by Kyle, Celia
“You think you know me, Principal Wilson? You think you know what I’m about? You know nothing. You don’t understand a single thing about me.”
Rylan snorted and glanced pointedly at the door. “Is that so? Then tell me, how exactly do you know Jayme Marshall?”
His excruciatingly handsome face flushed bright red, and a flicker of something beastly hovered just under the surface. For a moment, she thought he was going to shift right in front of her. She almost wished he would. Instead, with nostrils flaring and eyes blazing, Thrett turned on his heel and stomped out of her office without another word.
Chapter Three
The second Thrett’s boot hit the sidewalk outside school grounds, he wrapped his dragon magic around himself and shifted to his beast, wings stretched high. He beat them down so hard to take off, a car alarm blared across the street. Fortunately, class was already in session, so Thrett had room to be dramatic.
His blood boiled as he rocketed through the sky toward Wildridge Security. His sleek yellow form rippled with sinewy muscle as he broke through a cloud in frustration and dispersed it before arcing back down.
Where did she get off acting like that? His nostrils flared as he snorted, a small gout of flame singeing the air. Maybe her idea of how things had gone was one thing, but Thrett had a pretty damn good memory, and his order of events had been clear cut. She just liked getting up in his face and pushing his buttons. That’s what it was.
But hadn’t that been what had drawn him to her in the first place?
It had been a party one of his friends invited him to, with the explicit selling point that there would be spring-breakers there. Sue me, he thought. He’d only been twenty-two and liked to party as much as the college kids. Thanks to the hosts spending the better part of the day making a truly irresponsible quantity of Jell-O shots, the non-Rylan details of the event were fuzzy, but the memory of first time he’d laid eyes on her was burned into his brain with dragonflame.
She’d been standing by the bar with most of the other out-of-towners, looking like the star of the party in a tight pair of pink capris and a white tank top. The moment he saw her, he stopped in his tracks. He wanted—no, needed— to meet her.
By the time he’d pushed through the raucous crowd to reach her, though, some douche in a jersey and snapback hat perched on his head at a cocky angle was trying to get her to do a Jell-O shot off his bulging bicep. Jealousy nearly sent him over the edge, but Thrett had been able to hold back his dragon.
As it turned out, Rylan had been less than impressed by the douchebag and proved she could hold her own. When ignoring the douche didn’t work, she huffed, grabbed the shot and dumped it into the guy’s beer before snatching the red Solo cup out of his hand and chugging while he tried to figure out what had happened. The moron had looked positively baffled at the state of his empty cup as Rylan sauntered away from the table, leaving the guy’s buddies very amused.
Thrett had considered approaching her then, but she looked pissed. Maybe that wasn’t the best moment to introduce himself, so he kept tabs on her whereabouts and bided his time. But, as so often happens at parties, time slipped away from him, and pretty soon he’d lost track of the object of his future affection.
A quick tour of the place had ended on the back patio, where only a handful of people had ventured—including Rylan and the douchebag. He’d been crowding her, using his beefy bulk to intimidate her into backing herself into a dark corner. Even from a distance, Thrett had smelled the fear wafting off her and that nearly sent him into a full-fledged dragon rage. But instead of blasting the guy into a crispy critter, like he deserved, he’d used his wits.
“Babe, there you are!” he’d said as he pushed past the asshole and draped an arm across Rylan’s shoulders possessively.
She’d looked surprised, but he’d sensed her relief that someone had stepped into what would likely have been an ugly situation. The douchebag just looked confused again.
Thrett had grinned at the guy, letting just a little of his fangs drop before he addressed him. “Help you, friend?”
To his surprise, the guy had looked like he was prepared to fight over who got to assault Rylan, so Thrett turned it up to eleven by flashing his yellow dragon eyes at him. The dude’s eyes had widened and the air filled with terror. Then he was gone.
