by Amelia Jade
“Look, Cole,” she said haltingly. “It’s not that I don’t recognize there’s something going on between us. But you hurt me pretty badly. I’m glad you’re coming out ahead of this whole thing, but I’m going to need more time.”
Trestin felt bad saying it, but she had to stand her ground. The last time she had moved quickly with him, it had backfired completely.
“I’m sorry,” he said, stepping back to put some space between them. “I should have known better than to just assume it would all go back to normal.” He was shaking his head in frustration.
“I’m not going anywhere though,” she promised. “However long it takes, I’ll be here. But you need to understand what’s going on with yourself first.”
Cole looked up at her sharply.
“What did you say?”
Chapter Eleven
Cole
Trestin glanced at him, clearly not understanding. “I said you need to understand what’s going on with yourself first.”
“No, no, before that,” he said, his brain working like crazy, trying to tell him something.
“However long it takes, I’ll be here,” she repeated slowly.
“That’s it,” he hissed to himself. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. Then again,” he said, talking aloud to himself, “I’ve never wanted to before.”
He straightened his shoulders and looked at her directly. “Listen, I’m sorry, but this time, I have to be the one that goes.”
“What?” she yelped, astonishment plainly written on her face.
“I know, I’m fucking ridiculous,” he told her. “But I have to go, now, before everything fades.
“Cole Lovac! You are ridiculous. I can’t believe you’re going to walk out on me like this.”
“You said it yourself, Trestin. I need to find out what’s going on with me first. I think I actually have a way to do that.”
He felt bad, smiling like a giddy child in the face of her anger and lack of understanding. But for the first time in, well, in ever, he had an idea of who might be able to help him. Someone who had been through everything and would have a completely different take on it all.
“Look, Emma is right there,” he said, pointing in the general direction of the room she shared with Garrett. “Go hang out with her for a bit. I promise I’ll be back within a few hours.”
She didn’t look happy about it, but he could see that she wasn’t willing to hold him back.
“You promise?” she said severely.
“I promise.” He held a hand over his chest. “I have no idea if they’re going to be able to help, but I have to try.”
“Who is this person? Why is it all of a sudden they can help?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said regretfully. “Only because it’s not my secret to tell.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means only shifters and a few LMC employees know the truth about him, and that’s at his own choosing. I can’t make that decision for him,” he said seriously, staring her directly in the eyes so she knew he was serious.
“I must be cursed or something,” she said, no longer talking to him directly.
“Listen, I’m well aware of how this looks and sounds, Trestin. But please, you have to trust me. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think it was important.”
She looked at him, then sighed. “You really think this is that important?”
“I do. I think it’s going to give me a perspective on things that I can’t necessarily get anywhere else.”
She frowned.
“I hope, at least,” he added lamely. “I can’t be the man you need me to be, that our child needs me to be. Not right now. But for the first time in forever really, I want to be that man. And now that I do,” he said, smiling, sticking a finger straight up in the air as if a light bulb had just gone off inside him, “I think I know where to start seeking help.”
“Promise you’ll be back tonight?” she asked again.
“I promise,” he said, holding his hand over his chest.
Trestin snorted. “I doubt I’d have been able to stop you anyway, but thank you for at least informing me, mostly,” she frowned at the fact he hadn’t been able to tell her everything. “It’s much more reassuring to have a general idea of why something is happening.”
“Thank you for understanding,” he said sincerely. “Many women wouldn’t; they would simply lose their cool.”
“Go now, before I do that,” she said, but there was a smile on her face. It was small and wan, but it was there nonetheless.
“Going! Make sure you go see Emma, okay? She’ll get you fed and stuff,” he said over his shoulder as he bolted for the door, barely getting the slab of metal open a crack before he tried to slip through.
Running down the length of the deck to where his truck was parked, he blew past Russell and Darren.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Russell yelled after him.
“Fire!” he yelled back, reaching his truck and hauling the door open rather more roughly than was necessary. His emotions and enthusiasm were getting the better of him, he could tell, but he didn’t let that translate into an overly dangerous trip into the city. He kept to the speed limit… mostly.
Turning off the main road, he followed the S-shaped driveway down into the slight depression, where the building he was looking for resided.
The faded orange neon light blinked on the top, proclaiming the establishment’s name and advertising its wares. Tonight, however, Cole wasn’t interested in cold beer or good food. He was at the Tongue & Flame for one purpose, and one purpose only.
He took care to push open the solid wood door politely, not wanting to annoy the proprietor with his entrance. The evening was wearing on, but there were a number of others hanging about. None of his own crew were there that night, but the Silvertips, headed by Ajax, had taken up their normal residence at the back corner set of tables.
One of them noticed him as he strode purposefully toward the bar, and made a comment.
“Hey, Green Thumb, come to drink away your sorrows?”
Crunch.
Ajax’s fist connected with the man’s nose faster than Cole could blink, sending him tumbling over backward and onto the floor.
“Be respectful. He is of the Ridgebacks, and I saw him face death braver than you would have,” he rumbled, anger in his voice.
