He slumped in his seat, relieved that his mother had given up. Unlike his sisters, Reece had been lucky. Their mother had praised him and given him the room he needed to become himself. That had left him blind to the way Alice treated the girls. He had struggled to understand why his sisters resented their mother so much until very recently.
Now, Reece could look back and see the evidence that had been scattered behind him. He understood why he’d left the manor and thrown himself into his work. When he wasn’t working, he went for drinks. When he wasn’t drinking, he was hunting women. Anything to keep him away from the manor. Anything to make him feel less alone after he’d left.
But he wasn’t alone…for now. The leggy blonde filled the empty spaces of his cabin. She wasn’t loud or obtrusive, but the soft sound of her breathing in the other room comforted him. The rustle of fabric as she readjusted her position on the couch or in the recliner brought an unfamiliar smile to his face.
The bird could stay as long as she wanted. He should have gotten a hot roommate sooner.
The pizza made his truck cab smell of sauce and yeasted dough. His stomach grumbled greedily, but he told himself to wait. He wanted to share the meal with the blonde. He was a little afraid that if he didn’t eat with her, she would refuse to eat altogether.
He parked outside the market and felt his beast fight its way to the surface. It was on high alert, making Reece pause and scent the air. The scent of Callum Barnes was thick on the wind. He hesitated. Perhaps beer wasn’t all that important.
Reece couldn’t believe his shit luck tonight. Running into his mother wasn’t all that unusual, but he thought it was unfair that he had to run into Callum, too. Since Callum’s only daughter had mated Cash Montoya, Callum had been a little nicer to the Montoyas. That kindness didn’t extend far, though.
Callum Barnes wouldn’t cause a scene in public, but Reece was wary of the man. According to River, Callum had confronted her and Jensen in the Barnes fields a few weeks back. Would Callum follow Reece home? Would he pick a fight once they were away from town?
Reece was tired of old dragons and their inability to let things go. The feud meant nothing. A couple had a fraught relationship generations ago. That didn’t mean their descendants needed to be at each other’s throats.
But Reece had taken part in the feud until recently. Any fight that came his way was well deserved. He ran his hand along the scruff growing on his chin and waited. The beast growled inside him, but he managed to smother the sound while he leaned back against the truck.
Callum Barnes stepped out of the market, a thirty-pack clutched under his arm. He glared at the glowing screen of his phone, the device dwarfed by Callum’s massive hands. His lip curled.
Waiting had been a good idea, it seemed. Something had Callum’s panties in a twist. Reece waited for the man to leave. If Callum scented a Montoya in the area, he paid the trail no mind. Reece shook his head and bought two four-packs of craft beer because he didn’t know what his houseguest would like.
He was strangely excited for this impromptu date with a stranger.
4
Teagan used the time alone to raid Reece’s closet. She found a pair of cycling shorts that looked as though they’d never been worn and a band shirt that looked as though it’d been worn too many times. The soft fabric of the band shirt caressed her skin, but it left her arm bare.
A glance at herself in the nearby wall mirror told her all she needed to know. Her healing had slowed to a crawl. She gingerly touched the yellow and black bruises and wondered if this was what it was like to be human.
Then again, humans didn’t have impatient birds throwing themselves at their ribcages. She pressed her palm to her lower sternum and straightened.
“Calm down,” she mumbled. “I don’t get what you’re freaking out about.”
Barely half a second later, she heard the rumble of Reece’s truck approaching. She pushed the dresser drawers closed and padded back out to the kitchen just as he was shoving his way through the door. He looked her up and down but said nothing about her stealing more of his clothes. If anything, the curve of his lips told her that he approved.
“You took your sweet time,” she said teasingly.
He let out a light groan. “I happened to run into every firecracker of a dragon shifter along the way.”
She stilled, her blood turning to ice. If her father caught wind of Reece, would he be able to smell her on him? She wanted to check the sky outside the floor to ceiling window to see if her father had tracked her down, but she was too afraid—like looking might make him appear out of nowhere.
