by Leilani Love
“Call me if you need me for anything at the bar or if Alyssa goes into labor. Hope, I think has a couple of cars-full of presents she mentioned wanting to bring over.”
He heard Robert chuckle behind him as he closed the door. Getting on the bike, he took a deep breath. Damien could feel his wolf eager to get home to their mate; he, however, felt very conflicted. Kassandra was everything he wanted in a woman, smart, funny, responsive in bed, but she was also a dragon who was fighting in a war over power. He was okay with her being a thief, people did what they had to do to survive but that didn’t mean they went looking for war. His parents were killed over power and he was determined not to lose anyone else.
Pushing the bike up toward the road in case Alyssa had fallen back to sleep, he started his bike and headed back home. This early in the morning, there was very little traffic and he found himself getting home in record time. At least that was what he was telling himself and not the fact that he was going almost eighty the entire way.
CHAPTER 22
Not sure how long he would be or where he even went, Kassandra went through his fridge and decided to make eggs and sausage. If he wasn’t home by the time she was done cooking, she could put it in the oven and keep it warm for him. After the sausage was cooked, she started working on the eggs. Making extra in case Hope came over this morning, she started to make her plate. Hearing his bike pull up, she felt a weight lifted from her shoulders and made him a plate.
Finding a glass container, she put the rest aside for Hope. Kassandra knew Damien would come back, it was his home after all but she still felt better knowing he was finally home. The alarm sounded when he opened the door and she grabbed the plates she’d made and walked toward the living room, since that seemed to be where he liked to eat.
Setting down their plates she turned to see him standing near the bottom of the stairs. Feeling uncomfortable and unsure of herself she smiled at him, “You haven’t eaten yet have you? I made eggs and sausage and was going to grab us both a cup of coffee. You take yours black, right?”
“Yeah, thank you. Give me one minute. I’ll be right back.” Damien turned and headed up the stairs, leaving Kassandra standing in the living room with two plates full of slowly cooling breakfast food.
When he came down, Damien took the chair opposite her. “Thanks for making this,” he said, casting his eyes downward and not saying another word throughout the whole meal.
Just as Kassandra rose from her chair to clear the plates, a soft knock sounded at the door. Hope entered and quickly surveyed the scene.
“Hi Hope,” Kassandra said, forcing a smile. “There are eggs and sausage in the oven if you’re hungry.”
“Sit,” Hope said, “I’ll go make my plate and come back with a knife so I can cut the tension.”
With that small joke, she left the room and Kassandra sighed as she sat back down. Her hunger gone, she sipped on her coffee. She didn’t drink coffee everyday but she had to admit that first little rush of caffeine truly was blissful.
“If you’re finished, I can take your plate in the kitchen with mine,” he said.
“Thanks,” Kassandra whispered as he rose.
Hope brushed past Damien as she walked into the living room. She shot her brother a look. “Dumbass,” she muttered under her breath.
A small laugh escaped Kassandra, easing some of her tension. Hope met her gaze and rolled her eyes. “Seriously, I love my brother, but sometimes I feel I need to smack him upside the head for him to see what’s right in front of him.”
“My dragon mate and my conniving sister are what’s in front of me, no need to hit me,” Damien said as he returned to the living room and sat on the chair opposite the couch.
Hope shrugged. She didn’t look the least bit apologetic at being caught talking about him.
Hope ate quickly while Kassandra did her best to look at everything but Damien. In her head, Kassandra heard Viktor’s voice: Karma’s paying you back for meddling with Aithne and me by trying to make me jealous.
Once Hope was finished, she got up to take her plate to the kitchen, “When I get back, you’re opening that package from Dmitri and then whatever you did wrong, you really need to apologize to Kassandra.”
Hope huffed off, and Kassandra’s eyes flew to Damien’s. For a fleeting moment, she thought she saw regret. “Thank you for cooking breakfast this morning,” Damien murmured.
