“You know,” Bree began while they walked back to the truck. “I think I’m going to end my lease on the apartment in town. That being said, I don’t think I want to live with your clan for long.”
“They aren’t just my clan,” he reminded her. “They’re your clan, too.”
Bree tried not to wrinkle her nose, but she couldn’t stop herself in the end. “It’s not that I don’t like them. It’s that I don’t think they like me. Especially Evangeline.”
They got into the truck and Erik reached across the center console to squeeze her hand. “She’s a spitfire. Gavin has been telling her that she can’t go through the change until Casey’s sister arrives to help. The fact that I fucked up and made you rubbed her the wrong way. It’s like wanting a piece of cake and seeing someone else sneak in and grab a slice before the party.”
Though the comparison was a little immature, Bree understood. She couldn’t do anything about it, though. She didn’t sneak in and steal anything. Erik never meant to change her. Bree could apologize, but she didn’t feel like that was necessarily what she wanted to do. Anything she said would be empty because she wasn’t sorry. She hadn’t done anything.
Bree tried not to pout. She sucked her teeth and glared out the window, but that was close to pouting, so she tried to set aside her annoyance.
By the time they told the others about the fire, the news had already spread. The column of smoke rising from the building in town could be seen for miles, especially up on the mountainside. Gavin didn’t take his eyes from it while Erik explained the scent they’d caught.
Bree wondered if the dragon shifter she’d run into was responsible for all this. She couldn’t remember if the scents matched up. It’d been a while since she’d seen the dragon shifter. At the time, she’d been overwhelmed by the change. She hadn’t thought to commit the guy’s scent to memory.
“Have I met everyone in the clan?” she asked Erik.
He cocked his head and started counting on his fingers. “Yeah. There aren’t that many of us. I think you met everyone your first day in the cabin. Why?”
“Well, I ran into a guy. A dragon shifter,” she said, feeling very much like she’d withheld important information.
“That’s old news now,” Gavin said. Surprisingly, his voice held no hint of annoyance or anger. “Right now, we need to figure out what this guy wants. Why set fire to a building?”
“We shouldn’t wait to figure out why,” Erik argued. “We should be down there, finding him before he can do it again.”
Gavin agreed. They listened while Evangeline shared what she’d overheard in town. Apparently, people saw the man breathe fire. Half the town believed him to be some sort of monster. The other half assumed he was a madman with a bottle of liquor and a lighter. Casey’s lip curled when he pointed out the obvious.
“The dragon shifter is trying to out us.” Casey’s hand clenched on Evangeline’s shoulder.
She covered it with her own as everyone grew silent. Bree noted how Evangeline refused to look in her direction but filed the information away for another day. Now wasn’t the time to kick up shit. No matter how badly she wanted to.
45
Erik locked the truck before catching up to Bree. Her feet dragged. She’d never been so exhausted in her life. The only thing that kept her from asking Erik to carry her inside was pride. Not only had they gone to town for her things, saved people from a burning building, and had sex in the woods, but they’d accompanied the clan into town to help search for the shifter responsible for the fires before Bree had to work.
Bree wanted nothing more than to collapse where she stood, but the promise of a warm bed with Erik in it kept her moving forward.
Without asking, he swept her off her feet. He carried her like she weighed nothing. Though Bree wanted to argue for the sake of her dignity, she couldn’t find the energy to do so. Instead, she savored his warmth during the short walk from the front door to Erik’s bedroom.
He set her down onto the bed and leaned back. She could tell from the furrow of his brows that he was going to ask another annoying question. Before he could inquire about anything, she grabbed his shirt and yanked him onto the mattress beside her. To keep him quiet, she lifted his shirt over his head and threw it aside.
“Bree,” he said softly.
She wanted to cover his mouth only because she knew what was coming. While she had found herself as a dragon, what Erik needed would take a lot longer. Forgiveness didn’t happen overnight, especially when the person you had to forgive was yourself.
“You’re the only one I want,” she reminded him.
Like she’d taken the wind from his sails, he sighed.
Curled into his body, Bree quickly passed out. The next thing she knew, the morning light assaulted her eyes. When she reached for Erik to give him a good morning, the other side of the bed was empty.
Bree sat upright and glared at the empty spot on the bed. Her beast growled and pushed her to get up and find him. While Bree wobbled trying to put on a pair of sweatpants, she listened to voices outside the door. One voice stood out among all the others.
“If you don’t stop picking on me, I’m going to jump off a cliff. Is that what you want?” Erik asked someone.
Dillon’s gruff voice didn’t hold an ounce of fear when he said, “Have fun.”
Bree stepped out and followed the voices to their location. Dillon and Erik stood around a table. Dillon sat while Erik took things from Isabella and set them around the table. When she walked away, the conversation picked up again.
Erik had a hand over his heart. “Do you not care about my personal safety? I’m wounded!”
“You’re a dragon,” Dillon said. “You could fall from the skies and you’d have nothing but a scratch on you. Jumping from a cliff isn’t going to do anything.”