The titanic Alpha nodded Cole’s way. He shakily did the same, surprised by how fiercely Ajax had come to his defense. It was similar to the way he had spoken up for him at the trial. Was Ajax trying to cultivate an alliance between the two crews? He wondered what his purpose behind that may be.
Filing it away for future knowledge, he turned his attention back to the bar and the man behind it. He was tall, muscular without the same size of the bear shifters, and of an indeterminate age. There were lines around his eyes, but not many. His hair had a couple of grays in it, but only a few. There was a short-cut mustache and goatee framing a face that could have blended in to a thousand different places.
Yet for all that, it was his movement that gave him away, Cole decided, as Ferro turned from the patron—a man Cole didn’t recognize—and came his way.
As recognition of who Cole was flashed in his eyes, the bartender moved to grab him a bottle of the house brew. Then Ferro did something that he had never seen before. The quiet man stopped and looked back at Cole once more. This time his eyes searched him, as if the purpose of Cole’s visit was plastered across his forehead.
Nodding to himself, Ferro reached down to a shelf below and grabbed two bottles of something else. It wasn’t a bottle Cole recognized, and he wondered why Ferro had made the choice. Abruptly, what he had just witnessed sunk in to Cole.
Ferro had grabbed two bottles.
He didn’t drink with his patrons.
Ever.
“Can you handle the bar for a minute Luthor?” he said, turning to the unknown man as Cole watche
d in shock.
Ferro didn’t leave his bar.
Ever.
“Consider it done,” the man replied.
Ferro turned to Cole, extending one hand and crooking a finger slightly. The meaning was clear, however. Follow me. With a gulp, he followed the dragon shifter through the back into a small room Cole hadn’t known existed.
There was a triple-lighted ceiling fan that swung lazily around, illuminating the room in a pale yellow light. In the center of the room there was a large, rectangular table of a solid hardwood that Cole didn’t recognize, surrounded by four tall-backed chairs of the same wood, the seats covered in a plush cushion that seemed to mold itself to him as he sat in one at Ferro’s instruction.
The beer was opened and one handed to him. The other stayed firmly within Ferro’s grasp.
“You need advice,” the ancient man said at last, as the two men continued to study each other over the tops of the opaque brown bottles.
Cole chuckled. “Is it that obvious?”
“To those who know what to look for,” Ferro responded slowly in his clipped, foreign accent that seemed like it would have been better suited to a different time.
Cole nodded, glancing around the room again as he formed his words. The drab-green walls were completely unadorned, giving the room a somewhat sterile feel to it. A filing cabinet occupied the corner to the left of Ferro, and a free-standing coatrack stood just to the right of the door.
“What do you use this room for?” he asked.
Ferro didn’t respond.
Cole looked back, but all he saw were two unblinking charcoal-gray eyes looking at him. The power of that gaze was almost unbearable, but he did his best to keep his shoulders straight under the weight of it, for as long as possible.
Eventually, he had to cave. Those eyes had seen too much, been through more than he could ever begin to comprehend. It was a humbling experience, and though Ferro didn’t move or speak, Cole knew what he was being told.
Ask the right questions, to get the answers.
“I’m not sure where to start,” he confessed.
“From the beginning,” came the simple reply.
Cole nodded, and began to tell Ferro about his past, and how he felt it affected him in the present day mentally, and how it manifested in physical form while he was sleeping. The dragon listened patiently, asking few questions and letting Cole tell the story as it came out.
“So what I guess I’m doing here is looking for a different perspective. Some thoughts from someone who has seen a lot, and knows more about us—about shifters—than anyone else I know,” he concluded.
“How often do you shift?”
“Rarely,” he admitted. “I don’t trust my bear. Often it only happens if I lose my temper and it wants to fight.”
Ferro’s eyebrows rose. It was only a fraction of an inch, but any change in his facial expression was noticeable since it often looked like his features were etched from stone, so firm in their composition were they. Cole held his breath, wondering what he had said that had affected the other man so much.
Although he waited, Ferro continued to look at him. Clearly he wanted Cole to figure it out himself, instead of being hand fed.
Okay, so it was something I said, probably my last sentence. He thought the sentence over again in his head. “Often it only happens if I lose my temper and it wants to fight.”
That was true; he didn’t see any falsities there. So what was he missing about that statement? When his temper ran hot, his bear decided it was time to tangle with the others, whether his crew or another. Cole knew that wasn’t acceptable, and that he had to control his bear better. If he didn’t, then others would try to control him, or to end him. No one could control his bear but him, right?
Except his bear was uncontrollable.
Cole shook his head, feeling his logic begin to go in circles.
“Who loses their temper?” Ferro asked softly.
“I get mad when others push it too far,” he said bluntly, not understanding.
“And who fights?”
“My bear—”
Then it all clicked into focus. It was as if a shroud had been lifted from the past several decades of his life. All this time he had been blaming his bear, considering it was the problem, when really it was Cole himself that was what was wrong. He was the one doing the damage, not his animal.
