by Maia Starr
I gathered myself up straight, tilted my head back and forth, cracking my neck. Just act normal. Keep it cool, Kellan. Cracking my neck felt amazing and almost seemed to kick my worries right out of my body. Ever since I could remember, I would crack my neck to relieve the built-up stress from a confrontation. It felt like with each pop of my vertebrae that some of the aggression exploded out of my spine. I finally turned around and started to walk back to Amelia. Her eyes were as big as saucers, and she didn’t make eye contact with me. I creased my eyebrows and concern welled up inside. I may have to tell her about my dragon sooner than I had expected.
“Amelia? Are you okay?” I finally asked. My voice seemed to shake her up out of her trance, and her eyes snapped up to meet mine. Her face flushed red, and she smiled and nodded her head quickly.
“Yup. I’m good. Just fine,” she said quickly, but her body language didn’t convey the same feeling, “Um, just got scared when a stranger was in the house. I wasn’t expecting someone else to be here out in the middle of what feels like nowhere. I’m curious now, how many others live on the island? I didn’t realize there were so many other people here. You haven’t taken me out anywhere yet so… yeah. Which is fine, I mean, we could stay here for days if you wanted, I don’t mind, whatever you want to do. It’s cool. Like, just…” she was babbling, very uncomfortable. I had to do something about that.
“Okay, so if you’re so okay, why are you babbling? You sure something hasn’t got you upset? More than just Arvid’s visit? Do you need to lay down? Do you need to eat? I can get you something quick if you can’t wait for me to cook something. You look flushed; are you hot?” I walked up to her and went to put my hand on her forehead to check for a fever, and then saw the towel I had been squeezing in my hand like a stress toy.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m great,” she said, hesitating. “I think that towel would probably be better off around your waist instead of in your hand. But, you know, I’m down with it being on the floor, too. Your choice.” She looked off to the side and grinned. I quickly wrapped the towel around my waist and took a step back. It dawned on me then that I was still stark naked.
“Holy hell, I’m so sorry. I heard you scream, and it was all I could do to not kill Arvid for being alone in the room with you.” I ran my hands through my wet hair, trying to dispel the awkwardness I suddenly felt. I wanted to be with her so bad, but this wasn’t the time or place. Especially not if our borders were being threatened.
“Yeah, about Arvid. I mean, he scared me, but he didn’t feel dangerous. Flirty, maybe, but not—” Amelia’s expression screamed innocence but hearing that word, I came unglued.
“Flirty?” I felt the jealousy erupt into my throat again. “How was he flirty?”
“Well, after I screamed in his face because he scared the crap out of me, he explained he wasn’t a psychopath and then proceeded to bow to me and introduce himself. Then he kissed my hand like a proper gentleman.” Amelia mused, pursing her lips, “And they said chivalry is dead.” That ignited the fuel in my veins and I could feel my face turning red with anger.
“He kissed your hand?” I asked, trying not to breathe fire. Sure, blow up in front of her and wreck your whole plan, Kellan!
“Yes, I found it very old-timey. Guys aren’t like that in these times. Politeness is so out of date, and to see that just felt… flirty. Did I misjudge it? I don’t know what to think of anyone anymore. I feel like my judgment is out of whack lately.” She looked at me and saw my chest heaving. “Kellan? Is he dangerous?” I sighed. She didn’t need to be any more scared than she already was every day. I shook my head.
“No, Amelia,” I sighed. “No, he’s not dangerous. Not to you. To me, maybe, if he oversteps my boundaries, but to you? No. He would never hurt you, Amelia. He would protect you just as strongly as I would.” Probably for all the same reasons, honestly.
“Okay, that’s a relief,” she said as her body noticeably relaxed. “Well, do you need to go meet him? Or do you have time to eat with me before you go?”
“I have enough time to eat with you,” I said reaching out and taking her hand. I rubbed my thumbs over the backs of her hands, hoping to wipe off the residue of Arvid’s kiss, wherever it had landed. “Give me a few minutes and food will be on the table, I promise.” I brought her hands up to my lips and kissed them both, just for good measure. She was mine, and I was going to make sure I made that official… and soon.
Amelia
Kellan cooked a mean fried egg. The taste of the yolk and the crunch of the bacon felt like a tiny piece of heaven inside my private hell. Sitting across from a naked man in a towel didn’t hurt either. It was torture trying to keep my eyes on my breakfast. Every chance I got, I was stealing looks at Kellan while he ate. Watching the food going into his mouth, seeing him lick the yolk from his lip, ogling his pecs as they flexed and relaxed whenever he raised his fork. I felt like my hormones were flaring out of control. Was it being around Kellan, or was it the crazy changes my body was going through? I wasn’t sure, but if I didn’t feel him inside me soon, I was going to burst.
I told him I would clean up after breakfast when he tried to take my plate. I could tell he was distracted by Arvid’s news and wanted to find out what was going on. I wanted to find out, too, but it was obvious that I wasn’t welcome at this meeting, so I would make myself useful while he was gone. I had some ideas about what to do when I had the hut to myself.
