He didn’t like this feeling that he was being led somewhere he never wanted to go, but that was going to have to wait. This whole situation was screwed up. Cage’s disappearance, the attack on Lily, the destruction of her shop, her brother showing up at his place and taking his sister hostage. If it took going to war with the only people he cared about, he would. Even if it was against the people Lily loved the most. He would not let her be hurt again.
* * *
DALLAS WOKE THE next morning to find Cage sprawled out on the couch, his ratty cap pulled over his eyes and the baby book Lily had given him clutched protectively to his chest. Gabriel and Luca were bunked down on the floor, Gabriel in front of the shattered remnants of his front door, and Luca in front of the large front window, as if they were an added form of security. Which they were. With ice dragons and necromancers popping up, they needed all the numbers they had.
None of which Dallas really cared about at the moment. At some point during the night, Lily had made her way over to him and stretched her tiny body out against his, the fingers of one hand wrapped sweetly around his own.
He didn’t like the feeling growing in his chest. He could see why wars had been fought in the name of love, and why so many people in all of time had died for it. He could see it, but unlike everyone else, he didn’t like it, and he had no intention of going any farther down this path.
He’d spent all evening watching them treat Cage like he was breakable because he didn’t have his mate.
It was ridiculous. If these were his only two options, it wasn’t even a choice. The odds were at some point during the dawning forever that stretched out in front of them, they would all lose their mates if they ever took one, and all Dallas could see when looking at Cage was their future.
Feeling was a weakness. Lily made him weak, and that made him dangerous. Not only to himself, but to Cage…hell, to all of them. Dallas was prepared to rip Cage’s head off if he upset her one more time.
This was going to have to end. He couldn’t afford to be weak. Not even for a second. The same way you didn’t show fear to an enemy, you didn’t let someone into your life that could be used to hurt you. And as far as he could tell, having someone in your life that you couldn’t live without meant making one stupid decision after another. It distracted you, and while Lily was the sweetest woman he knew, she was still a Hunter, and he had no illusions that the rest of the Hunter world had her same qualities. He’d dealt with too many of them to even entertain the thought.
And if all the idiots in his life kept falling in love, it meant someone was going to have to stay strong and keep their head and stop the entire fucking dragon world from being destroyed.
This was going to have to end now. It didn’t take a genius to see that Lily was falling for him. If he broke her heart by walking away, she’d never trust herself with anyone else. Ever.
Ryuu. This was going to get damn messy before the end, and he had no way of stopping the explosion from happening.
He was jerked out of his dark thoughts when Lily stretched herself awake, her perfect breasts dragging across his chest with the movement.
She tucked her face into his shoulder as she yawned, then shoved her mass of hair out of her face and looked up at him out of sleepy green eyes. “Dallas?”
He didn’t want to look at her. He didn’t want to talk to her. Both sent him farther down a path he refused to go travel for her benefit and his.
He forced his brow to jack up. “Yes?”
Her eyes searched his face, as if she was looking for something. She saw much more than he’d ever intended. It unsettled him, but made him wonder what it would feel like to have someone get him, asshole faults and all.
Despite the scowl he knew was on his face, her fingers came up to trace lightly over his jaw. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Some.” He ground his teeth together at the concern that flashed over her beautiful face. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”
She didn’t look like she believed him, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He needed her to hate him, even when he knew hate wasn’t possible for her. It would harden the softness in her, but considering how much she trusted him, he wasn’t sure that was a bad thing.
“Are you hungry?” he asked abruptly. He needed her off his lap and at a safe distance or he’d so something completely stupid and drown himself in her mouth.
Her head canted, her hair falling over her face and her shoulders as she thought about it. She nodded. “Yeah.” She shot him an impish grin. “Can you cook?”
He almost smiled. There was so much about him she didn’t know, and he was going to have fun with it. “I made us steaks last night.”
She wiggled up into a sitting position, her body going still when she came up against his hard cock. Goose bumps broke out along her skin at his dark growl of need. “Steaks aren’t the same as French toast.”
He snorted, bringing her with him as he stood so he could set her on her feet before she wiggled herself into a position neither one of them were ready for. “Close enough.”
She did that thing that always twisted his brain and walked into him, then hugged him tight. She rested her head against his chest. “Thank you, Dallas.”
He wasn’t sure what was worse—her touching him or thanking him for gods knew what.
He told himself not to ask, but the words came out anyway. “For what?”
A shy smile lit up her face. “For being you and being the calm spot in the storm for me last night.”
The boulder on his chest dug in a little deeper, making it harder to breathe. His hand came up to brush a lock of hair out of her face before he realized what he was doing, and unable to stop himself, he hooked his arm around her neck and dragged her into him. He kissed the top of her head. “Are you all right?”
She shook her head against his chest, and he wasn’t sure what was worse—his inability to control his movements around her or her surprise at his affection. Her voice was quiet. “No. Something’s really wrong with him, Dallas, or he’d have gone home. I don’t know how I’m going to keep this from Seren.” She looked up at him, her vivid eyes troubled. “They need each other, Dallas. They need each other so much. How do I keep this from her?”
