He bent, making Mina’s brows fold together, and grabbed the legs of her stool, pulling it between his knees. Her back touched his chest and filled her with warmth. It was as if he couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t keep from touching her at all times. The thought made her heart swell and brought a smile to her lips.
While Makenna switched to another song, the waiter brought their food. Mina eyed the coming plate warily but was pleasantly surprised to see a burger and sweet potato tots. The smell of fryer grease and sugar tickled her nose and made her stomach growl.
“Are you okay with what I picked?” Ryker whispered in her ear.
Mina popped a sweet potato tot into her mouth and nodded as the warmth burnt her tongue. This made Ryker grin. He nuzzled her neck, sending chills down her spine. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t have to work to deserve him. They way he held her, wanted to touch her, made Mina think that she’d already won him over the way he had won her.
“This has to be the quietest family day, ever.” Ashton stole a sushi roll from Wyatt’s plate.
“Give it time,” Jasper said, voice low. “I’ll throw a chair eventually. I just haven’t found my target yet.”
Everyone stilled until they realized Jasper had made a joke. Ashton was the first to laugh, slowly building from a nervous huff into a roar. Ryker acted like his family was a mess, but they seemed to care for one another. She didn’t know any other dragons who would voluntarily spend a night together and do their best to be kind to one another. She saw the effort that crinkled Jasper’s eyes, the way Griffin eyed the nearby door but never bolted for it.
Makenna’s set finished. Mina was halfway through her burger, with grease dripping down her chin in the most ungraceful fashion, when Ryker tapped her shoulder. He gestured to the stage. Mina froze.
“We should sing together. It’s just karaoke so it doesn’t have to be perfect. We could pick a song where there’s lots of screaming. That could be fun.” The gleam of happiness in his eyes was impossible to ignore.
Mina felt like she couldn’t say no. Ryker had done so much for her. He’d not only fed her, twice, but brought her to orgasm, twice. She eyed the stage, stomach churning with the undigested food. Anxiety brought it up and made her throat burn, but, against her better judgement, she conceded.
Ryker grabbed her hand and tugged her toward the spot-light. Mina followed along in the wake of his excitement. She tried to let it fill her, but it did nothing to chase away the nervousness now kicking around her stomach.
While he bent and observed the display screen to choose a song, Mina tried to peer at the crowd. The light above was so sharp that it seemed to form a wall between her and those watching. She knew they must all be staring at this massive man and his mousy date. The only reason they watched was to see her fail.
The light burned her eyes. Her heart pounded in her ears. Everyone in the bar watched her. They judged her. It was as if she could hear them asking why she stood beside a metallic dragon. Ryker was beautiful. He was a god carved from stone and brought to life, while Mina was nothing more than a puny dragon shifter who had nothing going for her.
She opened her mouth as the song began but choked. Her throat closed around the lyrics. Ryker watched her, lips in a flat line. Her hand shook. The microphone buzzed from the way she trembled. The sound rang in her ears.
There was no way she could do this. Mina dropped the microphone and darted out of the room. She shoved the door open. Bitterly cold winter air slapped her in the face, but it did nothing to cool the heat of embarrassment that clung to her cheeks. She wrapped her arms around herself, but her heart still thudded. Each beat felt like her heart might burst.
She couldn’t believe she’d let Ryker down. All she’d wanted to do was make him happy, and she couldn’t even do that. She hid her face in her hands. This was never going to work. She wasn’t right for him. There was no way she could give him everything he wanted. The mate bond was a lie, one she’d let herself believe for the short time they’d lain together.
***
Ryker stared at the door his mate had fled through. His heart hit the ground beneath him and shattered.
Once more, he’d failed her.
He never claimed to be a good man, but he was beginning to feel like he should have warned her. He was turning out to be the worst mate, ever. His cousins and their mates glared at him. Their accusations were clear. Mina deserved better.
