by Amelia Jade
In exchange for giving her a place to live and food for as long as she needed, Sandy had asked her to help out around the ranch. It hadn’t been run to anywhere near its full potential for a long time, and it showed. Parts of the farm had been used, but after a survey of the grounds, she and Torran had come to the conclusion that only the outer perimeter of the property had been farmed.
It was as if the previous owner had simply done it to create a barrier of privacy between him and his neighbors. She couldn’t figure that one out, and Torran hadn’t seemed to understand either, though he didn’t appear to be curious about it like she was.
“You ready for this?” he asked as they came to a halt in front of the big sliding doors.
“You act like we’re going to open the doors and see something crazy on the inside.” She stood back as he unlatched the doors and prepared to open them. “You’re probably going to need both hands on one door, you know.”
Torran smiled, flexing his arms and pulling them both open at once. Lilly caught herself staring at the way the muscles bulged and moved, remembering the way he’d used those same arms to hold her aloft, needing only one arm to keep her in the air. One arm that hadn’t so much as wavered while he brought her to a thundering climax with ease. She swallowed, feeling her body remind her that it was unusually aroused.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t unusual that she was turned on spending nearly every waking moment next to a literal sex god who had fucked her better than anyone in her entire life. But it was irritating and had resulted in an instant bump to her sex drive.
“You go on ahead,” she muttered when nothing jumped out at them. “I’m just going to hang out here for a moment.”
Torran frowned but she just waved him ahead, not even bothering to fight her eyes as they trailed down his powerful-looking back and fixed on his tightly curved posterior. Now there was an ass she wanted to grab.
Stop it. He’s off-limits by your own word.
Which meant she could just as soon undo that word. And his belt.
“Pull yourself together,” she hissed, turning her back to the yawning opening of the barn and heading back toward the house itself. Right then was no time to be creeping around in a dark barn with Torran. She was too likely to make a move, her hormones and their need for a good fuck overpowering her restraint.
She was halfway to the ranch when the sound reached her ears, growing louder with a swiftness that alarmed her. Scared, she stopped and turned to go back to the barn. Her little legs moved as quickly as she was capable of without giving away that she was trying to run, hoping that she could reach the safety of the barn in time.
Lilly had perhaps another twenty feet to go when the motorcycle veered off the driveway and came across the mostly level ground toward her. She had a momentary bit of satisfaction at seeing Damien bounce up and down uncomfortably before his huge hog of a bike came to a halt next to her.
The engine died, and he stared at her the entire time. She stared back at the face she recognized, though she didn’t know the man it belonged to anymore.
“What are you doing here, Damien?” she asked, noting the gun clearly holstered at his side. Was he going to shoot her?
Her ex-fiancé climbed off the bike, keeping his helmet on. His hands made no move toward the gun. “I came for you,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Lilly’s jaw dropped. “What? Are you joking?”
Damien shook his head, the extra flesh on his cheeks and jaw bouncing. His eyes were hidden behind his biker goggles, but she didn’t need to see them to know that they would be gray and flinty at her tone, filling with a promise of violence if she didn’t cooperate.
“Get on the bike,” he said nastily. “We’re leaving.”
“No. I’m not yours anymore. Go away and leave me alone.”
He snarled, leaning forward. The action just served to pull the black T-shirt he was wearing under the denim jacket tight across his expanding belly.
“You’re coming with me.”
“Get lost. How did you find me, anyway? Nobody knew I was here except for friends you don’t know.”
Damien laughed. “I’ve known where you were all this time.”
She felt a chill run down her spine. “You followed me?”
“Something like that.” His eyes glanced at her pocket.
Lilly’s hand dropped until she felt the outline of her phone, visible in the jeans she was wearing.
“That’s right.”
“You tracked my phone.” She wanted to spit at him. “You’re despicable.”
“I pay your phone bill. I own the phone. It was nothing to find it.”
Without thinking Lilly pulled the phone from her pocket and tried to snap it in half. When that didn’t work she put it on the ground and shattered it with her heel. Then she turned it over and did it some more to the other side.
“Are you through?” Damien took a step toward her.
“Leave me alone. Was the ring on the counter not a sign enough for you? I’m done with you. We’re over. Now go away.”
“Get the fuck on the motorcycle. You’re mine. Just like that child you’re carrying you say is mine.”
“It is yours, you psycho.”
“Bullshit. You went and fucked somebody else and they knocked you up. Don’t lie to me, you little whore. I’m not paying child support to you for that. So get on the damn bike before I make you.”
The threat chilled her blood, and Lilly took a step backward.
“Get on the bike, Lilly.”
She didn’t respond, backing away from him, heading for the barn. Damien came after her, one hand resting on the gun as if to try and emphasize his threat.
The sun was suddenly blocked out as a massive shape moved up on her left.
“Is there a problem here?” Torran growled, stepping in front of her, his arms spread slightly to the side, legs flexed but ready. Everything about his pose screamed protection, from his tone to his stance.
Lilly tried to pull him back. “Torran, it’s okay. You don’t need to do this. Damien was just leaving.”
