She’d never wanted to feel like this again. She’d never wanted anyone to ever make her feel so small and helpless, and this wasn’t even the second time. This was the third time.
“I…”
Andrea noticed then that her lack of anything concrete and audible was apparently giving the officer in front of her bad vibes. The man brought his hand down to his weapon, as though getting ready to pop it out of its holster.
It didn’t help that Xander stared at the man with dead eyes. He wasn’t glaring, but there was something about the neutral expression on his face that wasn’t so neutral with all of his scars.
“I’m fine,” Andrea said quickly, lifting her hands back to Xander’s shoulders. “This is my boyfriend. We came here together and those dragons attacked us.”
The cop’s hand left the handle of his gun, though Andrea wasn’t about to relax just yet. He seemed to still be suspicious.
Of Xander? Andrea didn’t need protecting from Xander. She needed it from those other dragons.
“Are you sure they were dragons?”
“We’re sure,” Xander said. “They’re from my former clan.”
“You’re a dragon?”
Andrea was stunned. She never appreciated celebrities who threw it in the faces of everyone how big and mighty they were, but in that moment Andrea had the solid urge to look at the guy and ask him how could he not know who Xander Grey was.
She managed to keep herself from doing that, which was good.
Xander always liked flying under the radar whenever he was able.
“I am a dragon,” he said, nodding. “I left my clan. They didn’t appreciate that.”
“We’re clear over here!” one of the officers shouted. The people whose rooms had been busted into came out into the hallways, some wearing their bathrobes and slippers. One guy had his phone to his ear and shouted at someone at the front desk about how pissed off he was this could have happened at the resort he’d paid good money to attend.
Another guest, a woman with cat ears and a tail, trembled as her lover held her in his arms. He pet her ears comfortingly, but it didn’t appear as if she felt it.
The cop looked away from both Andrea and Xander at the call of his fellow officer. He clenched his jaw, looking up towards the sound of his partner, and then turned back to Xander and Andrea. “Okay, neither of you move. I’ll come right back and there needs to be questions answered, got it?”
Andrea wanted to tell the officer that she wanted to take Xander back to his room in case someone recognized him, but he answered before she could get to that. “Got it.”
Andrea looked up at him, stunned as the officer rushed off to see for himself what had been going on in those rooms that had been broken into. “What if someone starts filming you?”
He curled his arm around her waist, pulling her close to his body in a way that she liked, and not just because it was comforting. “They’re already filming,” he said, pressing a kiss to her temple.
“What?” Andrea glanced up and around them. Sure enough, a couple more hotel guests had stepped out of their rooms, despite being told not to do just that by the police. They had their phones up and pointed in a very obvious way.
Andrea couldn’t believe it. Normally she had a sixth sense for whenever the phones and cameras came out. She was a human, but if there was one paranormal thing about her, it was being able to tell when a GoPro was filming her or anyone else around her. No one could secretly catch her on camera.
Until now, it seemed.
She groaned. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. You need to get some clothes on!”
"It's a little late for that," he said, sounding way too mellow about this entire thing.
Even if that cop hadn’t recognized who Xander was, there was the better than even chance that many of the people pointing their phones already did.
“Your contract. Your movie…”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“Oh my God, how can I not?”
Bad publicity wasn’t necessarily good publicity anymore, and there were certain limits movie studios were willing to make for their actors.
Especially ones who were trying to make a comeback. If one of these idiots posted their video on YouTube talking about how Xander Grey was getting caught up in gang fighting, then that could absolutely ruin everything he had going for him.
Then she remembered. “I was recording it, too!”
She looked up at him, bright and bursting energy rushing through her. She yanked her phone out of her pocket, then had a mild heart attack when she didn’t see the app working.
“Oh shit, fuck my life, no.”
“It’s all right, Andrea. Really.”
It wasn’t all right. Did the stupid app crash? Did she run out of memory?
She hit the record button again, ready to jump out of her skin and bones if the thing didn’t start up fast enough. It did start up, and after two seconds of recording, a message popped up claiming she had indeed run out of internal memory.
The immediate and unpleasant icy cold feeling that frosted her skin, blood, and bones was enough to make her want to throw the damned phone at one of the assholes still recording them.
“Maybe it got a few minutes, or a few seconds, before it stopped.”
Andrea clicked out of the app and went to search through her files, but Xander’s hands on hers, pulling the phone down and out of sight, stopped her.
“Look at me.”
She did, still hating herself, hating that she hadn’t even been able to do this one clever thing that could have absolved him of everything.
“It’s all right,” he said again, his voice a little firmer than before, but still comforting, soft.
As if he was trying to talk down a terrified animal.
“I just wanted to help you.” Andrea looked down at their joined hands. She barely felt the warmth of his fingers. That part of her mind that got obsessive over a story was getting antsy over this.