He dressed quickly, coming out of his room in jeans and a tight t-shirt. I was staring at his biceps stretching the arm of his shirt while he rummaged through his desk drawers. Jesus Christ Almighty, you’re torturing me here, dude! My thoughts were flooded with desirous fantasies, and I worried if I didn’t look transparent from it. Kellan didn’t seem to notice it at all though opening his mouth to speak like everything was normal.
“Hopefully I won’t be too long, Amelia, but I still don’t like knowing that you’re going to be here alone for any length of time. Especially not now that you’re no longer a secret guest.” He held a leather portfolio and pen in one hand, and then pulled a large knife out of the drawer with the other. “I don’t know how good you are with a knife, but I feel better giving you a knife instead of a gun.”
“What, no sword?” I said jokingly. After seeing all the regalia, he had around the hut, it truly did surprise me that he didn’t own a sword. He looked at me with eyebrows raised.
“You know how to use a sword?” he said with all seriousness.
“Me? No. What? Are you… I wasn’t serious. I was joking,” I said with a chuckle. Then my chuckle died out as I held my breath.
“Oh. Well, then this knife will have to do,” he said as if it was just a natural flow of conversation. “I would go with a swift side-to-side sweeping slice and follow with a quick forward step and a jab before they recover from the slice. Got it?” He demonstrated briefly, then walked over and handed it to me and continued to gather things for the meeting, grabbing a bottle of water last and taking a swig from it. He let out a sigh, and I could have sworn I saw steam come from his mouth. “You want some? You should stay hydrated, you know.” He offered me the water, and I just shook my head no. I was too confused to process everything right now. “Oh, yeah. Obviously, you know. I’m sorry, I know you know how to stay hydrated. My apologies.” I nodded my head blankly. “Well, I’m off. Lock the door behind me and maybe stay in the downstairs room with the window shutter closed. There’s a TV with DVD’s down there in the closet if you want.” He walked over and kissed me gently on the cheek.
“I’ll probably just go find some regular clothes to put on, you know, in case there is more company later.”
“No!” he said suddenly. “There won’t be any more company. No one needs to come here right now. Not yet. Okay? But, if you feel more comfortable being dressed, feel free to help yourself to anything in my hut. My hut is your hut. Okay?” He kissed my cheek again. “I really have to go. Please be careful, and don’t let anyone else in but me, okay
?” I nodded my head in understanding, and then he was gone. I stood there for a minute blinking at the door behind him. Finally, I walked over to it and secured it like he had done earlier. I needed to find something to do to occupy my mind while he was gone.
I decided it was time to explore the hut and find out more about Kellan while I could. First, I needed to make sure all window shutters were closed and latched and then I would go through the closet and find some clothes and see what else was in there. I wanted to know where all the women’s clothes came from.
After latching the window in the kitchen area, I walked down to the room where I had woken that morning. The stairway to the room was disguised as another panel in the wall of the kitchen, and the handle for it was a small piece of crown molding that turned sideways like a doorknob in the middle of the wall. For a hut, Kellan’s living space would have rivaled any large household back on the mainland. It had multiple levels, a kitchen and dining space, and who knows how many secret spaces where I suspected Kellan had valuables hidden. The décor was very upscale, looking more like a museum interior rather than an island hut. I could tell that Kellan was used to a higher level of living.
When I got to my room, I latched the shutters and went straight to the closet to get dressed so I could explore a little more. I pushed hangers adorned with outfits from right to left one after the other. It was mostly full of soft cotton island clothing, but there was something about them that I couldn’t put my finger on. Each hanger was an outfit: pants, and a shirt together. Sometimes a sweater was included, perfectly matched. Every single outfit set looked brand new, crisp as the day that it came off the rack. I looked around the sleeves and edges of the clothes for tags, but they had already been taken off. Something felt familiar about it. I got all the way to the right of the closet and found some more expensive dresses and party clothes.
“What would a man like Kellan have a closet full of women’s clothes for? It just doesn’t make sense,” I said to no one. I felt like I was trying to solve a mystery, but I didn’t know what the first clue was. I looked around the edges of the closet, and it was mostly bare except for a small assortment of shoes on the floor. Three or four pairs of sandals, mostly soft cotton slip-on sandals with ribbons to wrap around the calves. Then another couple of ballet flats, one pair of tennis shoes, and a pair of house slippers. The slippers looked like they were filled with a soft fur and I couldn’t help but slip my toes into them. The softness of them felt amazing after all the hardness I’d had in my life lately.
I ran my hands along the rack of clothes and stopped on the ones that felt the softest. I tore my nightgown off, throwing it on the bed, and put on the comfy clothes. I ran the material between my fingers and realized that it was a higher quality of material that hadn’t been available for a long time. Most of my clothing had been used or hand-me-downs. With the population of women dwindling and the changes in world structure, the clothing industry had been practically destroyed. That’s when I realized what was so strange about all the clothes.