“It’s not my bear getting mad, it’s me,” he breathed. “So it comes out to fight the others, whether it’s the other shifters or the memories that haunt my dreams. It’s trying to protect me?” he questioned. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
Ferro sat back and took a sip of his bear. “Your animal is like any other. It needs attention and care. You need to treat it like it’s okay, if you want it to be okay.”
“Wow,” he said, sitting back, shaking his head as he thought of how many years he had wasted lying in fear of what his bear might do to him next. “I am a major fuck-up.”
To his shock, Ferro laughed. It was a slow rolling thing, like a rock avalanche that washed over Cole and swept him along with it as if he were no more than a pebble lost amidst the boulders. He found himself laughing alongside the dragon.
“Everyone in Genesis Valley is a fuck-up,” Ferro said as his chuckles died out. “That’s why we’re here, after all.”
“Thank you,” he said as Ferro rose, signaling that it was time for Cole to go.
“Enjoy the beer,” Ferro said, making his way from the room after pointing out the exit door just down the hallway from the room they were in.
As Cole sat there drawing the last swig of delicious beer from the unusual brown bottle, replaying the conversation over again in his head, something came to him.
Ferro had included himself as one of the fuck-ups in Genesis Valley.
What happens to a dragon shifter for them to end up here?
He didn’t have time to ponder that though. Cole had to go spend some time catching up with his bear. After that he definitely had to get back to Trestin. He didn’t want to keep his mate waiting any longer than possible, and he hated leaving her alone now that he knew she was carrying his cub, but he also knew that this had to be done. Cole had to fix himself so that he could stay by her side.
That was where he belonged, supporting and caring for her to the best of his abilities. He hoped that in time she would come to care for him the way he cared for her. Cole knew that she did care about him already, but she was clearly holding back after the way he had fucked up the last time.
No more of that, he thought, striding outside.
No more.
Walking to the edge of the forest that surrounded three sides of the Tongue & Flame, he said hello to his bear, letting it know that he was bringing it out simply to wander and explore, and that no fighting was necessary. Cole fervently hoped that he could stay in control.
I hope this works…
With a triumphant roar, his bear exploded from his skin and charged off into the trees.
Chapter Twelve
Trestin
“Where is he?” she fumed, pacing back and forth.
“Shut up,” Emma drawled, pulling another beer from the mini-fridge.
“I’m serious, he said he’d be back as soon as he could,” Trestin said, pacing back and forth.
She looked over at her friend. They were out back of Ridgeback Lodge, near the firepit, where a glorious blaze was happily roaring away. The fire provided a backdrop to her friend as she strolled back toward it, easily ignoring Trestin’s complaints.
Which is what they were, she knew.
It had only been a few hours since Cole had taken off for who knew where, determined to find help for himself. Trestin knew that she really didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to being mad at him. After all, she had told him to do whatever it took, and that she would support him. She just hadn’t expected him to take it quite so literally, and that he needed to seek help that minute. Frowning at her o
wn selfishness, she walked back over to her friend, easing herself down into one of the new chairs Cole had built since the last time she was here.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Emma raising an eyebrow at her.
“What?”
“You’re three months pregnant my friend. I don’t think you need to take ten seconds to lower yourself into a chair,” she said dryly.
“I’ll take as long as I want, thank you very much!” She stuck out her tongue. “In all honesty though, I’m just feeling nervous about everything.”
“Now that I believe,” Emma said, all sarcasm gone from her voice. “In fact, I’m surprised at just how well you’re taking this.”
“What do you mean?”
“The pregnancy, Cole, all of it really. I’m not sure how to put this, but Trestin, you seem happier now, even with all this going on. Quite possibly the happiest I’ve ever seen you. There doesn’t seem to be an ounce of regret or sadness. Just frustration that Cole isn’t here, and that’s probably just because you want to get laid!”
Trestin blushed as Darren and Russell, both of whom were hanging out around the fire as well, had a chuckle as Emma emphasized the last point rather loudly. She couldn’t fault her friend, because sex was high up on her priority list. It had been well over a year before the first time with Cole, and now she found she wanted it all the time. The past three months of not seeing him had been painful, although she had gotten in touch with herself more and was eager to try a few things with Cole.
“You know,” she said aloud, analyzing the thoughts that had just run through her brain. “You’re right. I am happy. Hell, I think I’ve forgiven Cole. Just like that. What the hell is wrong with me? Is this because we’re mates?” she asked her friend. “Is that what it’s like with you and Garrett?”
“For the most part,” Emma said dreamily. “It seems that unless it’s a major conflict, the tension and anger just flow away whenever I’m near him. I would much rather be in his arms than held at arm’s length.”
“That sounds about right,” Trestin said, frowning as she thought of earlier in Cole’s room. Despite what he had been telling her and the way he had acted the last time she was in his room, all Trestin had wanted was to be held by him, to be close. To feel his muscles, to listen to his heartbeat as she laid her head on his broad chest, or to run her hands through his finger-length hair.
