After what happened outside that club, the night everything went to shit, he made sure to not just work out for the sake of staying in shape for his roles. He’d learned how to fight, hired professional trainers, nutritionists, the whole nine yards.
It would have been funny if he wasn’t so furious. Dragon clans were private. They didn’t want attention and were by and large slow to come out and join the rest of human kind. The dragons who did leave their clans often faced violent backlash.
Xander thought his was somewhat personal to the clan he’d left behind. Not only did he refuse the lifestyle that so many dragons felt an honor in living, but he went the extra step by purposely putting himself in the spotlight.
They might have left him alone if he hadn’t gotten those movie parts. A few magazine ads and commercials had likely bothered them, but it was when he started to get big that bothered them the most. They hadn’t given him an exact reason or anything like that, but he could just tell that’s what the problem had been for them. In fact, he was one hundred percent certain that was the reason.
He’d thought the fact that Andy was out of his life would mean he could let himself go back to work, that he could enjoy his career again.
He shook his head. “I’ll call my agent. I’ll put the projects on hold, indefinitely if I have to.”
Andy hooked her feet over the side of the bed quickly, standing and rushing to him. Her small hands gripped his shoulders. “No, Xander, don’t do that!”
“I’m not letting anyone get near you. This time I might not be able to stop them.”
Defense training or not, he wasn’t about to take the risk that something could happen to her.
“I’ll get some bodyguards for you. I know a guy who can get some skilled men here quickly.”
“Will humans be able to do anything against dragons?”
He couldn’t help but grin at the question. “We’re not bullet proof.”
She didn’t smile back at him. She lowered her head briefly, clearly still bothered by this. “Look, I don’t know what I was planning on doing when I got the interview. This right here, what we just did, I didn’t do that to get close to you, it just happened—”
“Hey, hey, it’s all right. I know you weren’t using me or anything.”
“But I feel like I was, and now you’re talking about giving up the career you love again, and you can’t just do that when you have so many people counting on you to get it done.”
“Andy, they can get another actor to fill the role. Money will still go to the charity and everything will be fine.”
“You signed a contract.”
“And I’ve got good lawyers. If it gets out that the same people who did this to my face,”—he pointed at the mess just to make sure she understood him—“are threatening the woman I love and the parent companies aren’t letting me back out, that would make way too much of a shit show. No one would want that kind of bad publicity. It’ll be fine.”
She still looked as though she wanted to fight him on this. Andy shook her head. “It’s what you love doing. I can’t let them take that from you again.”
Xander sighed. “Why is it so hard for you to accept that I want to do this for you? That I would put your life and safety above my career? You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not a starving artist. I won’t go out on the street if I can’t do these next roles. I want you safe.”
“And I want you happy,” she said quickly.
In that moment, it almost felt as if they’d hit a stalemate of some sort, as though they both realized something at the same time. Xander couldn’t contain himself. He grabbed her by the back of her head just as she pushed herself up onto her toes, meeting his mouth as he leaned down and kissed her as if he would never be able to taste those lips ever again.
Then the door to their room exploded inwardly.
CHAPTER 6
It didn’t exactly explode, though that’s where Andrea’s mind immediately went at the heavy sound. The lock definitely broke off as several men rushed in through the open doorway.
Xander pulled himself away from Andrea quickly, standing in front of her, which Andrea definitely didn’t like because then he was the one those men had their full focus on.
And she recognized them. Andrea knew their sizes, their shapes, the styles and cuts of their hair even before she got a proper look at them.
She leaned to the side a little, glancing around Xander’s shoulder just to confirm what she already knew.
It was them. They were here. They’d finally come for her.
And for Xander.
No.
Xander glared at the four people who walked into his room. One of them, a woman, shut the door behind them and leaned against it to keep it shut.
She was so well built, her shoulders so broad, her chest so well defined with what looked to be no trace at all of any soft breasts, no matter how small, that it was easy to mistake her for a man.
That woman hadn’t been there when Andrea had been threatened. This was someone she’d never before seen, though she had to be a dragon, being built like that.
Which meant she was here for Xander, and for her.
The woman looked up at Andrea. Andrea quickly glanced away. She couldn’t hold eye contact with her. Andrea didn’t want to draw on her wrath.
“You here for another Shadow Call?” Xander asked, sounding very much as if he was just having a mildly annoying interruption instead of being barged in on by some of the people who had done that to his face.
Andrea’s heart slammed hard and fast against her ribs. She swallowed hard, desperate to get a hold of herself.
A Shadow Call was what happened when the dragons put out a hit of sorts on other people. Mafia style.
Only the goal wasn’t to kill. The goal instead was to cause as much pain as possible, giving scars like the ones Xander had on his face, or doing other sorts of permanent damage, giving a reminder as to why it was a bad idea to dishonor the dragon people.
These calls could happen at any time and without warning. The only way a dragon would know there was a Shadow Call on his head was because he’d already been attacked at least once.