All the clothes seemed brand new, and yet the style was older, as if from an earlier era. They reminded me of clothes my grandmother had bought from a TV shopping network long ago. All the clothes in the closet were decades old, and yet they were all brand new. How long had he been saving these clothes, and for whom? He couldn’t possibly be old enough to have bought them all himself.
I closed the closet and shuffled around the room in the soft slippers, trying to look for more clues. It was sparsely decorated and simple. Other than the closet, I couldn’t find any hidden cubby holes or storage areas. There weren’t any photos in frames, and I didn’t see any personalized trinkets. Other than the extravagant bed and a nightstand with a lamp, there was little furniture in the room. I saw a small vanity against one wall, but the chair that went with the vanity had been placed by the window where I had nearly knocked it over that morning. I wondered why it had been moved there, but an explanation didn’t seem to come to mind yet.
I decided to make a mental note of it, then figured I would make the most of what time I had left to wander the rest of the house and see what I could find out about the muscle-bound man who had saved my life.
Chapter Nine
Kellan
I walked into Arvid’s house to find all the strongest captains of the island sitting around his living room, and every one of them looked pissed off. It was obvious that Arvid had told them about the woman in my hut. I knew I would have to claim her as my own sooner now, otherwise, someone else would try to win her heart before I did. That wasn’t the reason we were meeting today, though, so I had to make sure I redirected their attention to the matter at hand.
“The border,” I began without letting anyone else steer the meeting. I walked to the middle of the room and looked at Arvid. “Tell us what you saw.”
“There are wolves gathering at the shore, Kellan. A pack. If we wait too long, who knows how many might show up. Until now, they have barely noticed us. The few wolves that tried to span the water and make it to the island never made it to our shore or back to the mainland, thanks to us.” He looked at a few others in the room, giving nods of thanks. “But this is a gathering. I’ve never seen a gathering before. We’ve always been very private. There’s nothing to give them an interest in our island. Something’s different.”
“Did they see one of you shift? Do they know that dragons live here?” interrupted Kailis, one of the older captains that lived on the outermost edge. He rarely mingled with the others and kept himself, and his woman, separated from the rest of the group for safety reasons. He knew that he was one of only a few on the island who had a mate, and even with the laws that governed our people, we all knew what happened when dragon shifters felt that their mating time was running out. It was the same reason I had to protect Amelia right now.
Voices responded to his question around the room, talking over top of one another. Protests and claims of innocence rang out with the occasional accusation that someone else was careless or foolish. We all knew better, however, and none of us were foolish enough to be seen by a wolf shifter in our dragon form without taking out the witness before they could relay the information back to any other wolves. If word of our island became public knowledge, we would be the target of an interspecies war. We were fewer in number, but stronger in power and that was still a great threat to the wolves that were trying to take over the land. The problem with the wolves was that they had no honor, and no foresight either. They didn’t have the slightest clue that their behaviors were going to wipe the world of all diverse creatures and in the end, they would be competing with each other for survival. Eventually, they would wipe themselves out.
No, the wolves weren’t gathering because we gave ourselves away. I knew what was bringing them here, and I knew that it was going to come down to a battle between this clan and us, perhaps more if we couldn’t contain it quickly. Most important was the fact that I knew I wouldn’t be able to put off claiming Amelia in order to keep her as my own. There was too much danger for her now. Not just from the wolves, but from my people as well. Once they found out that there was a woman on the island, the danger of losing her to another would be great. However, the danger that would come with the news of her unborn child had the potential to be even greater.
I held my hands up to try to gather their attention and stop the growing bickering. I took a deep breath and waited. Arvid’s eyes never once strayed from me, and I knew that he was waiting for me to explain Amelia’s presence. I was going to have to explain this delicately.
Chapter Ten
Kellan
The room had burst into mass chaos. Like a buzzing hive set ablaze, everyone had an opinion on my recent news and everyone was convinced they knew the best way to solve it. The roar of swelling mixed voices was nearly blistering my ears.
“She has to go! She’s going to bring an end to us all!”
“Keep the girl; we need women to ensure our survival. Just get rid of
the baby! We don’t need a mongrel pup on the island!”
“Why can’t we share her? Some of us are running out of time; she should go to the dragon who has been waiting for the longest! It’s only fair! Bring her to us and let us decide! Fair exchange opportunity!”
“This is going to start a full-blown war that we aren’t ready for! We have to stop this now!”
“SILENCE!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs. I had to stop the insanity now before they got out of control. “That’s enough!”
I had to manage this before they went after Amelia. The fire inside me begged to be released, just to end anyone who disagreed with me, but I knew that wasn’t the answer. I had to contain my monster or else I would have been no different than the beasts that previously captured her.
“You will sit down and take turns talking,” I demanded, “like civilized beings, or else you will be reminded of what happens when I lose my temper. We are strong, but we are also smart, and that is what is going to make us survive long after the wolves force themselves into extinction. Remember this. Use your heads, not your tempers. Your wit first before your brawn.” I looked around the room and made eye contact with every man in the room. Every single eye seemed to glow with the color of their dragons, but I could see them forcing themselves under control. I waited until I knew they were all listening before continuing to discuss the problem.