Then he was gone, disappearing out into the night.
Clancy’s hands flexed into fists at his sides, his nails digging into his palms. Then he took a deep breath, composed himself, and went back inside.
The dining room was quiet when he entered and sat down next to Billie.
He felt numb as he considered his options to ensure she stayed away from the place.
If he told her he was in trouble, she’d surely try to stay and fight. His friends would too.
Clancy didn’t want that. He’d brought this on himself, and he’d deal with it.
He only hated that this had happened just when he’d finally found happiness and a woman he wanted to make his mate.
If only that could be possible.
He wanted to wake up and find out that all of this was a dream.
It was just too cruel. So harsh he felt numb inside just thinking about it.
“Who was it?” Reno asked, looking unusually concerned.
Clancy plastered on his usual easy smile and waved a hand. “Oh, just someone I knew a long time ago.”
Beck frowned. “What did they want?”
“Nothing much. Passing through,” Clancy said, trying hard to keep his tone neutral.
He could tell by the way that Harrison was staring that he didn’t believe him, but the cowboy dragon knew better than to push him, so he just shrugged and went back to his food.
As tense conversation resumed at the table, Billie leaned over to him, her eyebrows furrowing. “You sure everything’s all right?”
It was almost the hardest thing he’d ever done to look at his mate and lie to her. “Everything’s fine, darlin’.”
The hardest thing would come later. When he found the right words to tell her what he needed to in order to make her go.
He loved her. More than his own life. More than anyone.
And she loved him. He could see that in her eyes.
There was only one way to get her out of there, to keep her safe.
That was to hurt her. The last thing he wanted to do in all the world.
But Clancy would do it. He’d always done what needed doing, no matter how it hurt.
There was a chance he’d somehow win against the swamp dragon, but not much of one.
Some things were too much for even the Quickdraw Dragon to face.
And when Clancy was dead, it would go straight for his mate, if she was anywhere near the ranch. In dragon form, Bates would definitely be able to scent Clancy on her.
No, Clancy knew what he needed to do to keep everyone safe. To keep his mate safe. He just hated the way it made him feel like he was already dead inside.
At the back of his head, Clancy had always wondered if his past would come back to haunt him, but he’d always thought it would be someone from his gunslinging days, not from before.
No quick draw would save him from this monster. But at least he was the only one who needed to die in this fight.
Now he just had to figure out how to make the woman he loved so deeply he would do anything for her leave him.
20
Billie frowned as she stepped up the porch steps of Clancy’s homestead. He held the door for her, but his face was oddly stony as he ushered her inside.
There’d been an odd feeling around him ever since he came back in from talking with that “family member.”
The odd thing was Clancy had said he didn’t have any family. Why hadn’t he told her?
And why was he acting so weird now? He always put her at ease, but right now, he was making her nervous.
“Come on inside,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “We need to talk, Billie.”
Billie. Not darlin’. Uh-oh.
“What’s wrong?” Billie asked.
Clancy didn’t say anything. He just waved her into the living room and gestured toward one of the couches. She sat down, wondering what the heck was going on.
Then he held out a hand, nodding abruptly. “I’m afraid I can’t keep up the façade any longer. It’s about time you gave me that dragon talon.”
“What?” Her heart felt like it was sinking in a fathomless lake. “What do you mean? What façade?”
He folded his arms, his expression cold. “Come on, Billie. I’ve been trying to give you the Wild West experience, thinking it would get me what I needed. But you keep dragging this out.”
“What?” She frowned. “This is coming out of nowhere. That man—”
“This has nothing to do with him,” Clancy snapped. Then he softened, and she could swear there was something like hurt in his eyes when he looked her way. Then his gaze hardened again. “I’m just tired of pretending this is more than it is. Especially in front of my friends.”
She blinked. Her jaw dropped. She didn’t even know what to say. Her head was whirling as his words echoed in her mind.
Pretending. More than it is.
What was he saying? Earlier today, things had been so perfect. Where the heck had this come from?
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Have you always felt this way?”
He nodded, jaw tensing as he turned away. “Yes. None of this was real. I orchestrated all of it to make sure I’d get the talon. It’s worth a lot to me.”
“All of it?” Billie asked, aghast. She couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it. But why would he be standing there telling her this with clenched fists if it wasn’t true?
No, there was just no way. He had to be lying. She had seen the love in his eyes when he looked at her, felt the way he touched her when they made love, with care and want and desire.
There was no way that all of that had been fake. She would never believe that.
“That damn coin is trouble,” Clancy said, still refusing to look at her. “It will only bring you more trouble anyways. So give it to me.”
Billie shook her head. “I don’t care what trouble it brings as long as I’m with you.”
“I don’t want you here any longer,” he said sharply. Then he looked away.
Billie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her Clancy shutting her out when all he had done the last few days was be honest with her.
“What about the Quickdraw Dragon?” she demanded. “He’d never do something like this. Trick a woman. Send her packing.”