“So, how many of these do you need to drink to end up in my bed tonight?” Reece asked as he set tall cans of beer onto the counter.
Knowing exactly what he was implying, Teagan laughed. “If you want to give up your bed, that’s on you. I don’t mind making you sleep on the couch tonight.”
“The only way I’m going to sleep on that couch is if my balls are empty.”
Teagan raised a brow. “Well, that’s not going to happen then. You seem like the kind of guy whose balls are always full.”
Reece paused and gave her a perplexed look. “I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be a compliment or not. Are you saying I’m ugly and never get laid? Or are you calling me virile? Because I can show you which one I really am.”
“Oh, please. Pizza and beer aren’t enough to get into my pants.” She snatched a slice from the half-opened box and carried it back to her seat in the living room.
“Missy, you didn’t have pants until recently.”
Their barbed flirting brought a smile to her face. Teagan had so much pent-up frustration crackling inside her. It felt good to let it out with a good tongue lashing. She was too afraid to give her father a piece of her mind, and Ember didn’t deserve the kind of anger that Teagan had stored up. This guy, though, seemed to enjoy it.
He plucked a plate from the cupboard, slapped two slices of meat-covered pizza onto it, and yanked a beer from the plastic rings. He set the first beer on the side table next to her before heading back and grabbing another.
She twisted the beer and grinned at the holiday design on the label. She doubted that cranberry ginger cider went well with veggie pizza, but the moment she brought it to her lips, she knew she couldn’t complain. It was absolutely delicious, even if it made for a less than harmonious dinner.
This was the best dinner she’d had in a long while. More often than not, Teagan settled for eating rotisserie chickens at her kitchen counter. Some nights she felt more motivated and had boxed macaroni and cheese—the kind with the cheese sauce, of course. A hot meal, beer, and good company were more than she was used to.
Reece didn’t sit beside her. He grabbed a chair, turned it to face her, and set his feet on the couch cushion right beside her. While she still had an escape route, the gesture made the room seem smaller.
Suddenly conscious of his nearness and how they should have been miles apart, she shrank away from him.
Reece couldn’t handle the silence, apparently. “So, no head?”
She let out a surprised cackle. Her laughter doubled her over. She had to set her half-eaten pizza slice onto Reece’s plate before she dropped it.
“I guess I should use my pick-up lines for stand-up comedy.”
She reined in her laughter to shake her head at him. “I’m surprised you could take anyone home with a line like that.”
He gestured to her with the pizza in his hand. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
Teagan almost felt bad for him. “You knocked me out of the sky and nearly killed me. That’s why I’m here. Not because of your clever tongue.”
“Do you want to see how clever I can be with my tongue?”
She howled, unable to keep her laughter back anymore. If Reece was insulted, he didn’t show it. He sat back in his seat and grinned wide. This must have been part of his seduction process. Teagan hated to say that it was working. She wasn’t quite
enamored yet, but she liked him far more than she should.
“I might need a few more beers before you can get my legs open enough to try.” She reclaimed her pizza slice.
Reece opened his mouth then his eyes went wide. “I just realized that when I pick women up at the bar, they’ve been drinking, too. Am I really too ugly to fuck sober?”
Oh, now she felt bad. She bit her lower lip and tried to find the right words, but Reece held up his hand.
“Nope. Don’t answer that. I don’t need false pity. I’m going to finish my dinner alone and think about my life.” He started to get to his feet.
Teagan grabbed one of his ankles and kept him seated. “Don’t go now. This was just starting to get funny.”
“Missy, your vicious mockery knows no end. Am I just a court jester to you? I’ll have you know that I come from a venerated line of dragons.” He pretended to preen.
The mention of his lineage deflated her. She shrank back and removed her hand from his exposed skin. He noticed, his lips flapping. He tried to revive the humor they’d shared a moment ago, but it was gone.