Ignoring the music now blasting, the song they’d sung together in their house, he leapt off the stage and chased after her. He’d thought since she’d sung with him back at the house, since she’d opened up, that she wouldn’t mind singing with him here. He’d ignored the look of panic in her eyes when he’d suggested it, thinking it was only a gut reaction and that it would fade as long as he stood beside her.
He’d been so wrong.
The music faded once the door closed behind him. He scanned the dark parking lot for his mate, but he saw no sign of her. Thoughts of the unfamiliar dragons invaded his mind. He feared they had snuck into the mountains and kidnapped his mate for what she’d done to one of their own. He cursed himself for leaving her alone. He ripped through the parking lot, searching every shadow.
Just when he was about to let his beast tear through him, he found a familiar shape sitting in his truck. His shoulders relaxed, but guilt began to set in. He could do so much better. He needed to.
His mate was curled in on herself in the passenger seat of his truck. She’d pulled her knees to her chest. He watched her swipe at the tears that must have fallen down her cheek. As much as he wanted to, he found he couldn’t open the door and pull her into him. He felt as though he didn’t deserve the chance to make it better.
If anything, he needed to know that she could forgive him. Ryker could barely forgive himself in that moment. He was a fool, far too used to doing whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. He was no longer alone, and while it was a blessing to have found his mate, there were things he still needed to learn.
He only wished that he hadn’t hurt her in the process.
Eventually, the truck door opened, and she slid out. His guilt was mirrored in the droop of her shoulders, the way her chin pressed against her chest. The sight of her looking so downtrodden destroyed him.
“Oh, my love,” he croaked through tears that threatened to fall. He bit them back, refusing to cry. His steps were shaky, but he made it to her before falling to his knees. Gathering her hands in his, he looked up at her. “None of this was your fault. I’m an absolute moron who didn’t think about what I was asking of you. This is all my fault.”
She shook her head. He could see that his words hadn’t sunk in yet. That, or she refuted them. Mina had been trained to think everything was her fault. He wanted to run to her uncle and tear the man in half for what he’d done to Mina, but he needed to fix what he’d done. Mina needed to understand that she would never disappoint him.
“Listen to me,” he began. “We’re going to have a lot of ups and downs in our relationship. Every relationship does, as far as I understand. We’ll have days where we want to throw things at each other—”
“I wouldn’t,” she mumbled.
He laughed. “No, I think you’ll discover that you’ll want to. You’ll want to make me eat my socks when you realize I don’t take care of them. But there will never be anything that will break us. We will work through every little bump and tackle the big ones together.”
He drew in a breath, waiting to see if his words made a difference. He couldn’t bear watching his bright and sassy mate crumple every time something went wrong. He needed to pay better attention to her. Instead of making demands, he needed to ask questions. Then, someday, she would realize just how much she meant to him.
Mina let her head fall back. Ryker didn’t realize, not at first, that she was crying. He couldn’t see the overflowing tears running down her cheeks. It wasn’t until he saw the shudder of her chest that it became
apparent.
If it had been any other woman, Ryker would have panicked. He wouldn’t have known what to do about a crying woman. He’d tried everything over the years, but eventually gave up on bothering with crying women. Yet, with Mina, he knew exactly what to do.
He gathered her into his arms and hoisted them both into the back of his truck. Inside one of the storage bins was a blanket he kept for nights like this. Holding Mina with one arm, he wrapped the blanket around the both of them. Slowly, her tears died down. Her shoulders shook with the last of her sobs.
“I’m afraid I don’t deserve you,” she whispered.
“There is no universe in which you don’t deserve everything. If I could reach into the sky and grab a star for you, I would. I’d string it on a gold chain and put it around your neck. It could be the sparkliest star in the world, and I’d still say you’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t think sparkliest is a word,” she said between sobs.
