by Haley Weir
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Dorian!” The sound of Jenny’s fearful voice awakened him instantly. Dorian rolled out of bed and grabbed the door handle, only to flinch back when it burned his palm. He smelled the heat and smoke as it filtered through the crack beneath the door. Terror stole his voice as Dorian peeled off his shirt and used it to turn the doorknob.
Fire crawled up the walls and illuminated the billows of black smoke swallowing the air. Dorian dropped to the floor and crawled, hearing the floorboards creak beneath his weight as the flames compromised the structure of the house. Dorian reached the stairs and quickly made his way into the living room.
Vanessa stood behind the chair that Jenny was strapped to as the gaps that had been missing from his dream began to make sense. The blade beneath his mate’s chin caused anger to flare in his chest. “Let her go.”
“On the contrary. She’s the target, not you. I just wanted to have a bit of fun.”
“What do you want?” Dorian asked.
“It isn’t about what I want. Apparently, my lover took quite a shine to your little girlfriend while she was at our old camp. Corey hardly shuts up about her now.”
“That’s not Jenny’s fault nor is it mine.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Vanessa said. “Jenny was all sorts of friendly with Corey. In just a week she was able to sway his mind and take him from me.”
“Corey shouldn’t have abandoned you like that. What he did was wrong, but don’t take a life because of his mistakes,” Dorian implored. “I saw your face when you recognized Anders. If you want to talk to him, I can have that arranged.”
Vanessa began to laugh as though the house was not burning down around them. Jenny’s fear-stricken gaze held his stare and silently begged him not to let her die. And he wouldn’t. Dorian would get her out if it cost him his life. The sharpshooter slid her blade across Jenny’s throat just deep enough to cause a trickle of blood to run down her neck. “Men always think they know what we want, but they’re never right.”
“So tell me. Tell me what you want and I’ll do what I can.”
“I want him to love me!” Vanessa screamed as her voice cracked and tears spilled from her eyes. “He’s so cold…so unfeeling that sometimes I wonder if he’s human at all. The only thing Corey cares about is Jenny and his stupid hatred for you freaks.”
Dorian heard the beams above his head begin to crackle and warp. He nodded to Jenny and she threw herself back, knocking Vanessa off balance and sent her crashing into the wall. His priority was Jenny as he scooped her up into his arms. The front door was covered in flames. He turned his back to it and threw his body against the center, breaking through wood and landing painfully on the front lawn. Screams filled the night as the ceiling collapsed and Vanessa was trapped inside.
He covered Jenny’s eyes as she sobbed into his shirt. Her fingers clutched him close. Sirens cried in the distance, the sound getting louder as the truck approached. All at once, Vanessa revealed that Corey was a bigger threat than they thought and the two of them had lost everything. “Shhh, I’ll take care of you.”
“They took it all away from us!”
“I know, I know,” he said softly. “But those aren’t the things that matter. We still have each other and I still have my house.”
“I love you...” Jenny kissed Dorian and he swiped away her tears.
“Will you marry me?” He laughed when she went cross-eyed for a moment in shock, but stopped when she swatted at him like a fly.
“Don’t laugh at me! This is important!”
“Then answer the question!”
“Of course I’ll marry you!” Jenny replied.
“Then why are we yelling at each other?!” They laughed until the paramedics arrived and forced them to withstand an examination. Neither of them had been injured aside from the cut on Jenny’s throat and some minor smoke inhalation. Dorian thought of the moment he realized that he wanted to marry Jenny.
“Do you like animals?” Dorian asked.
“I do, but not in the way my friend likes cats. I’m not sure that much love is healthy for any living creature.”
“Do you have a favorite?”
“Bears.”
Dorian coughed and sputtered as he struggled to swallow the sip of bourbon he attempted to drink. He dabbed his mouth with a napkin and readied himself for what came next. “Can I ask why?”
“Why I like bears? I just find them powerful, protective…and bears are prideful. I think they’re beautiful in an almost regal way.”
He blushed profusely and ducked his head to hide the burning on his cheeks as he slid the black box across the table. Jenny pushed it back toward him and he glared at her, which seemed to make her laugh harder. “Please, accept the gift. It took a long time to find something I deemed appropriate. Now that I know just a little bit more about you, I think you’ll love it.”
At that moment he knew that they were meant to be. Over time, of course, she had learned that he was far from beautiful and regal, but Dorian could admit to being powerful, protective, and prideful. He wanted to spend the rest of his life being the man and the bear that Jenny needed him to be. Dorian finally had someone to live for, someone to confide his fears in and love endlessly without judgment.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
On the drive to his house, Dorian questioned Jenny about what had taken place before the fire. He accepted that there were conversations that had taken place on the mountain that she didn’t want to talk about, but he wanted to know why she had been targeted specifically if she wasn’t a shifter.
“I think it’s because I didn’t talk to him like the others did,” she said. “Corey wasn’t just a hunter after a while, but a person with a story. I tried to convince him that you and the others had your own tales to be told. He was resistant, of course, but something had started to change him, I think.”
***
“Did he ever say anything that made you question that?”