“Well, you shouldn’t want your friend to jump from a cliff,” Erik argued while wearing an insufferable smirk.
Bree pulled out a chair for herself. “Is this the show you put on for all of your one-night-stands?”
Isabella turned, clearly appalled. “Do you really think Erik has ever brought anyone else to us? You are the only woman Erik has managed to bring home. I’m sure the rest ran away screaming.”
“I made them scream, but they weren’t running at the time,” Erik fired back.
A spike of jealousy tore through Bree. She couldn’t stop herself when she said, “You never made me scream.”
Erik flashed her a wide smile and winked. “There’s still time for that. I’m going to show you every way I know how to love a woman.”
Isabella fanned herself with a kitchen towel. Bree laughed. The cabin almost felt like home. The mood shattered when Casey and Evangeline barged through the front door. They flopped down into chairs across from Bree, but Evangeline still refused to look at her.
“No luck?” Dillon asked.
Casey grunted. Evangeline shook her head. She hunched over a paper coffee cup as if it was her last lifeline. Perhaps it was if the two of them were out all night searching for the unwelcome shifter.
Erik offered himself and Bree for the next round of patrols. Bree nodded. She snatched a waffle from the plate Isabella brought over, loaded it with strawberries, and folded it in half to eat like a taco.
“Oh no,” Evangeline said. “She’s as weird as Erik.”
Despite Evangeline’s words, Bree caught the twinkle in her eye that told her it was a joke. Perhaps Evangeline wanted to be her friend, after all. Bree couldn’t help the bitterness still roiling inside her chest. She wanted to lean into it and give Evangeline the cold shoulder, but she managed a smile.
“I saved Isabella and Dillon a dish.”
The conversation died when Evangeline went quiet. Bree wondered what had stopped her this time, but she couldn’t stick around to find out. This wasn’t the time to make friends, no matter how badly Bree wanted to clear the air between them.
Erik jerked his chin in Evangeline’s
direction. Bree thought he would pick a fight on her behalf and tried to catch his eye before he said anything. Though she failed, that wasn’t what he brought up.
“Do you think your witch friend can help us out again?” Erik said to Evangeline.
Isabella pointed her wooden spoon at Erik’s head. “All of you need to stop asking her for help. She’s used so much magic since the clan arrived that it’s starting to hurt her.”
Everyone stared at Isabella in stunned shock. Bree looked from face to face, trying to gauge why. Beside her, Erik swallowed and nodded.
“We won’t call on Nellie, then.” He stood and tapped Bree’s shoulder.
She cast one last glance back at her new family. She didn’t understand any of them. They had their own lives, own histories that all existed without her. While she should have found a place among them, Bree struggled to understand where that place was.
Did shifters have a ranking system? The way Erik and Dillon bantered made her think otherwise. No one would talk to their superior the way Erik talked to the others. If there was no hierarchy, then why did she feel like she stood on the outside of everything?
A quick shower later, Bree and Erik headed out to the truck. Bree’s hands trembled, both with fear and excitement. The unwelcome shifter would likely strike again. They needed to find him before he did anything to expose the dragons to the public.
“I should be learning how to fly or more about dragon customs,” she said from the passenger seat.
Erik’s grip on the wheel tightened. “You’re right. I chose the worst possible time to pull you into all of this.”
She shook her head. “Stop blaming yourself. This isn’t about you. This is Zander’s fault, right?”
* * *
Erik tried to believe her. He really did. The small voice in the back of his head refused to leave him alone. It told him that everything that happened would always be his fault. He couldn’t even keep his mate safe from himself.
He shook himself free from the voice and reminded himself that Bree was flourishing. If fate bound dragons to their mates, then maybe that meant Bree would have become a dragon one way or another. She couldn’t avoid her fate.
It was possible he’d saved her a rougher transition. Had she gotten caught in the middle of a fight with one of Zander’s dragons and gotten bitten, then this would be a hundred times harder for her.
He wished he could have left her home with Evangeline and Isabella, though. Taking Bree along on this patrol filled him with worry. He didn’t like the idea of dragging her into danger, but he knew if he denied her then there would be hell to pay. It would be even worse if he tried to keep all the women together as if they were fragile and needed protection.
Evangeline would knock him over the head with a pipe if she even suspected he thought such a thing. At least she was trying to befriend Bree. Perhaps Casey had talked things out with her. He was a good listener.
Erik wondered what he had to offer Bree. Though he couldn’t see what she loved in him, he could tell that she loved him all the same. Her sass was always punctuated by affection. A touch here, a glance there, a little booty wiggle every now and then.
He reached across the seat and found her hand again. She held onto him like she couldn’t bear being apart, either.
“What do we do when we find this guy?” she asked, her voice shaking ever so slightly.
“We drop his ass on Zander’s doorstep. We keep a strict catch and release policy around here,” Erik said.
Two of Zander’s shifters had locked the women in Evangeline’s tattoo parlor. After the women had beat the crap out of the first guy and Dillon put his foot up the second guy’s ass, they’d air-dropped the shifters over Zander’s territory.