“This is exactly why I need you.” He rested his chin on her head. Before Mina, Ryker had been the kind of guy who was more fists than words. He’d used his appearance to his benefit and played into his strength. She’d swept into his life and turned him into a shitty poet and a teddy-bear.
“But you don’t need me. You need a maid, not me.”
He growled. “I need exactly you. A woman who isn’t afraid to tell me that sparkliest isn’t a word and to make sure I don’t eat cake every day for the rest of my life. A woman willing to rush into battle with me. A woman who can knock a dragon out cold. That was mighty impressive.”
She snorted. “I think I shattered my shoulder doing that. It would explain why I was out cold for five days.”
His heart seized. Though he’d known the extent of her injuries from the house call the doctor made, hearing the flippant way Mina spoke of it terrified him. He hoped she never did anything so dangerous again.
“I love you, you tiny fool.” The words left Ryker before he could think to stop them. When they entered the world, he panicked, but only for a split second. The words settled around him and solidified into the truth.
He only hoped Mina would believe him.
As much as he wanted to hear her say the words back to him, she only wound her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest. She probably wasn’t ready. He could give her time, as long as they had it. The threat of the intruding dragons could steal away the time she needed, so Ryker made a silent promise to keep the dragons from taking over their mountains.
Mina never had a chance to enjoy her own home, to experience the wonder it had to offer. Ryker had ignored such wonders all his life. He wanted to explore them together. This was a new chapter, and he was prepared to make the best of it, for the both of them.
“I’ll get Wyatt to drop off our leftovers later.” Ryker stood and carried her down from the truck bed. “How about we go home for the night?”
Mina was still quiet, but he felt her gentle nod. He wished she would say something. Anything. Later, he would remind her of how he felt with his body. He would show her the power of their mate bond. Offering orgasms might not be enough to make her love him, but he would gladly do it every night to show her he meant every word he said.
Chapter Fourteen
Mina realized the metallic dragons had been waiting to make sure she recovered before meeting with the dragons positioned at the foot of the mountains. Jasper and the others wanted to know what kind of debt they were going to place on the dragon’s heads. If she’d died, the debt would have been huge. She was, thankfully, alive and well.
She was sure the ache in her body was from Ryker’s attempt to convince her they were mates. She’d enjoyed every moment of it, but her body cried out in the morning. Her ribs throbbed and her shoulder sent a sharp pain through her spine every time she lifted her arm over her head.
Jasper made her carefully catalogue all her injuries, so he knew what to charge the dragons with. As much as Mina would have liked to brush it off, Jasper’s seriousness through the line of questioning forced her to see the importance. He was finally acting like the king of his mountains. This meeting would show the intruding dragons that Jasper was not to be trifled with.
“Are you ready?” Ryker touched her elbow.
She craned her neck to look up at him. His shoulders were taut, tense with the threat of the unknown. He’d tried to convince her to stay behind, but Mina refused to let her new family go alone. Though she often felt ineffectual, the desire to accompany them would abate some of her own anxiety.
Fear of what she didn’t know would tear her apart faster than any actual fight.
Seeing what her presence was doing to Ryker, she worried that she would only be a hindrance. He was one of their strongest dragons. The steel of his scales made him not only the hardiest, but the most dangerous.
“Promise me you won’t put me before your king,” she begged him.
Ryker gave the slightest of nods but said nothing. She pressed her lips together. If her uncle had been there, he would have smacked her for asking anything of a metallic dragon. Mina had to constantly remind herself that Ryker was not some untouchable god, even though he looked the part. Ryker was her mate. Her lover.
She was being perfectly reasonable. It was her right to make requests, same as he’d attempted to ask her to stay home.
He grabbed a backpack from the floor, packed with the clothes they would don when they landed at the encampment, and bent to lay a gentle kiss on her forehead. Mina, dissatisfied with such a small gesture before such a big event, grasped the sides of his face and brought him down for a proper kiss.