Jenny tried to concentrate on the question and not how the light from the streetlamps cast a spectrum of colors onto Dorian’s gorgeous face. “I questioned it a few times, but never as much as I did when he mentioned Sapphire.”
“What did he say?”
“He mentioned the ‘woman on the ledge’ more than once and I knew he was talking about Sapphire,” Jenny breathed. “The way he described her and the joy I heard in his voice as he described her fall in detail made my skin crawl.”
Dorian handed Jenny the keys when the care stopped. She hurried to the door as he grabbed the bags from the trunk. Soot covered her purple socks and pajama bottoms as she jiggled the key in the door of her new home. It was entirely empty of furniture after Dorian had moved all of his things into her house that was now no more than a smoking pile of embers. He carried in the bags of items they purchased from the twenty-four hour store down the street.
The looks he cast her caused Jenny to think of the night they met.
He leaned closer to the candle at the center of the table and flashed a gorgeous smile that made her think of old Hollywood movies, bubble baths, and back massages. Jenny had never reacted to someone so intensely before, so she closed her eyes and allowed her breathless rendition of the current song enchant the room.
Jenny insisted that the two of them shower before they did anything else. They scrubbed one another and washed away the thick ash that collected on their skin in between sensual kisses and little bit of petting. Jenny always marveled at the height difference between them. In the past, her height had always been something she was self-conscious of as it made her uncomfortable in heels when she was taller than her boyfriends.
She could feel his eyes on her, trailing over her figure and it empowered her instead of making her want to dress like a nun. Jenny knew her curves were on full display in the tighter dress and the ever-present corset made them even more pronounced. When her eyes fluttered open, she caught sight of him biting his l
ower lip and loosening the buttons at the neck of his dress shirt.
But with Dorian, she could wear any size of heels and still be shorter than him. Her lovable giant couldn’t stop kissing her after their impromptu engagement. She sent a text to her friends to set up a meeting under the guise of a regular book club. Tilly answered back immediately to confirm the time and Destiny agreed as well after the scheduled book signing event was over.
Glacial blue eyes and a bone structure that would make the heavens weep held her captive. His lips were pouty and sensual that softened his chiseled features.
Dorian called to set something up with his friends, asking if the four of them could meet up at Michael’s loft only to hear that Brock had taken over and Michael had moved into his office at KDA. In the end, they agreed on a location to announce their good news and spent the night cuddled up on the living room floor of their empty home. Jenny should have been sad after losing everything, but Dorian was right. They had each other and that was all that mattered in the end. She didn’t need handmade dresses and designer bags to be happy anymore. Dorian was all she needed to feel like the world would be alright eventually. “I love you,” he mouthed in the darkness. She replied in kind in a whispered tone against his broad chest.
Jenny couldn’t tear her gaze away even as one song flowed into another. Her hands reached up to clasp the microphone and felt the temperature rise in the room. Dorian’s body shifted in his chair, giving her the impression that he was all muscle. All power. It was the body of a man capable of handling her supple curves if he was daring enough to take her for a ride. Her cheeks had managed to flush brighter than the blush on her cheeks.
Dorian had been more than capable of handling Jenny. In fact, he was the first man she had ever experienced an orgasm with. She would never tell him that, of course. His ego didn’t need anymore stroking. Jenny drew nonsensical patterns on his arms and chest, soaking in his heat and basking in the glow of his love.
“I can’t wait to marry you,” she whispered. Dorian couldn’t hear her, for the light snoring that jostled her slightly signaled that he had fallen asleep in her arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Like the first day she arrived in Haden Springs, Jenny Owens waltzed into bookshop owned by her best friend. She waved to Destiny on her way into the back room and greeted Lori Stevens. The woman’s Armani suit looked out of place in the eighteenth century style sitting room, but Jenny was glad she came. “I just wanted to thank you for your role in helping us meet.”
“Don’t thank me,” Lori insisted. “We might have helped with the communication in the beginning, but you guys did the hard part. Mr. Adair kept me informed of your progress through it all and I’m so happy that the two of you have worked through all of your problems.”
“Oh, my god! Jenny, are you alright?” Tilly shouted as she hurried into the meeting room at the back of Books & Baubles. Jenny embraced her friend and reassured everyone that she was alright and that she wasn’t upset about the fire, only angry that the hunters had thought to harm her and Dorian.
“I’m fine, really,” she insisted. “But the fire isn’t the only reason I asked for you guys to meet me here.” Jenny looked around the room at Tilly, Destiny, and Lori Stevens. She wished Sapphire could have been there for the announcement, but hopefully there would be good memories to share in the future. “I’m getting married!”
Lori bounced off of the settee and clapped her hands. Tilly wiped tears from her eyes and hugged Jenny again. Destiny tilted her head in confusion and asked, “Why?”
The ladies laughed at the unorthodox response to an engagement announcement. Jenny patted Destiny on her shoulder. “Because I’m in love. Dorian opened my eyes and taught me how to accept myself. We all know how big of a mess I was after what happened with Zach, but Dorian is exactly what I needed.”
“But he’s so…good looking,” Destiny chuckled. “Where’s the beard? For a bear, you’re hubby is lacking in the body hair department.”
