“Did you… read the one from early this morning?”
“Dakota, I need—”
“Did you?” I shouted.
“Yes,” he growled.
I pulled the phone away from my face and stared at it. Then I brought it back to my ear. My voice came out a whisper, “Wow, Wyvern, every time I think, ‘hmm, maybe I should let Wyvern back into my life, he’s not really a psycho,’ you prove me wrong. You so prove me wrong.”
“We can talk about this later.”
“Um, no I’m thinking that we can talk about this right now.”
“I’m coming out there,” he said, and then he hung up.
I screamed at my phone and immediately Sophie ran into my room.
“What happened?” she asked, looking worried.
“He’s been spying on my unsent emails,” I yelled through my hands covering my face. “He knows that a vampire bit me, he knows about how obsessed I’ve been with him.” I smacked my hands against my forehead. “Ahhh!”
“What did he say about the Regina?”
“I didn’t even bring it up yet, I was a little distracted by the fact that he’d robbed me of all my privacy, again.”
“Dakota,” she snapped. “Call him back. You need to discuss the Regina with him!”
“I am not—”
“Your sister and mine are captive on a foreign vessel! Your romantic spats are really unimportant here, call him back!”
“I know, I… He’s coming here,” I said. “He just told me he was heading here, then hung up.”
“Give me your phone,” Sophie said, holding out her hand.
Tossing it to her like it was a hot potato, I felt relieved the moment it was out of my hand.
As Sophie walked out of the room, I turned back to my computer. I looked through to see if there were any old drafts of emails to Wyvern I hadn’t erased, but aside from the one I was writing a few minutes ago, I had already erased them all. Reading through his old emails, I tried to call up the responses I had written. When I remembered certain details, I cringed with humiliation. I would never have written the messages so honestly if I ever expected the emails to go through.
I was not even sure why I had written responses.
Opening a new email to Wyvern, I wrote:
I am so mad at you.
Knowing that it wasn’t needed as he obviously was probably already receiving this email, I pressed send.
Immediately, I got my response from him:
Ditto. On my way to plane now, I’ll see you in six hours, baby.
His email gave me an instant headache. Closing my eyes, I realized I had not slept in thirty hours, but I couldn’t sleep, there was still too much to do.
When Sophie finally returned my phone, I had the strongest temptation to call my older sister Clara. Clara was an expert at giving comfort. She’d left a big gaping hole in my life when she flown away to be a guest with Braiden’s family at the Dracon High Court two months ago.
Clara likely wouldn’t have any helpful insight about the situation, and I would just stress her out by telling her. Using her for comfort would be selfish. I wanted her to be happy there, she didn’t need my burden.
Almost too exhausted to think, I sent off a text to Honua, asking if she could set up a meeting with her grandmother.
Immediately I got a response. Hey Henchgirl, I’ve missed you! My grandmother is on another island, what’s this about?
I texted her the image of Mr. Kama’s tattoo. Then I sent the message: Humans with this symbol on their backs attacked my family. We’re in it deep.
A minute later I got the text: She will meet with you.
When and where? I sent.
One minute, she sent. Then after a couple minutes she sent: Someone will find you at your school tomorrow and give you the info for when and where.
I wasn’t planning on going.
I would consider going if I were you. Oh and she may ask something in return for the information; she says this is more than the favor that is owed.
I understand, I sent.
Did you know Vern is on his way here? Is that because of what is going on with you?
Yes.
Ooooohhh kissy, kissy, kissy. Her text pinged on my phone.
Shut up. I sent back, but I couldn’t help but smile at my phone as I did.
I have some info for you on our favorite sociopaths when we meet next.
Thanks. I sent.
Leaning my head on my arm on the desk, I searched the design from Mr. Kama’s tattoo on the internet, typing with one hand. I used words like ‘swirly tree’ and ‘line with a point on one end surrounded by pattern,’ but the images I found were all decorative vector images. My search words got more and more abstract, but still I found no matching results.