Whenever she had a deadline, she got it done. Whenever she wanted to write a particular story, she went after it, and now, when she desperately wanted to go back in time and make sure there was enough damned memory on her phone so she could record the conversation, the threats, and how Xander had defended her…she couldn’t.
It wasn’t accidentally deleted and still somewhere on her phone so that she could pay a tech guy to retrieve it. It hadn’t been recorded in the first place.
“Hey, look at me.”
Andrea did. Xander smiled at her, that soft, winning smile that had gotten him nominated for an Oscar the same year he’d also been nominated for the Golden Raspberry. The smile that melted a million hearts, and was only for her.
“If the cancel my contract, then I’ll be fine. I’m glad you’re safe.”
“But it’s your career, you love doing it. If I had to give up what I do, I’d go insane.” Her job annoyed her sometimes, especially when she was given stupid stories to do, forcing her to chase after the good ones on her own time, but being cut off from it forever would devastate her.
She knew it was the same for him.
“I’ll get over it,” he said. “I’ll take smaller parts acting on stage. I’ll do anything else that won’t put you in danger because that’s not what I want for you.” His hand came up behind her neck. His fingers threaded through her hair. “I love you. I love you so much and I couldn’t stand it when I thought they were going to do something to you.” His smile broke a little as he shakily took in a breath. “It got me so fucking scared.”
Now Andrea’s heart was pounding. Worse than even when he’d been making love to her. She almost couldn’t breathe because of it and that was all right.
“You love me?” She could die a happy woman hearing those words. She really could.
“God, yes,” Xander accented his words by leaning in and kissing her.
The applause from the people watching and recording them barely registered to Andrea’s ears as she curle
d her arms around Xander’s neck, pushing herself up to her toes, and kissed him back with absolutely everything she had.
CHAPTER 9
It took the police a while before they figured out who Xander was. He actually had to go down to the station with Andrea before someone behind the desk took one look at him, and it was clear from the look in their eyes that they knew.
At least they’d let him get dressed before he had to go down to the station. He didn’t think the cops would have wanted to drag him in naked, but considering how pissed off they were over the situation, he wouldn’t have been surprised.
After that, Xander knew there was no real point in keeping it to himself. The cat was out of the bag.
It didn’t afford him any special treatment. The police here weren’t the sort to give a shit about that sort of thing, and the fact that some of them were alpha wolves meant they got a little extra growly around him.
The warm-blooded shifters didn’t usually take so kindly to the cold-blooded ones, and the fact that Xander got paid big money to stand in front of a camera and pretend to do what they did was something that was also a bit of a piss off for them.
Luckily, despite a little growling on their parts, everything stayed professional. Xander had already gone through something like this once before, after he’d gotten out of the hospital with his face still healing from the shredding he’d been given. It took Xander a couple of hours before he was able to explain everything—his family, why they felt this need to come after him, Andrea, and then for the police to check on everything he said through their records.
It was all there. They had to let him go, but they did so with a warning that he hire more security, and they even offered him and Andrea a police escort until he could get some of his own people.
He would have turned them away had it not been for Andrea.
Xander could handle himself now. He’d proven that when he’d gone up against Bartley, and when he’d seen the appreciation for his new fighting spirit in Awnyay’s eyes.
Andrea.
Xander’s stomach sank when he finally got to see her at the front of the station, waiting for him by the front desk. She’d apparently filled out all her information and had received her phone back, and then she looked at him.
Xander was struck dumb, paralyzed with the terrifying thought that she could turn away from him. She could pretend to not even see him and get her own ride back to the resort. Hell, she could catch a cab directly back to the airport and he might never see her again after this.
Their relationship hadn’t survived the first attack. They didn’t really have a relationship now that could be broken. One round of lovemaking, and a few emotional confessions in the heat of the moment didn’t mean they had something there.
Something that could be spared.
Andrea smiled softly at him, an expression that made his heart pound for all the different meanings a look like that could hold, but then she reached her hand out to him, and there was only one thing that could mean.
He went to her, took her hand, and threaded their fingers together. The ache in his chest was as painful as though he was being rejected. He didn’t understand that. Sometimes a great happiness was enough to make a man hurt just as much as a great sadness, it seemed.
“You ready to get out of here?” he asked, pretending as if she wasn’t holding his heart in her hands and she could crush it at any moment.
“The second you are,” she said.
Xander sighed. He filled out the paperwork, grabbed his phone, and then he got out of there with his woman.
“THEY’RE EVENTUALLY GOING to come back.”
Andrea looked up at Xander. He leaned against the wall of her room, his arms folded as she packed her bags.
Because she was moving into his rooms. For her own safety, as well as because she wanted to. Wanted to be closer to him.
He’d looked happy enough when she’d asked to do that, but now, his mouth pursed, his gaze was firmly on the floor, as if he didn’t want to look at her, and it was clear he wasn’t so happy about this.
