requests, including the slow-moving military bureaucracy. It would come in time. He wasn’t sure how much was necessary, but Cowl would get the money. Andria was not going to fail. Not after coming this far all on her own. He would ensure she got the rest of the way.
“You’re going to finish school.”
She shrugged. “We’ll see. I hope so. I need to get out of this town.”
He blinked. Cowl had totally forgotten about her unabashed desire to get out of town, to leave Barton City and everything in it far, far behind. Everything including one ice dragon named Cowl, who couldn’t go with her. He wanted to, so very, very badly. But he couldn’t leave the fight behind. That just wasn’t who he was, and he knew that Andria—whenever he finally felt it safe to tell her the truth—would never ask him to make that decision. She would make it for him. Which made it even worse. Cowl didn’t have an answer to that problem just yet, but he was going to need one.
And soon.
Chapter Eleven
Andria
She finished wiping up the table while Cowl took the glasses back and started to wash them. Andria eyed him in her peripheral vision. Despite all of the time they’d been spending together the past few days, she’d realized on the way over from class that she still knew next to nothing about him. He was a mystery that she somehow had come to entrust her life to. It was unbelievable really. She decided she wanted to know more about him.
“What’s your last name?”
Cowl looked up, glancing around the empty bar. It was empty. “Me?”
“You’re the only worker I have who I don’t know a thing about. So yup, you. Welcome to the spotlight, Cowl.”
He looked around himself, then up at the ceiling. “What spotlight?”
“It’s a saying.”
“I haven’t heard that one before. What does it mean?”
“It means you’re the center of attention right now. The pressure is on you to give answers that I approve of.”
“Oh.” He didn’t seem bothered by that. In fact, was that a hint of smugness at finally getting her attention? Andria wasn’t sure, reading him was hard. So much was blocked o
ff.
He draped a towel over one shoulder as he ran the glasses through the automatic washer, the white almost the same color as his hair. The strong jaw worked back and forth slowly.
“Well?” she prompted.
“I don’t have a last name. It’s just Cowl.”
“Just Cowl. What kind of name is that anyway? I’ve never heard of it before.”
“It’s my name.” He sounded a little defensive. “It’s not from your time.”
“My time? Oh, is this because you’re two hundred years old?” She grinned. “Yeah, I remember that part.”
“Well, that and I was asleep for six hundred years. I wasn’t counting those.”
Andria stared at him. “That’s impossible.”
“Hey, you wanted to know where I got my name. I’m telling you.”
“No.” She shook her head emphatically. “What you’re doing is pulling a fast one on me.” At his blank stare she reworded her answer. “A con-job. A trick. A joke.”
“I’m not joking. But if it makes you feel more comfortable, you can pretend that my mother thought I was an angry infant, always scowling, and she just shortened that to Cowl. How does that work?”
Andria laughed. “That makes a lot more sense. Why not just say that in the first place?”
“Didn’t feel right to lie.”
She frowned. How was that lying? Was she supposed to believe he was over eight hundred years old? Or his mother had an odd sense of humor. Which one of those was more believable?
“Okay fine. Next question. Where do you live?”
He pointed. “An apartment building three blocks that direction. The big one.”
“Like, the one that just underwent all those renovations? That caused traffic hell in the city for months because of it?”
Cowl shrugged. “I guess? It was all done before they sent me there.”
“Sent you? Who?”
He paused. “Uh, my employer, I guess you would call them.”
“Your employer.” Andria’s frown deepened. “You have a job?”
“Sort of.”
“How is it you can do that job then, and still follow me around like a shadow 24/7?”
Cowl grabbed the first glass at it came out of the slowly rotating dishwasher, drying it swiftly, seemingly uncaring of the heat. He set it down on the table between them. Andria reached out to grab it to put it away, but pulled her hand back. It was freezing cold. What the hell? She looked at the dishwasher itself, but the usual heated steam was still coming off it.
“The job hasn’t started yet.”
She thought about that, his answer distracting her from the glass. “They relocated you here?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“When does it start?”
Cowl looked pensive. “They…don’t really know. A couple of years. Hopefully more, but nobody really knows for certain.”
Andria rubbed her fists against her eyes. The entire point of her asking Cowl questions was to help her figure out more about him, to be less confused. Now she’d asked him two questions, and she was even more confused than when she’d started.
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re my job right now,” he stated with conviction. “Protecting you is a full-time commitment that I’m dedicated to.”
“Right. The job.” She watched his eyes for a reaction. “Is that all I am to you? A job?”
There was no flinching when he answered, no hesitation either. “No. I’m not prone to making out with the people I work with.”
The memory of his kiss played strongly in her brain right now, evidence of the truth of how he really felt.
“What—” Her voice caught, and she was forced to clear her throat. “What else am I then?”
Cowl stopped drying glasses and rested his hands on the bar, leaning forward until he was closer to her height. “I would tell you, Andria. I want to tell you. But you aren’t ready to hear it. Not yet.”