Thrett had hoped the pretty girl he was hanging all over would be so overcome with gratitude that she’d fall into his arms. No such luck. She’d shoved his arms off her shoulders and gave him a “Thanks, but no thanks” dismissal. He’d watched her walk away, realizing that his own pushy behavior was but a mirror image of the douchebag’s.
Not wanting to lose her before he ever got a chance to have her, he’d found a sealed bottle of water and took it to her as she stared into the depths of the backyard pool.
“Peace offering?” he’d asked, waggling the bottle at her.
She’d eyed him suspiciously but then took the bottle, inspecting the seal closely before drinking from it.
“Sorry if my barging in like that scared you,” Thrett had said, “but that guy looked like he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. And I have to admit, I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress.”
That had earned him a smile. “Thanks. My name’s Rylan.”
After that, Thrett had poured on the charm and she’d eventually warmed up to him. That warmth had turned hot pretty quickly.
Thrett burst through another cloud, memories of their time together scorching his mind. He needed this, the release of soaring through the air and blowing off steam, even if it meant sending someone back to collect his SUV later. The flight didn’t stop him from feeling snubbed, but it dulled the edge of his frustration. Which was good for Ragan DeFever, who greeted him as soon as he landed at Wildridge Security.
“Hey!” Ragan stuck his head in the locker room as Thrett stepped into a spare pair of pants he kept in his locker. “Good timing. Just ran the plates on the van you were looking for. It’s a rental.”
Thrett growled as he shrugged into a simple black button-down. “So, a dead end.”
“Not necessarily. Give me a few days, a week at the most, and I might be able to track down the security footage from rental places in the area, and—”
“That’s just a long road to a dead end,” Thrett groused.
Ragan narrowed his eyes at his colleague. “What crawled up your ass and died?”
Thrett shot him a scowl and then sighed. “Women.”
“The king of one-night stands has women problems? Now that’s a first.”
“Fuck off,” Thrett snarled as he pushed past his coworker and headed downstairs.
He was well aware of what his social life looked like form the outside. That he was a player, a manwhore, a love-em-and-leave-em kinda guy. Nothing could have been farther from the truth, as far as he was concerned, but he wasn’t about to reveal his deepest feelings to anyone else, much less his colleagues. They wouldn’t understand, especially the ones whose mates had fallen into their laps, like Ragan, Allon and Elektra.
Thrett jerked open the door to Wildridge just as a pack of puppies escaped the pet store next door. Four corgi puppies scurried between the feet of the men as they tried to make their way inside without stomping on the adorable sausage-shaped canines bouncing around like bunnies. One of them immediately tripped over its own paws and tumbled over with a whimper before bouncing right back up and chasing after the others.
The owner of Mutts ‘N’ Stuff, Alice Sinclair, hurried after them, right on cue.
“Oh, do be careful!” she cried as the puppies split off in four different directions.
The Wildridge Security team had already mobilized. They knew the drill.
Ragan threw himself over a desk and reached a long arm down to pick up the first pup. Alice finally managed to get another’s attention with a treat, but the third pooch snatched it away first. Thrett caught the second one as it whined over losing the yummy, but Alice had another ready to pop i
n its mouth. The little furball happily crunched away as it snuggled into Thrett’s arms.
Damn, it was hard to stay pissed off with a cute corgi cuddling up to you!
Dyrk Fortis raised his head over the cubicles to see what the ruckus was about. When he ran over to help, the final escapee bounded toward him. Reaching down to grab it, Dyrk’s head collided with that of the receptionist—and Alice’s niece—Tessa. With a yelp, she nearly fell on her ass, but Dyrk somehow managed to catch her.
In the commotion, Pup Number Four vanished. A squeaky bark sounded down the hall and moments later Charlie walked out of his office holding the tiny rebel in his hands. He then handed the wriggling ball of fluff to a grateful Alice with a warm smile.
“Sorry for intruding again, but thanks for the help,” Alice said with a grin, doing her best to wrangle her armful of puppies.