Teagan shouldn’t have been flirting with the son of Alice Montoya. It was a recipe for disaster. She didn’t want her father to go after Alice over some imagined offense. Her father, restless and conflicted as he was, would use any excuse to start a war.
Not only would that cause destruction, but he would lose all progress he’d made with Ember. If Ember wanted a better relationship with their father, then Teagan couldn’t get in the way of that. She couldn’t…
The food in Tegan’s stomach turned to lead. The lump sat heavy inside her. She felt like a bird whose wings had been clipped. It was a familiar feeling, but not one that she would ever get used to. There were consequences awaiting her no matter what she did. She couldn’t make a move without the fear that she would send a domino toppling in the wrong direction.
The mood in the room sobered. Teagan lifted her beer to her lips with the hopes of changing that, but there wasn’t enough. Only halfway through her second can did she feel the comfortable buzz start to fill her head.
“If you have the constitution of a human, maybe you should slow down.” Reece plucked the can from her hand and set it on the floor out of her reach. He studied her for a long while, his brows slowly coming together with obvious worry. “You can have the bed tonight. I’ll probably go out again anyway.”
Teagan knew she didn’t want to ask, but the question fell out of her anyway. “Go where?”
He gave her a half-shrug. “To the bar, most likely.”
“Oh.” She shouldn’t have been so disappointed to hear the truth, but it struck her all the same.
Their easy flirting meant nothing. Perhaps, that was why it had been so easy. What was to stop their tongues when there was nothing to tangle them? This wasn’t about love. It wasn’t even about affection. They’d bantered for the sake of banishing the silence. That was all.
Her mouth went dry. She wanted more beer, but Reece was still holding it hostage.
“I thought you’d be happier. You get to have a cabin in the woods all to yourself for the evening. Isn’t that nice?”
“Ah, yes. I want to be alone at night in the middle of nowhere. Yes, that sounds completely safe and not like the beginning of a horror movie.” She gave him a wry smile.
He cocked his head, confused. Then, he slapped his forehead with his open palm. “I keep forgetting that you’re not a dragon. Things are a little different for the smaller shifters, huh?”
She looked away and swallowed hard. “Maybe not for the wolves or bears. I’m a little more vulnerable, though. Especially right now.”
Reece nodded. Silence slipped back into the room and brought awkwardness with it. She’d only been half-joking. She’d hoped that her statement would make him stay. Dragon men could get protective, but Reece’s silence made her feel like she’d twisted his arm.
On her way to get another slice of pizza, she said, “Don’t worry about it. If anything happens, I’ll sprout wings and fly away.”
He gave her a dubious look. “Not with that arm, you won’t.”
Conflicted, Teagan busied herself with the pizza boxes. She stole a piece of pepperoni from Reece’s pizza and popped it into her mouth. Her mouth had gotten away from her. She hadn’t meant to make him stay, but she also wasn’t disappointed. Guilt turned the pepperoni to ash on her tongue.
Manipulation wasn’t a good look for anyone. She needed to be wiser with her words next time. While her father might not give a fuck if she manipulated a Montoya man, she also didn’t want to do anything he might approve of. Reece didn’t deserve to be controlled like that.
“Have I said I’m sorry yet?” Reece didn’t turn to face her, but she heard him loud and clear all the same.
“You didn’t have to. Your first aid said enough.”
He didn’t respond, so she finally returned to her seat. She noticed his gaze was distant as she sat across from him. His lips pressed into a firm, almost disappointed line. Guilt churned in her gut again. She glanced down at the second slice of pizza and regretted bringing it over with her.
They’d been better off flirting. The moment they stepped away from the quick quips and winks, their conversation had fallen apart. If anything, that told Teagan that she wouldn’t find a mate in this man.