Andrea only knew that because she’d been with Xander when it happened.
She realized just then that the dragons in their room weren’t talking. Why weren’t they talking? It was creepy. It made everything feel so much worse because she wanted them to say something instead of just looking at her and Xander like that. As if they were sizing them up for the best way to fight.
Xander growled deep in his throat. “Were these the people who came to see you?”
It took Andrea a couple of seconds before she realized Xander was talking to her. “Y-yes. Except for the woman. I’ve never seen her before.
Xander’s growl became a touch louder. “You threatened her.”
One dragon had hair the same shade of chestnut as Xander’s, only his was long and tied back into a low ponytail against his neck.
“We were hoping to get through to you. Especially when word got around that you’d signed some contracts for a couple of your upcoming…films.” He said the word as if it was something despicable, something gross and undesirable. As if there weren’t millions of people out there right now who would give their right arms to be where Xander was.
People loved Xander. They cheered for him, begged him for autographs whenever he was recognized out in the street, and these men talked about that as if it was something to be ashamed of.
Andrea reached down quickly, grabbing whatever clothes she could grab that were on the floor that didn’t require her to get out from behind the safety Xander offered her.
She thought of something as she reached down for her clutch. Her phone had fallen on top of it, and from behind Xander, the dragons didn’t seem to notice it.
Fumbling, she pretended to struggle with one of the straps of her shirt, praying to God no one noticed the brief tapping she did or took her clutch from her as sh
e tucked the phone silently back inside.
She regretted her decision the instant the phone was out of her hands. Of all the things she could have done with it, that had been her choice?
God, she hoped they got out of this alive. She also wished she wasn’t so damned terrified. It felt selfish when he had been the one they’d gone after the last time.
Xander didn’t seem to care that he was naked and vulnerable. He gave off an aura that hadn’t been there the last time something like this happened.
He felt like a warrior, a soldier, someone who had faced the darkness before and was willing to do it again if needed. He let his scales form over his body again, but this time it happened until his scales were almost his clothes. They covered most of his body, and Andrea gasped at how thick and hard they looked.
Andrea couldn’t help herself. She gently touched one of them while still crouched down. She couldn’t feel his thigh beneath the scale. As if it was made out of stone.
Had his body been covered in scales like this when they’d been making love, there was no doubt in her mind that her entire body would be scratched to hell and back.
She cringed at the thought of what his penis inside her would have done had it been covered in scales like that? Was his penis covered in these kinds of scales? Or had they grown over his cock as a sort of protective measure?
She couldn’t believe she was thinking about this when there were people standing in front of her who wanted to hurt both of them.
“I thought we made ourselves clear the last time,” said the dragon Xander had spoken to first, Ponytail.
Xander wouldn’t stop growling. Everything about him, his energy, the way his muscles tightened, suggested he was looking for a fight as much as they were. “Yeah, you did.”
Andrea barely got her clothes back on when she reached out and grabbed Xander by his wrist. “Please, no more fighting.” She looked at the dragons in front of her. As much as she wanted to keep the situation calm, she couldn’t help but glare at them, too. “I was doing what you told me to do. Why are you here?”
“You weren’t answering our messages,” Ponytail replied, his lip curling at her. “We decided to check in on things.”
“How about you check in on them with me, dragon to dragon, no more of this sneaking around bullshit.”
“Xander, no.” Andrea’s heart leapt as he took a menacing step forward. She tightened her grip on Xander’s wrist, feeling the heavy pulse beneath tense and powerful flesh.
She’d thought he was strong back then, too. He had been strong, just not powerful enough to take on multiple people at the same time when they snuck up on the pair of them and caught them unaware.
Andrea and Xander weren’t caught unaware this time, but she didn’t care. She had to do everything she could to keep Xander from fighting again. If he got hurt again because of her, she would never forgive herself.
Ponytail chuckled. “Do you really think you can handle me in a proper battle? You fled like the childish coward you are because you couldn’t stomach a fight.”
“I hear all his fancy action scenes are done by stunt doubles,” said the woman.
Unbearable heat rose up in Andrea’s chest and cheeks. She couldn’t contain it and let it out as she snapped at the woman. “He does do his own stunts! And his own action scenes, and he’s good at them! So fuck you!”
The dragon woman glared at Andrea. Andrea’s whole body immediately seized up, and she quickly hid herself behind Xander again before the bitch could lunge at her.
Maybe it was a mistake to goad these people on when they were itching to do something to Xander. She already knew they were dangerous. She didn’t need that dragon chick puffing her huge, muscular chest out at her to prove anything.
“Cute, your girlfriend is defending you,” Ponytail said.
Andrea could hardly allow herself to look up at Xander. When she did, she noted the way his scarred lips were pulled up in a smile. One that looked dangerous.
“Yeah, it’s real cute to have a gorgeous lover on my arm and a shit ton of cash in my bank account. What a loser I must be, right?”