Ever the gentleman, Charlie held the door open for her. Tessa extracted herself from Dyrk’s firm grasp, a lovely tinge of pink coloring her cheeks, to help her aunt take the puppies back to the shop.
Dyrk watched them leave and then swallowed hard before turning his attention to Thrett. “So it turns out a dead man rented the van you’re looking for.”
“Excuse me?” Thrett asked, feeling like he’d missed a chapter in a mystery novel.
“I traced the credit card that paid for it, and wouldn’t know, it belonged to an old friend of ours.”
Dyrk wasn’t normally one for theatrics, but Thrett could tell he was reveling in the surprise factor his sleuthing had yielded, and he was going to drag it out as much as he could. Wyntir Ignis sauntered up, dressed to kill as she always was. If any of the Wildridge team ever wanted to go into show biz, it would be Wyntir. Except for the fact that underneath her supermodel good looks exterior lay a total badass.
“Are you going to tell us who, or are you waiting for Tessa to come back before you do?”
Dyrk scowled at her, and even has his face flooded to a dark red. “What the hell are you talking about? Whatever. The dead man in question is Joshua Slocum.”
“What?”
They turned to find Grizz Magna’s head overlooking the cubicle maze. Not too long ago, the de facto leader of the Shifter Bureau of Investigation had tried to murder Grizz and his mate Elektra Mico. As a former SBI agent, Grizz had trusted Slocum and that almost led to tragedy.
“Was that scumbag trying to kidnap rich kids too?” he demanded as he joined the others up front, followed by Elektra.
“The cases have to be connected,” she added, glancing at Charlie.
Charlie nodded. “Agreed. And until we can figure exactly how or if the SBI traitor was involved, I want you on the grounds during school hours.”
Thrett winced and then rubbed the back of his neck, not loving the idea of seeing Rylan all day, every day. “I dunno. Don’t you think that might freak out the kids?”
Charlie studied him for a few seconds. “One new face with a cool job title? I think not. You’ll be on site before the first child arrives and after the last one leaves. Understood?”
“But—” Thrett started, but Charlie was already walking back to his office. “Fine, but do me a favor and don’t give me any more jobs with kids for at least six months, okay? Okay, Charlie? Charlie!”
The boss’ door closed quietly with a click, leaving Thrett very unsatisfied. It wasn’t that he was opposed to hard work, but spending so much time with Rylan…
A trill of excitement ran down his spine at the very idea.
No. Nope. Absolutely not. He couldn’t let his thoughts run in that direction. Rylan had shattered his heart once. No way would he allow her to do it twice.
* * *
“Honey, did you remember to grab your lunch box from the counter?” Rylan asked.
When she received no answer, she glanced in the rear-view mirror and smiled. Her son was a voracious reader, constantly devouring books from the school library, as well as the public one. Rylan would go broke buying all the books he wanted to read, so they visited the big local library at least once a week. Having worked as an English teacher for three years, she couldn’t have been prouder.
“Earth to Trystin.”
The light of her life looked up from his book, brown eyes wide and a little confused. “Huh? What?”
“You have your lunchbox in your backpack, right?”
“Yep! Got it.”
He was missing a front tooth, which only added to his adorable charm, as far as Rylan was concerned. Her heart surged with affection for the little guy, and she couldn’t quantify how much she loved him if someone held a gun to her head. Trystin was an old soul and a highly empathetic child, who seemed to listen and observe more than he spoke. Every parent thought their child was the greatest, but Rylan knew her son truly was the best person ever born, even if she was a little biased.
The car pulled into the staff parking lot to the side of the academy and Rylan hopped out, Trystin following after her. He was too old for a car seat these days, which nearly broke her heart. Clasping hands, they walked into the school together, greeting teachers and students along the way. The simple act of stepping into the school calmed her jangled nerves. Benningford was home.
Stopping outside of Trystin’s homeroom, Rylan kneeled down to peer into her son’s sweet face, smoothing his strawberry blond hair. Only then did she notice he looked troubled.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
“Are you sure it’s okay for me to spend the night at Blaise’s house tonight?”