“You don’t.” When her eyes went wide, he cursed quietly and slid both of his hands into her hair, tilting her head back. He told himself touching her was a necessity to get his point across. It wasn’t a need to feel her skin. “You don’t do anything that you don’t want to do. Fuck Adrian and fuck the rest of them. They don’t get to decide what you can and cannot do, and it’s not fair of them to put this kind of shit on you. This is your life, and you and Seren have to get through this however you know how. If that means you tell her and let her figure it out, then do it. All right?”
Her body trembled once. “He’d hate me,” she whispered, her beautiful face troubled. “And I can’t risk putting her and Ava in even more danger.”
“No one is going to let that happen, Lil.”
“No, it’s my job to look after them. He would hate me if I deliberately put them in danger.”
Sure she was trying to break his brain on purpose, he wrapped his hand around her upper arm and dragged her down to the bedroom. He shut the door and locked it behind them before he backed her into the wall. He slammed his hands on either side of her head. His body crowded hers, leaving her no choice but to give him her full attention. “He’s been ‘dead’ for a month, goddamn it. I get that you love him, and he’s your brother, babe, but he’s asking too goddamn much of you. Ryuu, it’s way too goddamn much. Tell me you see that.”
She didn’t say anything for so long, Dallas was afraid that when she did speak, she was going to go for his throat. Instead, she closed her eyes and dropped her head against his chest. “What would you do, Dallas? If you were me? What would you do?”
“I don’t know,” he murmured quietly, disentangling himself from her so he could pace. He was getting too us
ed to her easy touches, and that wasn’t acceptable. “When something bad comes, I kill it. I don’t stop to think about feelings or who it’s hurting or what’s going to happen next. I kill the bad so the good can have a fighting chance. I kill and I protect and I let someone else worry about the fallout.”
“You want to kill him.” She didn’t say it with accusation but dead on accuracy. She nodded and blew out a shuddered breath. “And you’re not because of me. Gabriel would have told her already, I think. He raised her, and he loves her like a daughter. If he thought she needed to know, he would have told her already. Gabriel makes those hard decisions.”
“Maybe,” he agreed as he leaned back against a bed post, crossing his arms over his chest, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t make this one. If you can’t keep this a secret, then don’t. Let Gabriel and Seren’s brothers deal with the fallout.”
“They’d hate me,” she whispered. “I’m not sure I could handle that.”
Dallas snorted so hard she scowled at him.
“What?” she demanded.
“In case you haven’t noticed, sweetheart, they’re not all out there guarding me. I am not the reason they slept on the floor last night.”
“I thought you were supposed to be scary.” She wrinkled her nose and grinned. “You’re awfully sweet for a scary person.”
His brain twitched. It actually spasmed in his head. “I am scary, damn it.” To prove it, he bared his teeth at her with a dark, savage growl.
She purred. The woman curled up against his chest and fucking purred.
He nearly gave up the fight at that moment. She was so fucking perfect it made his chest ache.
The only thing that stopped him was common sense. After Portia died, he’d given up Dallas to become the Destroyer. If he gave in to this need to be with Lily and something happened to her, he knew beyond any shadow of doubt that he would be unstoppable, and there would be no reining him in.
But he couldn’t bring himself to separate them when her life was already in a sideways spiral. “You are going to drive me insane, woman. You know that, right?”
She slid her arms around his waist and smiled. “Funny, because my life is spinning out of control, and you seem to be the only thing keeping me steady.”
Ryuu. Now they were even thinking alike. He was so fucking screwed. “Speaking of which, we need to go shopping. I owe you a new building and everything that goes in one.”
“You don’t have to—” Her words cut off when he shot her a look, and she gifted him with a cheesy smile in return. “Never mind. Yes, you do have to.” Worry flashed over her face. “Can I talk to Adrian for a little longer and take a shower first?”
He wanted to tell her no. He didn’t give a shit about the shower, but the more time she spent with her brother, the more it was going to hurt when he said goodbye. Dallas was doing his best to distract her, and part of him was hoping like fucking hell the male would be gone before they walked out of his bedroom.
He grinned suddenly, a quick, manic grin. “Sure, but I think we should have sex first.”
Chapter 16
LILY WENT COMPLETELY still against him before she slowly craned her head back. “What?”
He crooked his finger under her chin and gently closed her mouth. “Why not? Then you have a built-in protector, and it will give me a reason to be a bastard to anyone who upsets you. And I can kill Bain the next time he even breathes near you.”
She shook her head slowly. “You’ve lost your mind, Dallas. I’m a Hunter, you’re the Destroyer, and you don’t even want a mate.”
“I do want a mate,” he muttered, surprising himself, “and I like you fine.”
She busted out laughing. “Like? You like me fine?” She pulled away from him and moved to the other side of the bedroom, her hand unsteady as she pushed the hair out of her face, amusement and temper warring in her eyes. “You want to bind us together forever because you like me? It doesn’t work that way, damn it.”