Kat nodded and gave him a quick smile. “You’re welcome. I wasn’t sure if…” Kassandra let her voice trail off.
“Sorry, I thought about writing you a note, letting you know I was going out for a quick ride, but thought I would make it back before you woke up.” Damien looked apologetic and she nodded, not sure what else to really say.
She would be lying if she said that after watching Chase and Violca and Viktor and Aithne that she hadn’t imagined what it would be like to meet her mate. She imagined him to be a good man, strong, protective, someone who would fight by her side. Damien was a good man, but from what she’d learned about him, if it wasn’t a bar fight—he avoided it at all cost.
Hope walked back in the room and plopped back down next to her. “So, from the mark on Kassandra’s neck and the silence in the room, it looks like you two forgot to talk last night. I’d like to lecture you, brother, about being pigheaded, but I find I’m way too curious about what Dmitri gave you last night.”
With a sigh, Damien finally picked the cloth-wrapped package off the table. He frowned as he untied the ribbon.
“It looks like a journal,” he said. He flipped through the pages, and something caught his attention. His lips moved silently as he read the words. When he looked up, his eyes traveled to his sister. “I think this might have belonged to our mom,” he whispered.
Hope inhaled sharply. “Are you sure? How would a dragon end up with our mother’s journal?”
Kassandra ached for Damien, yet she knew she should leave brother and sister to chat. “I’m just going to go clean up the mess I made in the kitchen while you two talk.”
When she walked past Damien she couldn’t help but touch his shoulder in comfort. He surprised her by reaching up and taking her hand. “Thank you,” he mouthed as he gently kissed it. Kassandra gave him a small, encouraging smile. When she was done in the kitchen, she’d discreetly sneak upstairs. She needed to call Aithne and Viktor and update them on what had happened with Dmitri last night.
CHAPTER 23
Damien didn’t know what came over him when he kissed Kassandra’s hand. I know I surprised her, he thought to himself. I wonder if—
“Damien . . . Damien, what does it say?” Hope’s voice shook him out of his thoughts.
Damien glanced down at the oddly familiar handwriting. He could feel Hope’s eyes on him as he read a few words. “It looks like our mom knew what was coming. She talks about seeing bits and pieces. She’s sad, and she wants to warn our father, but knows if she does she’ll alter what’s meant to be.” Damien’s words were barely a whisper as his eyes quickly scanned the pages. When his mother started to talk about Hope’s mating, he closed the book. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kassandra climb the stairs.
“Why did you close the book? I want to know what it says!” she said as she grabbed the book from his hands.
Hope, he noticed was speed reading through the second half of the book. Hope was flipping through the pages faster than he ever could. Her eyes narrowed and she read one page twice. “Our mom knew that Lazzaro would take care of us. She mentioned actually taking the time to meet him before the fire. She made sure he was in the right place at the right time to overhear and save us.”
There was a part of Damien that was angry that she took the time to make sure that they would be safe, but didn’t avoid the house fire that killed her and their father. He remembered reading a passage about fate. According to his mother, if one avoided one’s fate, the consequences were always bigger and way worse than whatever you tried to avoid.
If that was
true, then how could his mother have arranged for them to survive? If the Fates were so fucking perfect, how could they have picked that asshole Warrick to be Hope’s mate? He killed their parents and he tried to kill them. He had to know they were still alive, because as long as Hope was living, the animal in him wouldn’t let him physically be with another female. Damien lived in constant fear that one day Warrick would try and kill Hope.
Damien looked upstairs at his closed door. Would Kassandra betray him like Warrick did Hope? Could he be as strong as Hope if Kassandra betrayed him?