Someone shook my shoulder and I raised my head to gaze around dazedly. Wiping my cheek, I found it wet with drool.
“Dakota, you fell asleep on your desk. Move to your bed,” Sophie’s voice said.
Looking up at her, I saw three other figures in my room behind her. Blinking, I tried to bring them into focus. There was a short, dark-haired girl with a warm brown complexion who looked about my age, and two guys, one only a little taller, the other extremely tall, stood beside her. The shorter guy looked like he could be her brother, they shared a similar rounded facial structure. The other guy had a sandy-colored complexion, wide, blocky features and blond hair. Two things really stood out to me about them, all three of them were were-eagles and all three of them had huge smiles on their faces as they stared down at me.
“Who are you?” I asked, wiping the drool off my chin with my shoulder.
“This is the rest of your security team; you can meet them after you’ve slept.” Sophie practically lifted me from my desk chair and helped me to my bed.
Feeling like my limbs were weighted with lead, I let her tuck me into the bed.
“You should get some sleep, too, sweetheart,” the girl guard said with a southern New Anglo drawl. “If it’s all right, I’d be happy to stay here with the girlie.”
Sophie laid her forehead on the newcomer’s shoulder. “Thank you, Annie,” she whispered.
“Go on with ya,” the dark-haired Annie said.
“Would you like me to stay as well?” the blond guy said, when he glanced over at Annie, a pulse of affection overtook his soul, though his face was stony and professional.
“If you could guard the door, Brian?” Sophie said.
“Sophie, Ailani will meet me,” I said, my voice scratchy. “It sounds like she knows something.”
“Good,” I heard Sophie reply as I drifted off.
I woke to long arms lifting my upper body. Usually, if I woke feeling someone lifting me, I’d go for my gun, but I didn’t need to open my eyes to know who it was. The feel of his immense soul cocooned me, and I knew that I must have adjusted to it in my sleep.
His arm wrapped around my shoulders and he settled my head into the curve between his shoulder and collarbone that seemed to be made for my head to rest on. Where my arm touched his, the zinging sensation that I only ever felt when he was touching me spread up my arm and into my body.
He brushed my hair back from my face and rested his face on the top of my head. As I saw it, I had two choices: jump up and yell, ‘don’t you dare touch me!’ or pretend to still be sleeping. I was definitely leaning toward the second.
I had wanted this for three months, wanted this exact feeling of his arms around me, his skin touching mine.
As if he heard my thoughts, he whispered, “I forgot how perfect holding you felt.’
I took a deep breath in, then whispered, “If I let you hold me, will you think I’m not mad at you?”
“No,” he whispered back.
“Will you think we’re back together?”
“No.”
“Okay,” I whispered, letting my whole body relax.
“Has your cheek healed completely?” he whispered.
“Yes.
”
“I am going to kill him,” he said, voice low.
“No, you’re not. I’m going to take Reeves down. When I fix my grandfather, he will deal with him,” I said.
Wyvern didn’t respond and before long, I fell back asleep.
Chapter Eleven
Before the sun rose, I woke in Wyvern’s arms. My body tingled from head to toe.
Across the room, my clock glared out a bright green three-thirty. Three-thirty a.m. but I was completely awake. Beside me, Wyvern slept soundly with a small smile playing across his lips. He seemed to gleam in the sunlight, his skin and hair an ivory color one rarely saw on humans or dracons. Without his umber eyes, the only pigment he had on him was his lips and suit pants… because for some reason, he wasn’t wearing a shirt. So like the jerk to climb into my bed with me, uninvited, with no shirt on.
I shouldn’t have let him hold me. Mistakes like these were what constantly kept me in hot water. If he was going to force his way back into my life, I needed to set boundaries with him, strong boundaries, walls. I needed to distance myself from him and his touch… starting now.