Not that she’d expected to fall head over heels for him. The other Barnes shifters had found love with the Montoyas, but she wasn’t really a Barnes. Teagan was an addition, hastily pulled onto the sinking ship before she drifted away without an anchor. She didn’t think fate had considered her in its grand plan to pull the two feuding families back together.
Teagan would have to look elsewhere for a mate. Perhaps she might meet a nice bear shifter if she went camping once in a while. Cuddling a bear sounded nice compared to the daunting task of entering a dragon’s lair. She didn’t want fire because it would only burn her again.
“How about we play a game?” Teagan suggested.
She pulled a piece of paper out of a nearby book and slapped it onto the coffee table. She began drawing a gridline on it and placed a single dot on one of the grid intersections. It’d been a long while since she’d played this weird game of connect the dots, so explaining it to Reece had her tripping over herself.
“Basically, if you can get the four corners of a square, you win that square and get a point. Make sense?”
Reece gave her a look that seemed to ask are you serious?
Self-conscious, Teagan blushed. She was surprised when Reece sprang up and dashed into the kitchen. He returned a second later with a red pen and a hunger for challenge on his face. She smiled, the knot in her chest easing.
Reece had the most relaxing night of his life. He and the blonde drank beer and played strange games using pens and paper. She explained to him how she’d learned them in school, how her years in school had been so boring that she’d made friends with the study hall attendants.
Though he laughed at her, there was something wholesome about her stories. She wasn’t a daredevil or a vixen looking to ruin his life. Reece liked that about her. He liked that she was bold, yet sweet. She met his gaze and fired retorts at him, but five minutes later she might blush at something mundane.
He stepped outside and stretched his arms over his head. A familiar dragon silhouette dominated the sky in the distance, stealing away his attention and turning his joy to wariness. His mother’s presence at this hour made him wonder, rather bitterly, what she was doing out and about. Then, a flash of light made him stagger.
The earth trembled—not in fear but in rage.
Reece cursed under his breath. He let out his dragon and leapt into the sky. He would apologize to the blonde later. Leaving her alone was the last thing he wanted to do, but if his assumption was right, someone had to step in.
His mother swooped low, trying to land in a glowing clearing. The earth shuddered again. Alice had to divert her path and rise into the sky again. Re
ece brushed his wing against hers as he passed by. She let out a frustrated growl but didn’t stop him from intervening.
“Don’t you scaly mother fuckers understand? When I said stay out of my life, I meant it!”
The trees shook. Reece heard the rustle of leaves even though they were long gone. In the center of a small grove stood a woman. Multicolored light rippled around her. She lifted her face to the sky. Fury had been etched into her very being, but there was not a single line to be found on that face.
Titania Lockheed, the Seelie queen of the Midwest.
Also, the reason Reece was down an uncle. After she and his uncle had divorced, the uncle had burrowed. It’d been an ugly separation that’d caught many in the crosshairs. Even one of the Barnes dragons had been scarred by one of their epic arguments.
Reece touched ground a hundred feet away from Titania. Shaking with rage, she jabbed a finger at him.
“Keep your mother away from me! I want nothing to do with her or her power plays. My court will never belong to the wench.”
Of course, his mother was at it again. He wondered what she’d hoped to gain by bothering Titania again. The fae queen was a match for his mother. Alice had to know that by now. Bothering Titania wasn’t going to get her anywhere.
Unless Alice tried to pull some sort of sisterhood angle. He wouldn’t have put it past his mother, but she too often forgot that Titania was not human. The idea of sisterhood went over Titania’s head because she had no concept of what it meant to be a sister. The only bonds Titania understood were those of power and the succession of power.
Screwing around with Titania was going to lead to trouble.
His mother lashed her tail angrily. She beat her wings, buffeting the ground with wind, and turned away from the fae queen. Once it became obvious that Alice was retreating, Reece spared a glance back. Titania’s eyes blazed.
Wings of Destiny (Great Plains Dragon Feud Book 5) Page 3
