by Kim Fox
“We’re already here?” Gwen said, staring at it in shock. “That didn’t feel like forty minutes at all.”
She checked the clock and sure enough, it hadn’t been forty minutes, it had been fifty.
“Wait,” Zane said as she grabbed the door handle. “Allow me.”
She smiled as he leapt out of the car and hurried around the hood to her side, opening the door for her like a true gentleman.
It felt so weird to be with Zane and not be fighting. The night is still young, Gwenny. There’s plenty of time left to butt heads.
“That’s Draven’s cabin,” he said, pointing a little ways up the mountain at a cabin hidden by the tall trees. Gwen would never have noticed it if Zane hadn’t pointed it out. Only the chimney and a corner of the brown roof was visible through the top of the forest.
“Did he ever think of cutting some trees down?” she asked, staring up at what little was visible of the cottage. “He would have a better view.”
“He likes his privacy.”
“You’re telling me,” she said with a laugh. “Is there even a road to get up there?”
“Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “Foot only.”
Zane was looking at the tall trees around Draven’s cottage when his face tightened and he stopped walking.
“Coming?” Gwen asked, watching him curiously.
He raised his nose and took a long sniff of the mountain air. “It can’t be,” he mumbled to himself.
“What?” she asked, looking around in confusion.
“Nothing,” he said with a shake of his head. “I thought I smelled some charcoal.”
“Okay,” Gwen said with a laugh. She inhaled through her nose but could only smell the fresh mountain air.
They walked inside and got a nice table by the roaring fireplace. The lighting was warm and dim, with soft romantic music playing quietly throughout the dining room. The tables around them were filled with couples gazing into each other’s love-filled eyes.
Zane ordered a nice bottle of wine, and after looking at the menu for a few minutes, they each ordered their meals. Gwen ordered a maple glazed salmon, and Zane ordered a porterhouse steak cooked blue.
She smiled as she admired his face and how devastatingly handsome he looked in the candlelight. Gwen was convinced that he had never looked so good before. Tonight was surely the peak of his hotness.
“So, where did you grow up?” she asked him as she sipped on the tasty wine. They had dozens of shouting matches over the year and a half since she moved next door to the firehouse, but they really didn’t know too much about each other, beyond how to annoy the other person. That’s what tonight is for. To see if the other night in the kitchen was a fluke or the beginning of something more.
“I grew up in Wyoming with Jax,” he said, looking uncomfortable as he shifted in his seat.
“Really?” she said, jerking her head back. “I didn’t know that. Are you two related?”
Zane shook his head. “Not really, although he is the closest thing to family that I have.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, furrowing her brow.
“We were put in the same orphanage.”
“Oh,” Gwen said as her heart started racing. She had no idea he was an orphan. “I didn’t realize…”
“It’s okay,” Zane said with a shrug. “I’m over it.”
“Did your parents… are they…” Gwen kept stumbling on her words. She didn’t know what to say.
“I don’t have any parents,” Zane said before taking a long sip of wine. “I just have Jax.”
They sat there awkwardly for a moment as a million questions raced through Gwen’s mind.
“What about you?” he finally asked. “Where are you from?”
Gwen told him about her life back in Minnesota and even opened up about her mother and her long fight with cancer. His comforting hand was on hers and her eyes were watering when she finished.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said with a sadness in his eyes. “She sounded like an amazing woman. I wish I could have met her.”
“She was a cool chick,” Gwen said with a laugh. “I think she would have liked you. She loved firemen.”
“Hopefully the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree,” Zane answered with a grin.
The waitress came and dropped off their plates, smiling as she told them to enjoy their meals.
“Wow,” Zane said as he stared down at the huge hunk of meat in front of him. “They don’t have this at Flo’s Diner.”
“No, they don’t,” Gwen said, savoring the smell of her maple glazed salmon. Her mouth was already watering before she even took a bite.
The rest of the meal went well as they talked and shared a lot of laughs. Zane kept making her laugh as he told her all of the crazy antics between the boys at the firehouse. One story had her crying with laughter.
“So, we pull up to the farmhouse, and the roof of the barn is on fire,” he said as Gwen leaned forward, listening intently. “The flames were starting to spread, and the animals were still stuck inside.”
“Oh, no,” Gwen gasped, hanging onto his every word.
“We all leapt out of the truck before Draven could even throw it in park and we ran inside.”
Gwen’s heart was racing as she listened.
“Jax let out the cows, and I grabbed the two horses,” he said, trying to hold back his smile. “And Axel had the pigs. He grabbed two big ones under each arm, but when he turned to run out, he slipped in the mud and fell face first, into a pile of manure.”
Gwen laughed as he continued. “That’s not the worst part. He dropped the pigs, and the male must have liked him because he climbed up on Axel’s head, and started humping his face.”
People at the other tables turned as they both laughed a little too loud. But Gwen couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the wine or the hunky company, but she was letting loose in a way that she hadn’t in a long time. And it felt really nice.