Looking back up at him, I enjoyed one more minute of being tucked into his arms, then I forced myself to climb out and get the much needed distance.
Wyvern didn’t wake as I climbed away from him. He looked too large for my bed. He felt too large for my life.
His face was so beautifully familiar. His photo had plagued me in the months since I broke things off with him—it was on the newspapers I passed on the streets, if I wanted to buy a soda, his face shone out in glossy color from the magazines and tabloids on the store racks. I barely watched television now, knowing that his face would show up, ambushing me at any minute. But seeing his face serenely resting on my pillow, it was so different, so much more my Wyvern.
I turned away, making my feet take me out of the room and away from him. Entering the kitchen, I found a strange man going through my fridge, humming.
Taking three steps back, I reached to the back of my pants where I had pinned my little portal purse after getting it back from Sophie.
From here I could see that the man was a were-eagle. He stopped humming and froze his perusal of the fridge, obviously aware of my presence. “I am part of Ms. Kekoa’s security team,” he said from behind the refrigerator door.
I paused, unzipping the purse. The image of a girl and two guys standing behind Sophie swam up through my murky mind. I zipped the purse closed.
“Do you have any coffee?” I asked, my voice still coming out croaky.
The man finally closed the refrigerator door and smiled at me. “Sure. Actually it’s your coffee,” he said. I recognized him as the guard who had looked so similar to the girl guard. He poured a cup for me and then went to the refrigerator and got me some half-and-half out, setting it beside me.
“My name’s Ted, but you can call me Teddy.”
“Dakota. Thanks for the coffee.” I sat at the kitchen island.
“Are you hungry? I was going to make an early breakfast.” he asked.
I smiled back at him, his constant smiling felt contagious. “Teddy, I am starving, but you don’t have to make me anything. I’m just fueling before I get my lazy butt up.”
“It’s no problem. Do you like eggs?”
“I like anything,” I said. We settled into silence as Teddy cracked eggs into a pan.
“Can I ask you a question? I’m not sure if it’s personal or not…”
“Shoot,” he said.
“Are all security personnel were-eagles?”
He chuckled, and said, “No, not really. The were-eagles select a few of the best soldiers every graduating class and offer them infection.”
“You were top of your class?” I asked.
He turned to give me another wide grin. “Second. Can you guess who was first?” He bobbed his eyebrows at me.
“Sophie?”
“She gets it in one!”
I laughed. “Well, congrats on getting number two! That sounds really impressive.”
“Thank you, I felt pretty great about it, especially since I beat my sister.”
“Ha! I feel you on that one. Is that the other guard that was in my room last night?” I asked.
“Yeah, Annie,” he said.
Hopping off the barstool, I walked over to the bread box. “What kind of toast do you like? Andrew buys these fancy a-million-grain breads, but I always sneak some white bread into the box.” When Teddy didn’t answer I turned with a loaf in each hand.
Teddy stood there with a spatula in his hand and a contemplative expression on his face.
“What?” I asked. “Don’t like toast?”
“You’re not what I expected,” he said, then he grinned.
“How so?” I asked, not sure if I should be offended or not.
“Well, Sophie told us before we came that you were laid back and not pretentious, but I thought they meant not pretentious for a dracon,” he said.
“Is not pretentious code for unrefined?” I said, smirking.
“In a good way,” he said. “Oh, and I like my toast fancy.”
“Snob,” I said under my breath, and I heard Teddy chuckle. “I don’t know if anyone told you about my life stuff, but my grandfather actually brought me up to be a soldier. Not a soldier like you…” I waved my hand in negation. “How much do you know about my grandfather?”
“No worries, you don’t need to explain, I’ve been briefed.”
As our toaster worked its magic, I went to get some plates from the cupboard and set them next to the stove. “Thanks, well, I know that most of the rich fancy dracons of the mainland look down on my family as uncivilized, and most of my family members consider me uncouth.” I shrugged. “My grandfather and I never expected that I’d have to deal with the dracon hierarchy. We were both actually working pretty hard to prevent that.”