“That’s not why you marry someone!”
“Sure. But it’s part of the whole aesthetic.”
There were a few inquiries about the time and date of the wedding, but Jenny didn’t have answers for them. “We haven’t decided anything. He only purposed two nights ago. It took a while to settle things with the police and the insurance company.”
“Were they able to save any of your things?”
“Some of the boxes I had in the basement of my dad’s things were safe,” Jenny replied. “I was able to sort through them and take what significant meaning to me and my family. Everything else was replaceable, so I didn’t bother.”
Jenny was showered in praise for the rest of the afternoon and even popped a bottle of champagne. Her thoughts never strayed far from Dorian as she told stories about their time together. Some inappropriate questions were asked, of course, but Jenny was more than happy to tell her friends about the amazing hours spent in bed with Dorian. After everyone was a little too tipsy, Lori pulled her upstairs to Destiny’s apartment and onto the terrace for a quick chat.
“When you walked into Kodiak Dating Agency for the first time, did you ever think that you would end up here?” Lori Stevens asked.
“I don’t think I contemplated the future much, to be honest. Which is sad now that I’ve said it out loud. You and Michael helped me find the man I’ve always been searching for. I only wish I could return the favor.”
Lori shook her head. “Don’t worry about Mr. Adair. Sooner or later, he’ll meet the right woman and learn how to take his own advice.”
“What about you?” Jenny inquired. “Do you have a whirlwind love of your own?”
“I have. She’s the sheriff here in town. I was down at the station after someone hit my car while it was parked on the road. Michael was there to bail Brock out of trouble as usual.” Lori sipped her champagne. “Michael must have seen some sort of spark between us or something because, next thing I know, he’s exchanging our contact information and setting up a date.”
“When did the two of you start working together?”
“Not long after I got married,” Lori said with a dazzling smile. “I was a romance column writer for the local newspaper. No one ever read my work, but Michael said he was a fan. We met for coffee and he offered me a job. The rest is history.”
“Well, either way, I’m thankful.”
***
Dorian entered Michael’s office at the Kodiak Dating Agency and found his friends waiting for him. Anders seemed preoccupied already, so Dorian didn’t waste any time in making his announcement. “I’m getting married,” he said. Brock’s eyes flew open, but he gave Dorian a pat on the back and a big hug. There was a silent exchange of forgiveness between them that they doubted anyone else caught on to. Michael was next to embrace him, but he didn’t show as much affection as his brother. Their conversation would come later, he supposed.
Anders shook his hand and congratulated him, but his eyes were distant and sad. Dorian didn’t want to prod, but he felt as though he needed his friends now more than ever. They seemed happy for him, but none of them were happy. He must have called the meeting at a bad time. “What is it?”
“We were sent a recording today. One that…is a little more than troubling,” Michael said. “Here. I’ll let you play it.”
Dorian pressed the button and heard Corey and Jenny’s voices streaming through the speakers. He clenched his jaw and tried to think clearly through his anger.
“Why the bear? Why, when you knew what he really was, did you accept him?”
“I guess it’s because I knew the man before I knew the bear.”
“You think he’s still a man?” The tone was too mocking for Dorian’s liking. “That thing is an abomination. No woman of worth could love something so vile…so unnatural.”
Garbled movement and the sound of crunching boots disturbed the audio. Every once in a while, they heard Jenny hiss in pain, which caused Dorian to punch the wall of Michael
’s office.
“Who hurt you?” she asked finally.
“What makes you think I’ve been hurt?”
“Come on. Let’s be honest. You’re not a bad looking guy –a little too pretty for my taste, but you must turn heads. Black hair, alabaster skin, silver eyes, red lips, and a bone structure models would kill for? Tell me.”
It hurt him to hear her speak in such a flirty tone with her captor, but he knew why she had done it. Jenny had needed to stay alive…
“The entire world seems keen on hurting me. I’m here to do my job. And when it’s over I’ll carve my name into the chest of your mate and his friends without batting an eye. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Job?” Jenny prodded. “Job implies directive, directive implies a chain of command. You definitely strike me as the military type, so who’s pulling the strings, I wonder.”
“Do you love him?”
“I’m not sure, really. I feel a very strong pull, but I’m not sure what love really feels like. I’ve never had someone give me a reason to let my guard down that far. Just because fate decided that we’re mates doesn’t mean our futures are set in stone.”
Once again he found his heart fracturing slightly. Dorian couldn’t deny that that there was some truth to her words. Jenny hadn’t loved him at the time. Not to his knowledge. He just needed to hold on to the fact that he was going to marry her soon.
“You would do that?” he asked skeptically. “You would reject him knowing he could never take another mate or challenge your decision?”
“Honestly?”
There was a pause.
“Knowing that he like a puppy on a leash thrills me,” she hummed. “I might not be in love with Dorian, but I am in love with power.”
“And that is exactly what you are right now, Jenny: a puppy on a leash.”
Dorian ended the recording. “This changes nothing. We don’t even know when it was recorded,” he said. “I love Jenny and I’m going to marry her.”