Ryker growled, the beast rumbling in his voice, and kissed her back with more force than she expected. It betrayed his fear. Mina refused to let anything happen to her new family. The metallic dragons were under her protection now. She would do anything to keep them safe.
Not long after they shifted and took to the sky, the others joined them. They were like coins drifting through the air. The light of the sun glanced off their shimmering scales and cast dancing lights on the distant ground below. Mina flew behind them, Ryker at her side.
Ahead, the encampment came into view. Not much had changed since they first saw it. This time, there were no dragons marching around. Mina hoped it would stay that way while they touched ground and shifted back to their human forms. This meeting would be a failure if the unfamiliar dragons attacked before any agreement could be even spoken of.
That was why, after she’d dressed, Mina offered to be the one to reach out to the encampment first. She was unassuming in either form. No one would feel threatened by her if she announced their arrival. Whereas, if five massive men stalked out of the woods, everyone would run screaming.
Ryker held her wrist. He wouldn’t meet her eyes, but she could see the concern in the lines of his face anyway. She rose on her tiptoes to kiss his chin, as far as she could reach even balanced on her toes.
“I’ll be alright. I promise.”
“Run at any sight of danger. Shift and fly back home if it looks like any of them might touch you.”
She felt giddy when he called the house her home. It left her walking on clouds every time. She grinned up at him and spoke the promise back to him. Reluctantly, she turned away from her mate. Jasper met her gaze and nodded gravely.
This was going too well, Mina thought. It had only just begun. There’d been little time for anything to go wrong. She shook herself and focused on her task, rather than allowing herself to worry about what may or may not happen.
Following the scent of the encampment was easy. The dragons had been there for a while. The closer she stepped, she caught a few familiar scents. Not dragons she knew personally, no. She could smell the ones who’d attacked Jasper. Her stomach flipped. Pain bloomed in her shoulder, reminding her of what happened the last time the two groups interacted.
It wouldn’t end that way. Mina would make sure o
f it.
When she stepped from the woods, all eyes turned to her. She froze, feeling like she was standing on the stage all over again. Her blood hummed in her ears, but somehow she managed to put the next foot forward. And again. And again, until she stood before the man in the very center of the growing crowd.
The man was older, easily the age of her uncle, though he was much better kept. His beard was cut short and close to his square jaw. The look in his eyes was hard, mirroring the tight muscles in his face.
He wrinkled his nose, sniffing the air. “So, it’s the little cannonball.”
Mina raised her brows at the nickname they’d given her. It was cute, but also hinted that she could be a threat. She hoped she hadn’t misjudged herself. She’d stepped out first to keep their presence from looking like an attack, but if they thought she had come for vengeance, then her plan had failed.
“Have you come to find yourself a mate? I can hardly imagine you found one among these mountains that pleased you.”
Mina caught Ryker’s growl from the woods behind her. The tight-faced man’s words bothered her as much as they bothered Ryker, but she refused to let him get in her head. Too many people had said mean things to her over the course of her life. Perhaps it helped her build an immunity after all. She lifted her hand at her side to signal that she was alright.
“I’m here to announce the arrival of my king and his court. They have come to speak with you about your infractions.” The words were strangely formal, but they rolled off her tongue with ease. She’d had a lot of practice at acting, too.
The man’s lips pulled back in a snarl, but he had no comeback this time. Mina heard the faint crinkle of footsteps in snow behind her, the only sign that the others had stepped forward. Ryker’s heat soon enveloped her. While they faced off with the man, who appeared to be the leader, Mina took in their surroundings.
Laundry hung from lines strapped from tree to tree, sagging low with thick winter gear. Not a single piece looked as if it belonged to a woman. When she glanced around, Mina didn’t see a female dragon anywhere. Every set of eyes belonged to a man. And they all seemed weary, dark circles hanging beneath their eyes, dead gazes on the ground or searching the trees around them even though her court had already joined them.
Aurum Court Dragons: Boxset Books 1-5 Page 38