“As Annie always says, shit happens when you’re wearing new shoes.”
Laughing, I said, “That’s so funny, my uncle Bobby always says that.” The laughter died in my mouth. I shouldn’t be laughing right now. Bobby was missing, my sister captured, and my grandfather in serious danger. What was wrong with me?
“Is your uncle Bobby the one who’s missing?” Teddy said, his voice lowered as if he sensed my change in mood.
“Yeah,” I said in a quiet voice, turning to face him.
Teddy bowed very low. For a second I was confused, then I turned to see Wyvern entering the kitchen. He blinked around the room, not quite awake yet. He was wearing another one of his designer exercise outfits, the kind of outfit you doubted was really meant for sweating like a pig in.
His gaze found me, and then he crossed and sat down at the kitchen island.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“You snuck out of bed,” he said to me.
I glanced at Teddy, annoyed that Wyvern was giving him the very wrong idea. Teddy had returned to the stove, still as a statue.
“I slept over twelve hours and woke with a strange man in my bed. What did you expect? Toast?” I asked.
He gave me a smirk that made my breath hitch. “Strange, am I?” His hand ran through his hair, but somewhat jerked at the top of his head, and I saw all of his beautiful hair was gone. I hadn’t noticed when he was sleeping.
“When did you cut your hair?” I asked. It must have been recently. I definitely hadn’t seen his hair change in any of his newspaper pictures.
“For the Europan convention.” He rubbed the top of his head. “I’m still not used to it.”
Neither was I.
“Soldier, could you give us a couple minutes?” Wyvern asked Teddy.
Teddy turned off the stove, bowed low again before he walked straight out of the room.
I pointed to where Teddy just disappeared to. “Seriously? He was making himself and me some food.” Crossing to the pan, I served some of the eggs on the plate with Teddy’s toast. I grabbed a fork from the drawer and crossed the room.
“Where are you going?” Wyvern asked.
“To take Teddy his food, I’ll be right back,” I found him standing sentinel a short distance away.
Handing him his plate, I said, “I’m sorry about that.”
He smiled, taking the plate. “There’s absolutely nothing to apologize for. Thank you for the food.”
“Thank you, you’re the one who made it.”
Walking back into the kitchen, I found Wyvern still smirking. “I forgot how cute you were when you’re annoyed.”
“Shut up,” I said, dishing eggs onto my plate. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m fine,” he said.
Taking the seat beside him on the kitchen island, I started in on my breakfast. I ate slowly. There was a conversation we needed to have, but I just wasn’t quite ready to have it. When I started on my toast, Wyvern picked up my fork and started eating my eggs.
“I thought you weren’t hungry?” I said. “I’ll get you some eggs of your very own.”
“I don’t want my own eggs,” he said, forking another bite.
Rolling my eyes, I got up to pour the rest of the eggs onto my plate and get myself a fork.
“How long are you staying here?” I asked him, not looking up.
“Until we save your family,” he said.
Hot tears splashed from my eyes and onto my cheeks. “Thank you.”
“Dakota.” Wyvern grabbed my chair and with a loud screeching sound, he moved it, and me, so I faced him and was pulled closer. Using his thumbs, he wiped the tears off my cheeks. “I’m done being apart from you. You know I don’t want it, and I know that you don’t want it either, and it’s gone on for too long.”
“Wyvern, you only know about my feelings because you were spying on my emails. The fact that you hacked into my email only emphasizes that I can’t be with you. Can’t you understand where I’m coming from?”
“I needed to know how you felt, Dakota. And we both know that you were never going to tell me.” His dark brown eyes begged me to understand.
“I didn’t tell you how I felt because it doesn’t change anything,” I said. I paused for a long minute before asking, “Will you still help me even knowing that we’re not going to get back together?”
Rex (Dakota Kekoa Book 2) Page 10