She scoffed. “I’m not?”
“No.”
Anger flickered in her. Who the hell was he to tell her what she was and wasn’t ready for? What made him more equipped to decide something like that? This was her life, and she, not he, would make those sorts of decisions.
Of course, I can’t exactly force him to tell me.
“Why not?” She bit back the fire, curious as to how he would answer that question at least. His answer would dictate her next questions.
“Because you aren’t ready to trust me, to open up to me. To tell me why you need a bodyguard to keep you safe from the likes of Jake. Trust is a two-way street.”
She reeled from the truths in his answer, the statement about her own feelings of vulnerability and how they prevented her from telling him what was going on. Whatever it was that was going on, he viewed it on the same level of seriousness. That was shocking, and even a little scary. She needed time to think about it.
“I see.”
Pushing off the bar, she walked toward the basement, determined to put some space between them. Everything was just spinning inside of her head as she walked down the stairs.
“Andria, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she lied, waving him off. She was fine. Just…startled. Having one’s world ripped apart could do that, and she’d now had that done to her twice in the last year, in two completely different ways, by two very completely different people.
If there had been any doubts remaining in her head that Cowl was different, or that he cared, they were gone now. The question that remained was why. Why did someone like him care so much about a shapeless broke girl like herself? She had nothing to offer him. What was it he saw in her that made him so determined to push past her barriers?
She found a stack of beer bases and slumped onto them, holding her head in her hands, trying to sort out her life. Andria was coming to the conclusion that she’d been sorely delusional for thinking her life had been a mess before Cowl had entered it. The fact was, it had been really easy. Shut out everyone, and focus on her schoolwork.
Then, just as she’d begun to perfect that, along came a practically perfect specimen of a man on so many different levels. He didn’t want much. Just to rip open her brain, her body, and probably even her heart and get to know them better. It was something Andria had sworn off. She wasn’t ready for someone to look at her. Not like that.
An unknown amount of time passed with her lost away in her thoughts, the memories of the past, both the recent events with Cowl and the traumatic events that had led her here. She preferred not to think about them, but sometimes it was inevitable. What Jack had done had left her scarred, and those memories often bubbled to the surface.
Jake’s brother as an asshole of the biggest degree. She wanted nothing more than her chance to put him away for as long as possible. It’s what he deserved, after all. The problem was that she doubted it would ever happen. His family was too powerful, and they scared her. They scared a lot of people. It was all too likely that Jack would go free and continue to be out there.
She’d not seen him since he’d first shown everyone, but that was likely because of his father more than anything. Jack still frequented her nightmares however, and knowing that it would be her own lack of strength that kept him enrolled in his residency with Jake, and worse, out of jail, would always haunt her. If she was weak. She still had time to find that strength.
Cowl came down the stairs. “Everything okay down here?”
She nodded, head still bent over. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, Cowl.”
He didn’t go back upstairs. The wood creaked some more and then he was there, right in front of her.
“You aren’t fine.”
“No, I’m not,” she admitted. “But everything is better when you’re around. How do you do that?”
“Do what?” He crouched down in front of her, taking her hands into his, forcing her to look up and meeting his concerned gaze.
She didn’t pull them away. “Ma
ke me feel better about everything without actually doing anything? I don’t get it.”
“Do you have to get it? Not everything makes sense.”
“Then why do I get the feeling you’re not confused.”
He laughed. “Because, Andria, I know what I want.”
“Which is?”
“You. I want you. No reservations, no limits. I want it all.”
She shivered. How could he be so certain, speaking with such utter conviction? How had she earned such devotion from a man she’d just met?
“I don’t know if I can give that to you,” she whispered. “I’m not sure how much of me is left to give away.”
Cowl kissed her hands, his lips smooth, his face clean of any scratchy facial hair, just the way she liked it. His fingers were supple and delicate as they massaged her hands, bringing first one then the other to his face.
“I’ll take whatever I can get.”
She shivered at the throaty, velvety rumble of his voice. For someone so powerful, it was also unbelievably smooth. Just like the rest of him. Even know, his giant frame kneeled in front of her, massaging her with a tenderness that his shirt-busting muscles belied with every strain at the seams of his clothing.
“Cowl, I…I don’t know.”
His hands felt good. So good. Her body wanted more. Her nipples pushed against the fabric of her bra, and she was positive they were visible through the thin fabric of the tank top she wore on top. A long-dormant fire stirred between her legs, though it didn’t burst readily to life like it might have in the past.
A memory of their shared kiss pressed against her lips, reminding him of just how good it had felt. Was she ready to try it again? Without running away this time?
Maybe.
“Just tell me when to stop.” At some point Cowl had leaned in closer, and now he spoke almost into her ear.
Tingles ran down her neck and into her spine. The basement was cool, but with Cowl so close she could feel his warmth. It was so close. All she would have to do was reach out and touch him. Place one hand on his chest, and she would feel the warmth as well. It could soothe her, calming some of the jitters she was currently feeling.