No one wanted a death on their hands. The whole point of this war was to avoid it. Zander wanted to exterminate all of them, right down to his own son. Erik was starting to suspect that it wasn’t because they were defective.
Zander was afraid of them.
“I’m not saying I want to kill anyone,” Bree said, “but when is this war going to end if you don’t take a stand?”
“I wish I had an answer for you.” Erik’s stomach soured. “So far, the plan is to increase our numbers until Zander no longer wants to mess with us. You’ve helped with that, and as soon as Daphne arrives, she’s going to assist Evangeline through the change.”
“And Isabella?”
“She’s decided to stay human, even after the baby is born.” Erik liked Bel. He didn’t want to see her and her kid get caught up in Zander’s madness.
Bree blew out a breath. “At least we have each other.”
The words shook him to his core. He stole a surprised glance at her. He never expected such a simple statement to mean so much to him, especially after everything else Bree had said. She’d been spending her time trying to reassure him that he was a good person, but he knew that for lie it was. To think that she saw him as a respite among all this made him think he could change.
For her.
Beside him, she rolled her eyes. “I know what you’re thinking. You don’t have to change for anyone. I love you just the way you are.”
He guffawed. “Are you a witch, too?”
“No, you’re just predictable.”
“Eat a dick,” he mumbled, even though his heart pattered happily.
“Maybe later.” She tossed him a wink. “After we catch the guy trying to out dragons.”
“Well, that’s all you had to say. Consider it done.”
46
Bree hadn’t shifted in a while. A few days, actually. Her skin was too tight, like she was carrying the whole dragon instead of just the idea of one. The beast snarled at her and threw her off balance.
She told herself that it was the anticipation. The beast hadn’t bothered her this much earlier. While she’d been learning how to be a dragon shifter and falling for Erik, she hadn’t thought much about what else her new life would have in store for her.
Hunting down dragon shifters threatening her family wasn’t really what she had in mind. She’d rather be lazily napping in a field where no one could watch her shift, not meandering the streets of her hometown while trying to sniff the air.
A few people had given her strange looks already. They gave her a wide berth, like they could tell she was about to burst. Nothing she did put anyone at ease.
“They’re waiting for the next tragedy,” Erik explained.
She cut him a side-long glance. Where she wore anticipation like a veil of static, he seemed calm and composed. His eyes darted from face to face, from building to building.
“Shouldn’t we…I don’t know, try to think like a killer or something?” Bree offered.
“You watch too much television.” Erik laughed. He opened his mouth to say more, but a shout rang out.
They both spun and ran toward the source of the sound. Bree’s heart raced faster than her feet. She hoped everyone was alright but found that the shout had come from a woman standing over her boyfriend. The man’s face dripped with what Bree assumed to be the woman’s drink.
She’d seen this a hundred times before while working as a bartender. Bree briefly explained that the guy had likely been caught cheating. Though she could hear her own words, the excitement had riled her beast. It cared little for logic. It was on full alert now.
They turned away from the scene. Her teeth ached and made her realize that she’d been clenching her jaw. As she loosened up, Erik took her hand. His touch was a small comfort while her beast cried to break free. She’d been cruising through this adjustment period until now.
Until a threat hung over their heads and every step forward made it even more real. She didn’t ask to be brought into this feud, but she had no choice but to fight now. Not just for Erik and their budding relationship, but for the others she’d just met. Bree didn’t want anything to happen to them.
She’d never thought of herself as a person with a heroic soul, but it seemed tha
t once blessed with superhuman abilities, she wanted to use them to save everyone. This felt like a problem she couldn’t solve with her new dragon strength. After they found the guy causing trouble in town, what was next?
Bree’s dragon snarled and lashed out. Pain lanced across her chest and made her stumble. Erik caught her before she could fall. He muttered something that sounded soothing, but she couldn’t understand it over the roar of her beast.
Together, they found a bench. Erik helped her onto it and rubbed her back until the beast calmed. The creature’s presence didn’t fade completely, but she could hear again. She gave Erik a weak smile before trying to apologize.
He pushed her hair away from her face. “I should have thought of this before I took you out with me. Your beast is very proactive. It would make sense that she’s pushing a little too hard today.”
Bree shook her head. “I can go on. I’m figuring out how to manage this. That’s all.”
He didn’t look convinced, his lips twisted to the side as he watched her with wariness. Bree tried to insist, but her words did nothing to change his demeanor. When he leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, she knew the argument was over.
“Go home,” he whispered. “I’ll finish the patrol. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”
She couldn’t help the bitter laugh that left her. “I have a lot to worry about, actually.”
“Yeah,” he countered. “You have to decide whether or not you want a wedding, kids, and maybe some llamas in party hats. I’m not partial to children myself, but we can discuss it if you want some.”
The corners of her mouth lifted. “You’ll take care of llamas, but not kids?”
“Llamas won’t crash my truck on prom night.”
Bree feigned offense. “That was one time!”
“Oh, so it runs in the family?” Erik raised both brows. He nearly trembled with the laughter he was obviously holding back. “See, we definitely can’t have kids now.”
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