They held each other’s eyes and each other’s hand as their laughter died down. Gwen held her smile as something warm and familiar passed between them. It was the same electric charge that hovered between them the night in her kitchen when Zane first kissed her.
“Any dessert?” the waitress asked, popping out of nowhere.
Gwen jerked her hand back in surprise. She had been so absorbed in Zane’s dark eyes that she didn’t even hear her sneak up to the table.
“Did I scare you?” the waitress asked with a laugh.
Gwen smiled. “A little bit.”
“I want dessert,” Zane said, looking at the waitress and then at her. “Do you?”
Gwen didn’t care about the dessert, but she didn’t want the nice dinner to end. “Definitely.”
They talked some more, having a great time as they shared two different types of cheesecake. They washed it down with some Baileys and coffee, and long before she was ready, it was time to leave. The other tables were long empty, and they were the last two in the restaurant.
Zane took care of the bill, they thanked the waitress, and left.
“That was really fun,” Gwen said with a smile as they faced each other in the parking lot. Her nerve endings tingled as she stood there, hoping he would kiss her.
But Zane seemed distracted. He was staring at the tall trees in the distance with an intensity in his eyes that made Gwen shiver.
He raised his nose in the air and inhaled deeply.
“Why do you keep doing that?” she asked, taking a step back as she looked at him funny. She agreed the mountain air smelled nice, but he didn’t have to be so weird about it. And it wasn’t like he was a city boy who never got to smell fresh mountain air. Colwood was surrounded by it.
“It can’t be,” he whispered as he stared at the side of the mountain.
“It can’t be what?” she asked, looking around nervously.
He pulled his keys out of his pocket and shoved them into her chest without looking back. “Go wait in the car,” he snapped
.
“What?” Gwen asked, staring in disbelief as he dropped the keys. They fell with a clank at her feet.
Without warning, he took off running toward the dark forest. Gwen stood there, standing in stunned silence. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?” she said as she watched him disappear into the trees. “He can’t be serious. I want a refund.”
But he was gone. Running away from her into the forest in the middle of the night.
Did he actually just run away from me? She still couldn’t believe it.
Worst neighbor ever? No. Worst date ever.
Chapter 7
Zane
The scent was a dragon’s all right, and it smelled a lot like Draven. Zane made sure to keep downwind as he raced into the forest and up to Draven’s cabin to investigate.
He wasn’t going to engage. It was much too dangerous to do that on his own, especially with Gwen nearby. He would die to protect her, but he was worried that he would die and still not be able to protect her.
Dragons had the worst senses out of all the shifters. They could fly and breathe fire, so they didn’t have much use for a heightened sense of smell and hearing. Zane was going to use that to his advantage and sneak up on the shifter to observe him, and then report back to Draven.
His bear stirred and paced around nervously. He never liked the scent of dragons. It took him over a year just to get used to Draven’s.
Zane stopped running as he got deeper into the forest, slowing down to make as little noise as possible.
Draven never talked too much about his past and his family, but Zane had put together slivers of dropped comments over the year. He wasn’t sure what happened, but he knew that Draven was from one of the great dragon houses that ruled back in Medieval Europe. His family was torn apart by fighting and old feuds, and Zane knew that his half-brothers were trying to kill him.
Zane wasn’t sure why, but he knew one thing: if someone was trying to kill his alpha, then that shifter was a dead man. He didn’t care if it was a dragon, bear, or mouse shifter. He wouldn’t let a threat to his alpha go unchecked.
The wind rustled through the leaves overhead as Zane snuck through the forest, ducking under branches and stepping over exposed roots. It was pitch black under the canopy of leaves, but Zane could see easily. He never had a problem seeing in the dark.
The thick charcoal smell of dragon got stronger with every step that he took. His heart started pumping as he got a strong urge to turn back. It was an unfamiliar feeling for him: fear.
His bear whimpered and whined in his chest, thrashing his head around as Zane ignored the bad feeling in his gut and pushed forward.
He was no coward. Foolish, maybe, but cowardly, no.
His inner bear paced nervously when Draven’s cabin came into view up ahead. The dragon shifter was climbing out of the broken window in his human form and hadn’t noticed Zane creeping up on him.
It was Draven’s brother, all right. He would recognize that familiar smell from anywhere.
He slunk down behind a bush and watched him, wondering what he was doing here, wondering what he was looking for.
I should get back to Gwen. The date was going so well, but now she was probably furious at him.
Zane had seen enough. He really should have been getting back to Draven to report what he was seeing, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the man. He was tall and slim with bright gray eyes that sparkled like Draven’s did. Every movement he made was so graceful, so fluid. Dragon shifters always seemed to have a comfort with their bodies that could only come from spending centuries in it.
What is he looking for? Zane wasn’t sure, but he knew it couldn’t be good.
He gasped when the dragon shifter suddenly jerked his head around and locked eyes on him. His inner bear screamed at him to move, to run, as Zane stared in stunned awe at the shifter’s shining gray eyes. He had never seen anything so bright, or so terrifying.
Time to leave.