“I’m leaving when you get on the bike with me,” Damien snapped, not backing down from the larger man.
“She doesn’t seem to want to go with you, bub. So I’d say that means she’s staying.”
Torran’s voice was perfectly pitched to piss Damien off some more. Lilly gasped. What was he trying to do, start a fight? Didn’t he realize Damien had a gun! She peeked around Torran. Damien was livid, his hand on his gun, his face growing red.
“Get out of my way, or you’re going to regret coming out here, meathead.”
Her protector just laughed. “What are you going to do, pull that gun on me?”
“Great idea,” Damien chuckled darkly. “Thank you for the threat.” His hand moved, pulling the pistol from its holster with practiced ease. He was fast, well trained in how to use the weapon.
As quick as he was though, Torran was faster. Much faster. Lilly gaped, mouth wide as he produced a green piece of rope from somewhere. His hands did something fancy and faster than she could see and he pulled tight on the rope. To her astonishment it cut right through the weapon.
“What the hell did you just do?” Damien roared as he dropped the now-useless weapon.
Torran stepped forward, keeping himself directly between her and her ex. Lilly watched as he poked the biker in the chest and told him to get the hell off the property. Damien hauled back a fist and went to strike Torran.
“Please, no! Don’t fight!” she cried out. The last thing she needed war Torran getting hurt on her behalf.
But like with the gun, the fight was over before Damien even had a chance to finish throwing a punch. Her eyes tried to keep up with Torran, who was a blur as he stepped out of the way of the punch, delivered two swift jabs to Damien’s kidneys, and then danced back as the big biker fell to one knee, groaning in pain.
“Do you want to go for round two?” he taunted.
Lilly sto
od still, rooted to the spot by indecision. Did she let Torran continue with the lesson he was quite obviously teaching her ex, or did she intervene and stop it before it got worse? She wasn’t worried about Torran permanently injuring Damien. It was more that if he continued to humiliate him, Damien would call up his gang and come looking for revenge the only way he knew how: with violence.
“That’s enough,” she said, pulling on Torran’s arm, feeling the power in his body, coiled and ready to be unleashed in a heartbeat. “I think he’s learned his lesson.”
Torran let himself be moved away, and the pair of them stood near each other as Damien got to his feet, a grimace etched into his features.
“He can’t keep you and your bastard child safe forever,” Damien spat. Without saying another word he hopped on his bike and rode it back across the field, the mixture of mud and grass stiff from the winter cold. The two-wheeled noise machine bounced rigorously until it reached the driveway.
It took her until after her ex was long gone to realize that Torran hadn’t reacted at all to Damien’s last threat or his departure. She looked up to find him staring at her, his face frozen in shock, barely moving.
“Torran? Are you okay?”
His jaw worked, but no sound came out.
“What’s wrong?” He was starting to worry her. She’d never seen him like this, so unresponsive and unable to adapt to a situation. What was it?
“Baby?”
Lilly swayed backward, unable to comprehend the emotion contained within that single word. Stunned disbelief. Denial. Fear. Anger. Betrayal? Confusion. She heard all of those and more. It was easier to identify what was missing.
Joy.
Happiness.
She detected none of that. There was nothing supportive in his body language or the way he spoke.
“I’m pregnant with his child, yes,” she confirmed, feeling sick to her stomach. “We were engaged before he started to go crazy. That man there is not the man I started dating.”
“Yet you carry his child. A hu—” Torran cut himself off. “I’m sorry. I…I can’t.”
Then he turned and fled into the barn, leaving her alone, the second man in her life to flee when she told him she was pregnant. Was this her curse then? To drive men from her life because she was creating life?
Alone she walked back up to the ranch, making plans in her head. It was obvious. She couldn’t stay there any longer.
It was time she moved on.
Chapter Nine
Torran
He kicked at a rock on the ground, not bothering to rein in his strength. The fist-sized stone shot through the air, bounced off the ground, and then skimmed across the front of a vehicle coming up the driveway.
It wasn’t a motorcycle, so Torran didn’t pay it any attention. If it had been Damien though, he would have picked up the bike and its rider and hurled them back down the driveway as far as he could. With his dragon strength, that was quite a ways. He didn’t care.
The vehicle beeped at him. Torran kept walking. The horn sounded again, twice in quick succession.
“WHAT?” he roared, turning around, not bothering to hide the anger on his face.
Palin stared back at him from the driver’s seat. The only reaction he gave was the slight lift of his eyebrows.
“Perfect.” Torran turned and kept walking. The last thing he wanted to deal with now was the calm, pragmatic dragon Palin had become since he’d found Sandy.
The door to the pickup truck came to a halt, and he heard the door open and close. Not long after footsteps crunched through the frozen top layer of the ground as Palin jogged after him.
“Do you always kick stones at guests?” he quipped.
“Piss off.”
Palin raised his hands in the air. “Whoa. Easy there, what the hell did I do?”
“Nothing. Except bother me. I want to be left alone,” he grumped.
“That much is obvious. Which is exactly why you shouldn’t be. So tell me, what’s going on that’s got you in such a foul mood?”