Clancy’s eyebrows turned down in a scowl. “I ain’t that man anymore, Billie. And you were wrong about me to ever think I was that same person.”
She sat back, her hands twitching at her sides as she took in his words. Billie knew the Quickdraw Dragon better than anyone living, and she thought she’d come to know Clancy better than anyone.
Apparently not.
Not this Clancy anyway. This wasn’t the same man that she’d fallen in love with.
Her Clancy was warm and kind and charming. The man standing before her was cold and callous.
Had she imagined all of it in her rush to learn about her hero? The idea was ridiculous, but then why else would he have been acting this way?
“Did you ever love me?” she asked, staring straight up into his eyes, searching for a trace of the old Clancy.
He looked stricken for a second, then turned away.
Billie waited for his response. One minute became two. Then two became three, and when she looked at the clock on the wall, five minutes had passed.
Still, he refused to answer. She guessed that was enough of an answer in and of itself.
She might not believe him that all of this was a lie, but he did want her gone. She could tell that for certain.
“I see.” Tears sprang to her eyes, and she wiped them away with her shirtsleeve.
When he spoke, his voice was cold and resigned, and still, he didn’t look at her. “I’ll give you time to pack. Then I’m taking you over to your car so you can head home. Go stay with your father at his friend’s place,” he said. “Long enough for the people after the coin to realize you and your father don’t have it anymore.”
“But I don’t want m
y life to go back to the way it was!” She stood, laughing bitterly. “I wanted a life with you!”
Maybe she imagined it, but she could have sworn that his shoulders slumped at that. Still, he just held a hand out for the coin.
She balled her fists at her sides for a second, then took it out of her pocket and shoved it into his hand. “I don’t want this stupid thing anymore anyway.”
Only then did she catch a glimpse of his eyes, green and cold and resigned as he looked at her from over his shoulder.
“Ruined your Tucker Thompson museum, did I?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Are you happy? You finally killed Tucker Thompson in my mind. The good man who helped people, saved lives, is just another myth now, another legend dead and buried deep beneath the Texas range.”
“As he should be,” Clancy said, nodding as he walked to the front door. But he stopped, hand on the handle. “I couldn’t let you make a Tucker Thompson museum. I want my legacy to die. I don’t want a museum. I don’t want people knowing about me.” He paused. “I’m not some hero. I never was. Please try to forget I ever existed at all, Billie.” He sucked in a breath. “I never want to see you again.”
With that, he opened the door and disappeared down the porch steps and into the night.
Billie wanted to go after him, wanted to convince him that it wasn’t true. She wanted him to come back and tell her that everything he’d said in the last ten minutes had been lies and that he loved her and truly wanted her.
She slumped a little to the side as she walked up the stairs, tears falling down her cheeks. She collapsed on her bed, broken by the harsh reality that lay before her.
It wasn’t enough that she had just lost Clancy, the most wonderful, handsome, kind man that she’d ever known. It wasn’t enough that the love of her life had just thrown away everything they had.
No, she’d had to lose Tucker Thompson, the Quickdraw Dragon, her hero too.
Everything had been looking up. For one solid, gleaming moment, life had become more beautiful than she ever could have expected. She’d been so excited to fulfill her dream of opening a full-fledged museum. Then Clancy had come into her life.
He had been her new future. And now it was all gone, like animal tracks after a rainstorm.
She picked up her phone to tell her dad, then decided against it. She couldn’t stand to say the words out loud.
So she just quietly began to pack, so Clancy could take her back to Dragonclaw.
And then leave her behind.
21
The next morning, Clancy was up early, before the break of dawn.
He’d slept fitfully, thinking about Billie’s pained face. It had hurt more than he ever thought to pretend to be cold to her.
He wished he could take it back. Wished everything was different.
Though, as thick clouds gathered in the skies above, it didn’t look like it would be a sunny day for the fight.
The weather matched his mood.
He’d stayed in the barn, in the loft, unable to take the smell of Billie filling his cabin. It brought back the memory of the pain in her eyes.
And he deserved to sleep on sawdust anyway for having to hurt her, no matter how it had happened.
Clancy grimaced at the things he’d had to say, the memory of the words tasting like spoiled water on his lips.
But beyond all things, he had to keep his mate safe.
How ironic that, after so many years believing he couldn’t even have one, he’d be making the ultimate sacrifice for the only woman who could have possibly been it for him.
He hitched up his horse, Clemson, and rode out before the rest of the ranch could wake up. Before Harrison or Dallas got ideas about stopping him or stepping in to help.
There was a valley below the mesa where they could fight without being seen, and it should be far enough away for no one to hear.
It was Clancy’s fight. Clancy’s past.
Clancy’s decision to leave the swamps so long ago that resulted in this horrible, revenge-seeking bastard coming for him in the first place.
His friends and their mates didn’t deserve to get caught up in all of this.
Least of all, Billie.
Heavy rain poured around Clancy, drenching his coat and Stetson as he made for the mesa far off in the distance. All around him, the beautiful, wild range that had been his home for so many years felt lifeless and empty, devoid of warmth, though maybe it was just the bad weather.