He turned and took one step, and in that short amount of time, Draven’s brother had leapt down from the balcony, crossed the vast distance between them, and was standing right in front of him.
Zane gulped as he took a step back, staring at him in disbelief. He had seen a lot of shifters throughout his years, but he had never seen one even come close to moving that fast.
“I smell him on you,” the dragon shifter hissed, sneering at him.
Zane felt his blood grow cold as he stared at the glowing gray eyes. He was in over his head. He knew it immediately. And the worst part was, he had put Gwen in danger. She wasn’t too far away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zane said, swallowing hard as he turned away. A strong hand grabbed his shoulder and held him in place.
Zane gritted his teeth as he turned around and looked at him over his shoulder. “Let. Go.”
“Where is Dravenous?” the dragon shifter hissed. “Where is my brother?”
Zane looked down at the powerful hand that was crushing his round shoulder. “Take your hand off me.”
The dragon shifter grinned, but he left his hand right where it was. “My brothers Terrowin and Valerius would kill me if they knew I was here,” he said. “But Dravenous is the true king. He deserves to be at the helm as we bring humanity back into the shadows of time.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Zane asked as a cold chill rippled through him. Whatever it was it didn’t sound good.
“It means it’s time for Dravenous to return home and claim the seat that he was born to claim.”
Zane had given him a warning, and he ignored it. It was time to shut this guy up for good. He squeezed his hand into a fist and spun on his heels, punching the dragon shifter in the jaw with every ounce of strength he had.
His thick fist landed flush on his chin, but he didn’t move a millimeter. Instead, the impact rocketed back up through Zane’s fist, traveling up his forearm and making him wince in pain.
I don’t—
Zane didn’t understand. He could punch through brick walls and boulders. He could lay out the largest and meanest shifters on the planet, and here he landed a perfect roundhouse on the guy’s chin and he didn’t even blink.
“Are you done?” the shifter asked with a grin.
Zane turned to run, but the dragon shifter squeezed his shoulder and lifted him off his feet. “Oh, shit,” he whispered as Draven’s brother launched him against a thick maple tree that must have been over a hundred years old. He sliced straight through it, and then through a smaller cedar tree before skidding to a stop in the dirt. All he could do was watch in horror as the two trees fell in front of him, one falling to the left, and the other to the right. The dragon shifter’s eyes were shining brighter than ever as he walked forward, easily jumping over the fallen tree trunks.
“Tell Dravenous to come home,” he said, staring down at Zane. “Or, we’ll come to him. And trust me, you don’t want that. That nice little town of yours doesn’t want that.”
Zane must have smashed some vertebrates in his back because he couldn’t get up. “I know four shifters that will die before we let you touch him.”
He just shrugged his shoulders. “Then die already and get it over with.”
Zane could feel his enhanced healing powers kicking in. He was already starting to feel some mobility in his back returning while Draven’s brother shook his head. “You non-dragons are like dust in the wind. Specks in the air of time.” He grinned as he approached. “Constantly changing like the seasons, while we remain eternal like the moon and sun.”
Zane was done with talking. This dragon shifter may have been able to out power him in his human form, but Zane’s Kodiak bear was a whole other beast. It was time to let him do the talking.
“Fine,” he said as he flexed his chest, urging his inner beast to rush forward and come out. “Tell it to my Kodiak.”
But for the first time ever, his bear resisted. ‘You got us into this, you get us out,’ he seemed to be
saying. His bear had urged them to retreat after all. It wasn’t his fault they were in this mess.
He began to panic as the dragon shifter approached. Zane thought of Gwen standing there helplessly in the parking lot, and it gave his bear the spark that he needed to finally come charging out.
He exploded out of Zane in a frenzy—rising up on two hind legs and barring his vicious teeth as he stared the gray-eyed dragon shifter down.
Draven’s brother just laughed as the bear rushed forward and attacked.
Chapter 8
Gwen
Gwen paced around the parking lot, shaking her head as she cursed her shitty neighbor. What the hell was he doing? Peeing on a tree?
He was gone awfully long for a pee, and besides, there was a bathroom in the restaurant.
She bit her lip as she leaned against the truck, wondering why he always had to ruin everything. They were having a nice night, full of laughs, and good conversation. There was a spark of something between them, and Zane was even being romantic by opening doors for her and refilling her wine. She should have known that the date was going to end up in disaster, and that’s exactly what this was. A disaster.
Nothing else but ‘a disaster’ could explain what happened when your date ran into the woods in the middle of the night to get away from you.
I should just go.
She exhaled long and hard as she looked at the keys in her hand, daring herself to do it. That would show him.
“Five more minutes,” she muttered as the last of the staff left the restaurant and shuffled to their cars.
The manager locked the door and looked at her funny as he walked to his car. “Are you guys having car problems?” he asked.
“No,” she said, feeling the panic start to rise inside her. “Uhm, my friend is just looking for his… sunglasses.”
“Sunglasses?” the manager said, looking around with a scrunched up forehead.
“Yeah,” Gwen lied. “We were walking around in the forest before dinner, and he dropped them. He’s looking for them now.”