He didn’t buy it. She challenged him, pushed him, made him better. “Why the hell not? Basing a forever relationship off mutual like is better than doing something stupid like fall in love.”
“That’s what you think?” she asked. “That falling in love is stupid?”
Ryuu. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. He rubbed a fist over his heart as the stable foundation beneath his feet started to crack. “Look at your brother and Seren,” he snapped as his pupils split with temper and fear. “You can’t tell me there’s anything good in that!
“Yes, I can!” she yelled. “There’s Ava! There’s Seren’s memories and Adrian’s memories and the beautiful, perfect little freckle-faced girl they made together.” With her chin kicked up, she walked around him and straight to the door. “This was a mistake, Dallas. My brother needs me and don’t worry about helping me find a new building. I can buy my own.”
She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t even look at him as she opened the door and walked out.
If she had, she might have seen the pain he couldn’t hide, but as he closed his eyes and dragged both hands over his face, he knew he was going to let her go. No matter how bad it hurt.
It was better this way.
* * *
THIS WAS BAD.
Lily closed Dallas’s bedroom door as quietly as possible so not to wake the others. If she walked out of Dallas’s bedroom in tears, there wouldn’t be anything she could say or do that would stop the ensuing carnage.
She didn’t understand, and she didn’t have time to figure it out. Dallas wanted a mate, and he liked her. She let out a tiny snort as she wiped at the tears. Well, wasn’t she lucky?
She closed the bathroom door, then sank to the floor. She wasn’t sure if she’d always been like this. She couldn’t remember if she’d been carefree and happy before Porter came into her life, having married her mother when Lily was five. Her mother had only survived a year after the wedding, leaving Lily alone with the monster.
Because he was like her, a Hunter, he’d known how quickly she could heal. While he hadn’t been as old as Adrian, there had been nothing good left in her stepfather. The near-absolute power of the Hunters had corrupted him, and he’d seen Lily as his reward.
Slowly getting to her feet, she studied herself in the mirror. She didn’t want to be like this anymore. She’d trusted that small, insistent voice inside of her that had told her to trust Dallas, that same voice that had led her to Adrian and safety.
She hadn’t fallen for a nice, normal human male who would never dare to hurt her with all the hulking giants in her life. No, she’d lost her heart to Dallas. The Destroyer. The one male who wasn’t afraid of her brother, the scariest Hunter in existence.
The one who didn’t believe in love. And she’d gone and stupidly fallen half in love with him.
Of course she did. She let out a small laugh. She’d lost her shop, her home, and her brother was back from the dead and borderline insane. On top of it all, she was falling in love with a man who thought love was the stupidest thing a person could do. It would have been funny if it didn’t hurt so much.
Wiggling her nose in an effort to stop the tears, she turned the cold water on and used a fresh washcloth to clean her face. She scrubbed harder than she normally did in an effort to hide the fact her heart was broken. While Luca handled tears decently well, Broderick did not, and he tended to get violent when a female he cared about teared up even the littlest bit.
She could do this. If she could play the tears off as being worried about Adrian, which wasn’t a lie, then no one would feel the need to kill Dallas for making her cry. No way in hell was she strong enough to lose Adrian and Dallas in the same day.
Her heart slammed against her chest when she realized that was exactly what was happening. She’d woken up this morning to both her brother and her Dallas and was going to go to bed tonight in some place that wasn’t her home without either one of them, because unless Adrian made a miraculous mental improvement, no one
was going to let him stick around.
This day could not get any worse.
Until she opened the door to find Dallas leaning against the wall opposite her. She ignored the dark, savage look on his face and darted forward to grab his arm. She tugged on it. “Are you insane?” she hissed as she tried to yank him back into his bedroom. “Do you want to get dead? Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen if any of them wake up and find you looking like that and me crying.”
He let her drag him into the bedroom, though she had a feeling she could have crooked her finger and he would have followed her.
“You walked out,” he said. “Did you think I was going to be fucking happy about that?”
Lily stopped tugging on him. She shook her head in confusion and craned her neck to look at him over her shoulder. “Yes,” she said slowly, her brow furrowing, “I thought you’d be happy. You want a mate but don’t believe in love, and I refuse to accept anything less than both.” She let go of his arm so she could turn around to meet his gaze. “That’s not exactly a recipe for a happy ever after, Dallas.”
“So that’s it,” he yelled, shoving a hand through his hair. “You give up without fighting and walk away?”
She wanted to yell back at him. He wasn’t making any sense, and she had no idea what was going on in his head, but she couldn’t find her temper, not when his soft green eyes looked so lost.
Her chest started to ache when he lifted a war-hammer fist to his heart and rubbed. “What did you want me to do?” she asked softly. “Argue and fight you into doing something you don’t want to do? So the like you have for me eventually turns to hate and resentment? I can’t do that.”
He dropped his fist, and she wasn’t sure which one of them needed their head examined more.
“Fight, damn it. You’ve gone up against the scariest males in your life to protect me, so why the hell won’t you fight for what you want?”
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