Mate, his dragon growled, utterly pissed at Clancy for what he’d done last night.
The cold-blooded beast didn’t get a say in the matter, though.
It was a short ride up the side of the mesa, and once Clancy reached the top, he saw a figure standing by himself, arms folded, slicker soaked through.
The devil himself. Bates.
Clancy dismounted and scratched Clemson’s neck one last time before whispering into his ear.
“You be a good horse for Harrison if I don’t make it back, ‘kay?”
Clemson nickered in response, and Clancy slapped his horse on the backside, sending him galloping back toward Dragonclaw where he’d be safe.
Then Clancy took a deep breath and strode toward Bates.
Bates’s hair was drenched, hanging in limp ropes around his face like an old mop. But it didn’t hide the deep, half-healed scars on his face. Nor the mean grin he wore as Clancy stopped a few dozen feet from him.
“I don’t know how you can possibly be so close to prey like that and not eat it,” Bates said, nodding in the direction the horse went. “Hell, I was tempted to change right there and eat it for ya.”
“Let’s fight in the valley,” he said. “You can smack me around better without falling off this mesa.”
He started walking down to the valley below and heard Bates following him.
When they stopped, Clancy turned and stood firm, facing Bates as Bates gave a low chuckle.
“I half expected you to run again like you did way back then. Run from yer family, yer people. All yer good at is runnin’.”
“I may not be a savage monster like the rest of you swamp dragons, but I ain’t a coward.” He stepped forward, hands twitching for pistols that weren’t at his sides.
There was no point bringing what amounted to sticks and stones to a bullfight.
“I’m not surprised you’re on your own, despite those ranch friends,” Bates said with an evil grin. “After all, for us swamp dragons, friend is just another word for food.” He laughed wickedly at his own words, making Clancy grimace.
The ironic thing was that Bates wasn’t lying. Clancy had seen it all long ago. Swamp dragons killing one another or other innocent creatures over nothing.
Even their friends.
Bates finally finished laughing, holding his stomach as he caught his breath. “Then again, you really might be the only other true male swamp dragon, which is why I’m willing to offer you an… alternative solution to our li’l problem.”
Whatever it was, Clancy could only guess it had to be horrible.
“I can kill you right here an’ right now, or you can come back with me. Back to the swamps.” Bates looked out past Clancy toward the southeast. “I have a sister. She an’ I were the only remaining dragons from our clan. From your clan. If you wed my sister and make a few more little swamp dragons, I’ll let bygones be bygones.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Serious as a knife. Granted, she might not be all that perty. In fact, she don’t even remember how to shift back into a human after all these years. But just imagine a whole brood of tiny swamp dragons runnin’ around, eatin’ anything and everything they see. I’ll keep the strong ones around and make a snack out of the runts.” His grin widened, baring yellowed, crooked teeth.
Bile rose in the back of Clancy’s throat. He’d never betray his mate, not for anything in the entire world. But especially not so there could be even more horrible swamp dragons than there already were.
<
br /> In his mind, one was already too many.
He only hated that he’d had to betray Billie to keep her safe from the one in front of him right now.
“I ain’t goin’,” Clancy replied firmly. “We finish this here and now.”
Bates’s grin fell to a sinister calm, and he shrugged. “Stubborn as always. Like a true swamp dragon, I guess.”
“I ain’t like you. Never was. Never will be.”
Rage filled Bates’s mossy-green gaze. “You’ll always be one of us. You’re more like us than you’ll ever admit. And all yer fancy talkin’ and clean clothes and food befriendin’ won’t hide it.” Then he grinned, baring sharp canines as he did. “But all the same, I’ll enjoy watching you die as I crush the life out of yer scrawny little neck.”
Bates cracked his neck from side to side, then disappeared as his form began to grow larger and larger.
Clancy just watched, observing his opponent as best he could while he had a chance before the fighting started. After all, he’d fought off his family, fought off the other swamp dragons that had tried to stop him.
But nothing could have prepared Clancy for the sight that filled his vision.
He’d assumed Bates had to be a monster to have taken every other swamp dragon out, but this was something else.
A huge, alligator-shaped beast took the space where Bates had been. Whatever part of him had been dragon, it had turned into a cruel, efficient killing machine long ago, probably as Bates gave in to his inner monster.
The more a swamp dragon lost to its primal side, the more it just looked like a giant, vicious gator instead of a dragon.
It had an impossibly long mouth with rows upon rows of jagged, rotting, razor-sharp teeth. Its eyes faced forward, though, and there was red at the center of what had once been green irises as Bates hissed, the noise so loud it rattled the earth.
He was practically the size of a basilisk, with huge scales on his belly and sides that came up to long rows of craggy spines that ran the entire length of his back and down toward an incredibly thick tail that swayed back and forth. Its legs were stumpy with humongous claws, but Clancy knew that swamp dragons were deadly fast, able to cover the distance between prey and themselves with ridiculous speed.
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