Damien turned to Hope, seeing her well-concealed sadness shine through her eyes. “She’s not him, you know. You deserve to give her a chance. I know you don’t want to fight, but you know one day there’ll be no choice. Lazzaro can’t hide us forever, and it seems like every few months, wolves from our pack show up. He’s abusing our pack and our people, Damien…”
“The same people who welcomed him after he killed our parents, the ones who let him take over the clan and didn’t fight him. They didn’t even look for us!” They’d had this fight before. Neither one of them able to persuade the other. Hope spent time with the newest one who broke away and somehow found themselves eventually at Lazzaro’s doorstep. Damien was convinced that somehow the Vampire King planned that out.
“Damien,” she sighed, sounding like she was asking God to give her strength.
Despite himself, Damien’s lips pulled up in a smile. That either meant she was about to give him a lecture that he better ‘not be too thick headed to listen to her’ or ‘I’m done arguing and going to leave you to mess up by yourself’ sigh. When she opened her mouth he figured it was the former.
“When you thought Kassandra was just some thief, you were more than willing to look past that,” Hope said. “But now that you know she’s a dragon working for her king, you draw the line, as if she’s done something wrong. Maybe the problem is that your mate is willing to do something you yourself are too scared to do. To stand up for what you believe in and fight for it.”
Hope stood, clutching the book to her chest. “You can either, sit here and watch your mate walk out the door or fight for her. With her. While you’re thinking about what to do, I’m going to take this home and read it.” She bent down and kissed his cheek. “Don’t mess this up.”
With that simple statement, she left leaving him alone with Kassandra. Damien looked back up the stairs. His stomach twisted and his wolf growled in protest in his head at the thought of losing Kassandra. He wondered what she was doing up there.
What was he going to do? Why couldn’t she just have been a human thief? As a human, she might have freaked out about him being a wolf, but he doubted any human would ever put themselves in the middle of a supernatural war. But Kassandra. She was a dragon—a dragon with a mission. In his heart, he knew there was nothing he could do to stop her from fighting. He also knew that trying to lock her up would result in her resenting him…and possibly Kassandra burning his house down.
His bedroom door creaked, and Kassandra walked down the stairs, stopping in front of him. “Why did Hope leave?”
Damien instinctively reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her to his lap. Once she was settled he took a deep breath. “I think she left so she could read my mother’s journal in peace.”
The smile Kassandra gave him made it impossible for him not to smile back. “What was the excuse she gave?”
Damien slid his hand up and down Kassandra’s arm. He didn’t miss the look of confusion on her face. This morning he had pushed her away, but after seeing his mother’s journal, all he wanted to do was hold her close. “She threatened me and left.”
Her face softened, and she laughed. Then Damien became more serious. “So tell me, why did you choose to meet me in the bar and not just break into my house?”
She tilted her head, clearly thinking about her words carefully as she cast her eyes downward. “I went to the bar to meet you. With my ability, I could have easily broken in after everyone left, but I was curious about you.”
Damien barely suppressed a smirk. “So you wanted me?”
Kassandra let out a snort and shot him a dirty look. “Maybe I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”
Damien roared with laughter and finally let up when he saw the furious look on her face. He felt Kassandra try to pull away and he tightened his arms around her. “Kat, my love, the Fates have decided I’m the one for you. It’s all right to admit you wanted me.”
As she rolled her eyes, he couldn’t help but find her adorable. He also knew that admitting so would probably land him in more hot water. “So do you often use your skills to break into people’s houses and drug them?”
She gave him a wicked grin. “Not often, and I’m also not in the habit of sleeping with guys I met hours before. So drugging them has always been easier and quieter than knocking them out.”
A growl escaped him as he imagined her using those same tricks on other men. “You will not be going on any more missions for your king.”
Kassandra struggled out of his grasp and stood, a surprisingly somber look on her face, her hands on her hips, her eyes shooting fire at him. “You don’t get to tell me what to do just because we fucked and you bit me. Despite what you think, I can make my own decisions and I will not quit fighting for my people. Just because you chose to hide from yours, doesn’t mean I’ll suddenly make that same decision.”