Andrea stood straight, stepping away from her bed where her two suitcases were wide open. “Will you be able to fight them off?”
He shrugged. “Hard to say. I’ll have some people with me to protect you if they come back for that, but there’s also…” He trailed off, seemed to struggle with something, and then plowed ahead. “I don’t want to give you any false hope of anything, just in case they come back for a fight, but there is also the chance they won’t want to fight me at all. Or at least, not seriously.”
Andrea went to him. She touched his shoulders, bending her knees just a little so she could get into his line of sight. She smiled at him when he was finally looking at her, and she was able to stand straight.
“So, you mean they won’t try to hurt us anymore?”
Xander scratched the back of his neck. “It’s possible. Dragons respect strength, warriors. I saw it in Awnyay, and even a little on Bartley. They were shocked I was holding my own. They might want to come back to test me a little more, and they’re never going to be happy with my chosen profession, but this might be enough to convince them to back off.”
“You learned how to fight and defend yourself for real and it’s going to be what drives them off, huh?”
“Basically, yes,” he said. He didn’t sound happy to admit that. He sounded upset, upset that he had to go through the trouble of learning how to fight to begin with just so he could defend her.
That didn’t sit well with her. Andrea didn’t want him to be bothered, upset, or angry about anything that was out of his control, and the need to do something about it, to comfort him, refused to be ignored.
She pushed herself up onto her toes. She kissed Xander’s scarred lips. They felt rougher than they looked, and they made her love him all the more. Those scars were a reminder of how much he’d fought to defend her the first time those people had come for him, and this time when they’d come, because of her, he’d been able to keep himself, and her, safe.
She pulled back from his mouth, looking up at him, sorry it had to even come to this to begin with. “I’m sorry I brought them back to you.”
Xander’s gaze was understanding, his hands sliding up and down her arms. “I’m sorry they came to you to begin with.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry.”
“Well, I don’t want you to be sorry either.” He smiled at her. “I think we might be stuck with it.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. Her guilt was still there, but also the relief of knowing he didn’t blame her for her part in the attack.
It had been especially hard to explain that to the police.
“I was supposed to meet you here at a romantic, tropical resort, and I kind of ruined it.”
“Well, we’re still here,” Xander said. “The resort upgraded my room, too, so it’s not too bad. We can still enjoy ourselves.”
“I’m still having trouble believing there was a room better than the one you already had,” she said. “You had a fireplace and a dining room.”
He grinned at her. “Lifestyles of the rich and the famous.”
“And I think your brother smashed an actual piano.”
She shouldn’t have said that; the reminder brought back the scowl that had been on his face. The reminder that they had come so close to losing absolutely everything.
She touched his face, her palm sliding over his cheek, as though she could soothe the frown away with that alone. “Don’t be mad.”
He grabbed her by her wrists, and she could see the fire in his eyes as his inner dragon struggled to come out. It was both nerve wracking and erotic as all hell to see.
“How can I not be mad? Jesus Christ, this was the second time this happened and I still couldn’t keep them away from you.”
“You actually did a better job than you’re giving yourself credit for,” Andrea said, smiling, trying to make light of the situation. “See me? Right h
ere? Completely safe.”
Xander growled. “I should have worked harder. I should have been better. My teacher would have been disappointed if he could have seen me.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d referenced a mentor of some kind since they’d left the police station, and she had to admit, she was curious.
“Who did you train with? Was it one person? Or a lot of people?”
“One, in the end.” Xander briefly looked away from her, his eyes casting downwards, his thumbs sliding across the flesh of her wrists. “I went to plenty of different people, some shifters, some humans, but all were alphas in their own right.” He finally looked at her, and the vulnerability Andrea could see in his eyes was something she wished she could take away from him, but if he needed to let this out, then she was going to listen. “In the end, I settled on one person. An old fox shifter, if you could believe it.”
That got Andrea’s brows lifting. “A fox?”
Xander smirked. “I know, you would think it would have been a wolf, or a hawk, but there is something to be said about training under a cunning animal. He made it so that I didn’t see too much of this anymore when I looked in the mirror.” He pointed at the scars on his face. “When I got work done on my face, I almost didn’t want to do it. Somehow, having the scars be deep and red and angry seemed better. But now that you’re here…”
He trailed off. He didn’t need to finish.
Andrea moved her hands to his face, needing to touch him. The scars were still bad, but she supposed she could see the logic he was using here.
“They were your battle scars.”
He’d had to survive in order to get them.
“Yeah. Pretty dumb that I wish I hadn’t gotten any work done on my face, huh?”
“No, I think it’s normal, and if you didn’t want to do anymore work, then that’s fine. I’m going to stay here with you no matter what.”
“What if I did want to get more work done? Say I landed a part and I couldn’t refuse it.” He was smiling now. At least that was something. That was a good sign she could get behind.
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