“Of course it is. Why would you think it wouldn’t be?”
He shrugged, his empathetic gaze drilling down into her soul. “I dunno, you seem sad. I better stay home with you. You’ll miss me too much.”
Damn, he got her every time. Truth be told, she missed him every second he was out of her sight. And sleepovers only made her miss him more. But she refused to be one of those moms. He deserved to spend time with his friends and not be afraid she’d fall apart at the seams. Just one of the many milestones in the journey of raising a child.
Rylan brushed her fingers down his soft cheek, smiling at him. “Baby, I’ll be just fine. I don’t want you spending a single second worrying about me. Okay? It’s my job to worry about you, not the other way around. Are we clear?”
He searched her face for a moment and then broke into a broad grin as the bell rang. “Yes, ma’am!”
“Good. Now, go learn everything.” She was about to lean in for a kiss but he spun away and raced into his classroom without looking back.
“Pop into the office later,” she called to his disappearing back.
“I will!” he called in return, but he’d been lost in the chaos of second-grade homeroom.
The walk to her office was pretty normal, with colleagues and students greeting her with respect. Whatever gloom Trystin had sensed from her dissipated along the way, and by the time she reached her office, she felt downright chipper. Then she walked in and saw the overly delighted look on Ginette’s face.
“What?” Rylan asked suspiciously.
Ginette bit her lip to keep from grinning and glanced toward Rylan’s office.
“Oh, god,” Rylan whispered, “is Mr. Ratzenberger back?”
Ginette stopped holding back and chortled happily. “Oh, no. Much better. Soooo much better.”
Shit.
The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she stared at the door to her office. She didn’t need Thrett’s dragony senses to know he was in there, waiting for her. But why? He’d emailed her a detailed security plan the night before which she’d immediately approved. There was nothing left to discuss.
Well…not nothing, but she couldn’t go there at the moment. She’d barely slept the night before, tossing and turning with worry. The few times she’d managed some deep sleep, it had been plagued by dreams of that one night with Thrett.
Rylan took a deep breath, rolled her shoulders back, and adopted the stern look she typically used on misbehaving students
as she marched into her office with a look of confidence she didn’t feel. Thrett sat in the same chair he’d used the day before, looking as good as ever. Damn her body for reacting to his mere presence like she was some horny teenager.
“Good morning, Mr. Lacerta,” she said, sinking into her chair and shuffling papers on her desk before meeting his gaze. “How may I help you?”
He sucked on his teeth as though he wasn’t any happier to be there than she was. “Some new information has come to light, so I’ll be on campus all day, every day for the foreseeable future.”
Panic nearly made her choke. “What information? Do we need to change your security plan? Are the students in danger?”
Thrett sat forward and patted the air. “Relax, it’s nothing like that. Nothing’s changed significantly, other than I’ll be here during school hours, just in case.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “So there’s no additional threat to their safety?”
“Correct.”
“Yet you’ve taken it upon yourself to camp out here all day?”
He pressed his lips together in a frown. “For the record, this wasn’t my idea. But it is the way it’s going to be, at least until we figure out if there even is a threat, and I was hoping I could base myself in your outer office.”
Pure, unadulterated panic flooded Rylan’s brain. This could not be happening. It was her absolute nightmare coming true. Trystin visited her several times a day. One look at the two of them together and Thrett would put it all together in the blink of an eye.
No, she couldn’t allow that to happen. Not yet, anyway. Up until yesterday, she hadn’t even known if Thrett was alive. Her world had turned upside down, and she needed some time to process it all. Trystin was doing so well in school. She didn’t want to disrupt that.
Besides, there was no question that a die-hard player like Thrett Lacerta would have no interest in becoming a daddy overnight, and she couldn’t put Trystin through that kind of rejection. He was a sensitive little boy who would quickly pick up on Thrett’s lack of interest, and it would wound him deeply. On top of that, her reckless baby daddy would be a bad influence on their son.