Damien stood and grabbed her wrist, yanking her so close that they were face to face. “Let’s get one thing straight, Kitty Kat—you bit me first. You don’t know anything about me. And before you get this all twisted, no mate of mine is going to put herself in harm’s way.”
Kassandra gave his hand a hard jerk forcing him to release her and stepped away. She didn’t speak, just stood there staring at him. His eyes noticed the red hand prints he’d left on her wrist and he winced realizing he had caused her pain. The fact that Kassandra was quiet instead of instantly yelling at him made him nervous. He was not wrong and he would not back down.
“Then I guess despite the fact that I bear your mark, I am clearly no mate of yours. I refuse to stay home and hide when the hunters and Dmitri’s men are attacking my people. The hunters’ numbers are growing, and it’s only a matter of time before they come after you or your sister. Just because you shut your eyes to it, doesn’t mean it’s going to go away.”
She turned and walked upstairs, leaving Damien speechless. Damien felt like an ass. He shouldn’t have put his hands on her. He wanted to apologize, but refused. If she continued to fight, he’d lose her—just like he’d lost everything in his life but Hope.
CHAPTER 24
Alone in Damien’s room, Kassandra quickly gathered her belongings. Stupid, arrogant wolf, thinking he can tell me what I can and can’t do. Even Viktor and Chase, who were both overly protective of their mates, never went so far as to forbid Aithne and Violca to stand up for themselves.
In the bathroom, she grabbed the few items she’d brought and threw the rest of her stuff in her overnight bag. She would probably regret not folding her clothes but right now she just wanted out of there as fast as possible. As she zipped up her boots, she did a quick check around the room. Sure she didn’t forget anything, she grabbed her bag and headed downstairs.
When she got to the garage door, she felt Damien’s hand on her arm. His breath was on her ear as he whispered, “Are you really leaving?”
Kassandra felt her heart tighten and she closed her eyes. She could feel his uncertainty as acutely as she felt her own. Since the connection between them was so new, sometimes it was hard distinguishing between her own feelings and his, especially when the emotions were similar. “Do you still think you can tell me what to do?
There was a long pause before he finally took a step back and released her arm. Kassandra instantly felt the loss of his touch. “I’ll give you a ride to the hotel,” she heard him say as she opened the door. “You can send for your bike later.”
Her words got stuck in her throat, so she simply nodded yes and walked to the truck. This time he didn’t open the door for her; instead he took her bag, walked around the truck, and threw it behind his seat. Silence stretched between them as he started the truck and backed out.
A few minutes into the ride, Damien’s phone rang. Kassandra tried not to listen, but it was hard not to hear Alyssa’s panicked voice on the other line. Apparently Robert wasn’t answering his cell or the bar number.
Kassandra smiled as Damien tried to calm her down, explaining that Robert was most likely helping unload a delivery. “Alyssa, I need you to relax and think of the baby. Kassandra and I are going to check on him now. I promise to call you from the bar.”
Damien hung up, and gave her an apologetic smile. “Thank you, it’s actually not normal for Robert to not answer the phone. With her being so close to her due date, Robert keeps his phone on him all the time.”
“He doesn’t seem like the type of guy that would intentionally worry his very pregnant mate,” Kassandra said, and Damien nodded in agreement.
It didn’t take long to get to the bar. When Kassandra and Damien got to the bar, they found a single Black F-150 parked outside. “That’s Robert’s,” Damien said as he pulled up next to it. Kassandra got out with him and inhaled deeply, smelling a mix of stale beer and cheap perfume from the bar and parking lot. With all the different scents, it was hard to tell if anyone but Robert was here.
Kassandra followed Damien to the entrance. “So,” he said, just before opening the door, “what are the chances you would wait for me in the truck?”
She couldn’t help but snort. Damien let out a long sigh and nodded, signaling for her to walk behind him. When they got inside, nothing looked out of the ordinary, but the deeper they went into the bar, Kassandra could feel her dragon itching just below the surface. From the way Damien was acting, she could tell his wolf was picking up on the same thing.