Torran snorted derisively. How could he tell Palin and expect the other dragon to understand? Palin was smitten with a human already, and he didn’t have to deal with accepting that his mate had the spawn of a bastard within her.
It wasn’t the fact that she was pregnant that bothered him either. Torran wanted a big family. He remembered the big farmhouse he’d seen on their way back from the enclave. Ablaze with light during the evening, people filling the room together. It was unusual for dragons to want a big family.
So now he had found his mate, only to be told by her ex that she was carrying his child. A human child. Torran had thought he was okay. That he’d come to accept that this is just what fate had in store for him. There was no reason that Lilly couldn’t still be a good person. Humans could be good. She was just lacking the physical attributes of a dragon.
And the instant recognition of a mate.
That was the source of much of his bitterness. Torran knew what she was to him, but he had been rejected by her initially, because Lilly couldn’t understand what it was that drew her to him. She didn’t have another thing living inside her that could recognize it.
I guess she does have something living inside her now, he thought bitterly.
“Should I go talk to Lilly and get her to tell me what’s going on?”
“No,” he said, more sharply than intended.
Palin bit his tongue, but Torran could sense the other dragon was getting irritated by his attitude. Unfortunately for the newcomer, he just didn’t give a shit right then. He was busy moping around, taking his frustration out on anything that came near, alive or inanimate. It just didn’t matter to Torran.
Since Damien had left the afternoon before, he’d manage to stay completely away from Lilly. He’d snuck in late at night to grab food, but otherwise he’d stayed outside, even sleeping overnight in his dragon form in the middle of one of the fields.
“I brought the truck for you to use,” Palin said after a minute of walking in silence next to him. “Here.”
Torran took the offered keys with an appreciative grunt. He didn’t want to be too rude. Palin was allowing him to stay here and had now just loaned him a vehicle to use. But that didn’t mean he wanted him to stick around.
“I need the updated lists,” Palin added. “I had expected the first one by now from you, to be honest.”
“I’ll get to it.” He waved it off and tried to walk away, but Palin followed him.
“Not good enough, Torran. Cheryl will be here any day now, and I don’t want to be charged extra because you weren’t doing your job.”
“Who’s Cheryl?”
“She’s the controller from the company I hired to run this place. I told you about her.”
“Oh.”
Palin had mentioned that. Torran had just assumed it would be a male. Apparently he couldn’t get anything right lately.
“So about those lists. I don’t want to be an asshole about it, but I am letting you stay here for free. If you don’t want to help just say so and you can go back to the military base.”
Torran almost said yes. Anything to get him out of the hell he was in, but something quieted his voice before he could speak. A tiny spark, demanding that he stay.
“I’ll get it done,” he said instead, repeating himself.
“When?” Palin pushed.
“WHEN THEY’RE DONE!” he roared, losing his temper with the emerald dragon.
A closed fist came flying out of his peripheral vision, sending Torran bouncing off the ground until he landed on his back, the top layer of ice slowly melting and soaking through to his clothes.
“Don’t do it,” Palin warned, leveling a finger at him. “You brought that upon yourself by being a rude guest. You earned it.”
Torran was beyond giving a shit about stupid dragon customs about being a proper guest and how to behave. He got to his feet and lashed out at Palin with a blast of toxic gas.
“Did you just do that?” Palin snarled, closing on him. Green scales rippled into existence over his knuckles as he swung.
Torran dropped to one knee, taking out some of his anger on Palin’s side, driving his own jade-colored fist at his nominal friend. Palin crumpled to the side, but instead of losing his balance he rolled with the blow and came to his feet.
Advancing on him, Torran totally missed the green fireworks that sprouted at his feet, exploding in puffs of gas. He gestured violently with his right hand and a tornado of green swirled up around him, stopping just short of his eyes so that he could see. It spun wildly, the air movement quickly dissipating anything Palin hurled his way.
Except for his body. Torran danced to the side as Palin came charging through the barrier, ignoring the burns it caused to his body as the slightly different composition of Torran’s gas to his own abraded his skin.
The pair traded punches, all traces of gas disappearing as they just whaled upon one another.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Both Palin and Torran turned as a new voice spoke, one neither of them recognized. It was filled with a mixture of disgust and command, that last bit speaking powerfully to the dragons hidden within.
They both turned to stare at a short strawberry-blonde firecracker. She stood in front of a little blue vehicle that just screamed “eco-friendly.” Her hands were planted firmly on her thick hips and she was glaring at both of them with a set of blue-green eyes that demanded respect.
Torran’s first thought was that he didn’t want to mess with her. It was only after that he remembered she was human.
He still didn’t want to mess with her.
“Well? Anyone going to speak up?”
Exchanging a wary glance with Palin, Torran took the lead. “Nothing,” he said calmly.
“Nothing my ass. How the hell do you expect to get work done if you’re always beating up on each other? Now let me make this very clear. You two are done acting like that while I’m around, or else you can pack your things and find another place to work. Am I clear?”
Torran’s neck swiveled to look at Palin so fast something popped in it.