Uh, what the hell was he doing? Andrea wasn’t sure she wanted him to pick a fight with these guys.
Especially when they growled at him. “You dishonor your family,” Ponytail snarled. “Prancing around like you do, drawing attention to the clan.” He spat on the carpet. “Filth.”
The other dragons in the room rumbled, as if in agreement.
There was such a cultural difference between Xander and these people. She could hardly believe that at one point in his life he’d rubbed shoulders with them. He might have even called a few of them his friends.
Clearly that ship had sailed. These men were more like the Spartans. They wanted nothing to do with the art world, wanted nothing to do with the world in general, especially if that world remained outside of the constant training and battles these dragons put themselves through.
Even a rich and powerful actor must have seemed like a court jester to them, but Andrea didn’t care about that. Knowing where they were coming from didn’t endear them to her. In fact, it just made her all the more angry with them for not being able to see outside of themselves, to want to attack Xander when he was vulnerable, to want to disown him and at the same time refuse to let him go. To refuse to allow him to live his life the way he wanted to live it, regardless of their own perspectives on the way the world needed to work, seemed grossly stupid and horrifying.
“You’re not going to catch me off guard like you did the last time, and you’re not going to use Andrea against me. You want to talk about dishonor? You fucks are the most dishonorable people I’ve ever seen. It makes me sick looking at you.”
“You know nothing of honor!” Ponytail snapped.
But Xander wasn’t done. “You have about as much honor as a criminal molester—”
Ponytail punched him. Then the yelling started. The other dragons closed in as Xander fought back, pushing Ponytail away hard before charging in with his fists, his face becoming something that looked less than human, his eyes glowing and his teeth longer, and sharper as he opened his mouth in a hard roar.
He looked as if he wanted to bite Ponytail’s face off.
Andrea was pushed back. She wasn’t sure who did it because everyone’s hands seemed to be everywhere, but the strength of it shocked her.
And reminded her of how powerful these people were, that they could toss her aside as if she was made of loose cotton.
Something crashed behind her body when she hit it. Andrea only realized after the fact that it was the lamp. Luckily it hadn’t been turned on. Would it have electrocuted her if it had? She didn’t know anything about that sort of thing, but at least it didn’t hurt. She was quick to pop back up to her feet before any broken glass or porcelain could cut her, and she hopped onto the other side of the bed before the fighting could reach her.
Except now it was Xander who was being pushed back against the broken glass by Ponytail, who snarled at him with much the same fury that Xander had been snarling at him.
They bared their fangs, and both looked as if they wanted to bite each other’s faces off.
Andrea’s first instinct was to rush forward and grab the two men, yanking them apart. A steel shackle wrapped around her upper arm with a bruising strength and yanked her back.
Andrea looked back, her heart damn well stopping in her chest when she saw the female dragon gripping her by the arm.
“You don’t want to get between that, cupcake. You might get hurt.”
Andrea had no idea why she would bother stopping Andrea to begin with since she was fairly sure this bitch wanted to hurt her.
Especially when she smiled down at Andrea like that. As if she was daring Andrea to retaliate against her.
Andrea knew better. She still remembered what happened the last time there had been a fight between these people. She wasn’t all that interested in repeating it.
She didn’t
want Xander to repeat it either.
Which was probably why she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, right when she needed to the most. “Okay, look, we get it. We’re not going to cause any trouble.”
Ponytail briefly looked away from Xander, his eyes meeting hers.
There was no understanding there. No hint that he might be interested in calling this whole thing off, but she had to keep trying.
“You don’t want your people in the spotlight, fair enough. We won’t do anything anymore. I won’t run a story on him if that’ll help.”
Just go away. Let us go. Don’t do this anymore. She was so tired of this.
Ponytail growled, his head shaking just enough to show Andrea how finished he was with this.
He launched his fist forward again hard. Andrea cried out, shocked, but the hit didn’t land.
Xander caught the man’s fist in his bare hand, and the smirk on his mouth…
Andrea knew Ponytail was in trouble before it happened.
CHAPTER 7
X ander could see the split second of shock on the face of his former comrade, his brother, but he gave Bartley no chance to respond before he let his free fist fly.
The first punch clearly stunned the man, but when he pulled himself together, Xander already had his thick throat in hand. He lifted him off the ground and pushed through his sister, Awnyay, and the other warriors they had brought with them to teach Xander his lesson.
When he threw Bartley against the door, Xander wasn’t all that shocked when it finally smashed through the hinges, both door and dragon flying out and crashing together into the hall.
After all the abuse it had taken, it wasn’t much of a surprise that it would get destroyed.
Xander followed after the man, the rage that had continued to feed into his strength still pulsing, still hot in his veins. He stomped over the door, knowing his brother was beneath it. He took pleasure in crushing it down hard before hopping off, grabbing the edge of the splintered wood, and tossing it off.
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