With him, she was safe. He only needed to let her know.
But his gaze slid past her, to the lake beyond. The waves were growing larger and larger. Zane was still in the lake. His old friend was the invisible threat that they all felt. The clan still couldn’t find a way to free him. They didn’t know if Sybil had crawled away to die, or if the witch was still alive and cackling somewhere.
They weren’t wolves. The dragon shifters had heightened senses of smell, but it couldn’t track as well as some other shifters. Finding Sybil was next to impossible. They just had to wait for the witch to die on her own. That, or hope that some unsuspecting woman stumbled into Zane’s arms. Not like that was going to happen.
Asher had found a piece of his heart in the dark-haired fox woman, but now he feared the possibility of losing her. Zane had nearly taken her from him before he could even fall for her. Asher might have gone his entire life after that, not knowing that he’d failed her. His heart clenched at the idea.
All Asher wanted was to keep Zara safe. It seemed the world would fight him every step of the way. He could take punches for her. He could be the impenetrable wall she needed, but he didn’t know if he could stop his own life from hurting her.
Unable to stay in bed and deal with his own tumultuous thoughts, Asher got up and joined Zara. She was so absorbed by her work that she didn’t notice him. So, he went about making himself a cup of coffee and even ordered breakfast again while he watched her.
“When does the new semester start at the local college?”
Zara jumped. The brush zagged across the canvas, leaving behind an unruly smear.
Asher cursed himself under his breath. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m so sorry. Is it salvageable?”
Zara laughed, completely nonplussed, and began blending the rogue color into the background. It was like the smear had never been there at all. Asher was, frankly, impressed. He could never manage something like that. With her hands, Zara was capable of creating and controlling entire worlds. There was a vision of the lake on the canvas that he had never seen before.
All he could do was get socked in the head. His mate was truly his better half.
Once the smear was taken care of, she turned toward a blanket tossed into a corner of the room. Asher cocked his head, confused.
“Classes start in a week.” Her shoulders rose toward her ears. She dropped her brush, tossing it into the small holder on the easel.
Asher dragged a chair toward her before sitting and laid a hand on her knee. “You don’t have to be someone you’re not.”
Zara said nothing. She drew her gaze up from the floor. Asher’s heart leapt then plummeted when she glared at the canvas before her. She looked at it like it was her greatest mistake ever. Asher’s heart broke.
“For a while, I forgot about everything,” she said, her voice small and so unlike herself.
Asher struggled to find the right thing to say, the words that would remind her that he was taking care of her worries. Before he could say anything, Zara pushed the easel back and stood.
He sighed and stared at her painting. In it was life and hope and the things she hadn’t allowed herself to feel. Zara had every right to live her life. Pressure came down on her from every person in her life, even herself. She urged herself to become someone distant and unreachable because she wanted to break away from those hounding her.
Asher threw back the last of his coffee, wishing he’d spiked it with a bit of something harder. They couldn’t lock themselves inside all day. He doubted he alone would be able to distract Zara from the things bothering her. Once again, she was glaring at the blanket tossed in the corner.
He waited for her to head toward the shower before picking up the blanket. Underneath it were her schoolbooks. Without saying more, he dropped the blanket back where it’d been. Those books weren’t her future. All he had to do was convince her of that.
He meant it when he told her that she didn’t have to be someone she wasn’t. On the way to the bathroom, Asher dropped his boxer briefs and kicked them toward the hamper in the corner of the room. Absolutely naked, he joined Zara. While she was scowling when he entered, her expression quickly shifted.
The way she drew her lip between her teeth when she looked at his dick made it hard.
“Did you install this shower to seduce all the women? It’s big enough for a small orgy.” Zara finger-combed her braids away. It left her hair tousled.
Asher was about to muss it up even more. “I’ve never actually made love to anyone in this shower before. It’s seen almost no ass at all.”
Her lips twisted, like she thought it was a lie, but the way she looked at him after told him she wouldn’t mind buying it for a little while. He’d told the truth, actually. Asher wasn’t the man he used to be. His dragon’s loneliness couldn’t be satisfied by women who would stay for only a single night.
Zara had stayed for two, now. He hoped it was the beginning of many more. Many, many more. She brightened up the empty house. With her, there was life to it. The place he once hated was no longer the same. Now, he couldn’t wait to spend long days cooped up with Zara. He could play handheld games while she painted. Then, when he had fights, he could take her to see the world and inspire more art.
Asher had a whole future planned for a woman he wasn’t even sure would stay. Zara wasn’t looking for a tough idiot like him. She wanted soft and secure. He couldn’t change who he was. Changing for someone never worked. Could she come to want him the way he wanted her?
When she knelt before him and drew him into her mouth, he believed she could. Zara rubbed her cheek along his cock and purred like a pleased kitten. He had to brace himself against the wall to keep his knees from buckling. Zara used her lips and tongue to nearly bring him to climax.
With a growl, he yanked her from the floor, spun her around, and found her opening. Never to ignore her needs, he reached to find the bead of pleasure hidden between her folds. He stroked it as he entered her and brought them both to a quick climax.
Zara’s grin was brighter than he’d ever seen before. He almost didn’t want to kiss her for fear of losing it forever. She was the one to rise on her tiptoes and kiss him, though. She nibbled his lips. He repaid the favor by softly pinching one of her nipples.
This was his dream life. He never wanted it to end. If she stayed, he would never need another bottle of whiskey. It would be champagne every night, because every day with her was a celebration.
11
Their shower was cut short when the clan let themselves inside the lake house. He heard them, all talking amongst themselves, and groaned in disappointment. They rushed to get out of the shower. Asher spared a few minutes to watch Zara get dressed. She pulled on a black lace bralette and matching panties. Over that, she donned ripped black jeans and a black and pink psychedelic shirt with a ribcage on the front.
Super goth. Super cute. All his.
The best part was that he knew what she was wearing underneath it now. Only Asher knew what she looked like in her bra and panties. Only he knew what she looked like when she experienced her second orgasm or caressed his cock. Because he had the feeling that what they had was different from her previous relationships.
There was often an awkwardness in her motions, like she had second-guessed herself for the briefest second. The little glitches didn’t bother him. He would wait a millennium for her. So long as she stayed.
When they stepped out into the living room and the clan saw them, a few jaws dropped.
“And so, the clan grows again,” Cole said. His wife grinned.
“Oh, I’m not joining,” Zara corrected. “I have a pack back home. Asher invited me to stay with him until someone stopped bothering me.”
The break of Asher’s heart was nearly audible. He expected his entire clan to hear. Instead, Buffy laughed.
“Oh, that’s what you think. Just you wait. These assholes suck you in and then you realize you don’t want to be anywhere else.
I came here for a vacation and stayed. You’re probably not escaping either.”
That was the wrong thing for Buffy to say. Zara’s face fell. Fear flashed over her features for a hot second. Asher fumbled to find the right thing to do, but he came up empty handed. He was a failure.
Jude clapped her hands together. “No matter why you’re here, we’d like to invite you to our outing. We try to do group activities once in a while to make sure we can still function as a team. You’re welcome to join us. Or not. Your choice.”
The short haired dragon woman acted like everything was fine, when she insinuated that they weren’t going to let Zara go. Panic hit her for the first time in twenty-four hours. It seized her heart and made it hard to breathe.
All the dragon woman had said was that they made family out of everyone. That was it. Zara wasn’t being forced to do anything. She had to remind herself that. If she wanted to leave, she could. She wasn’t trapped with anyone.
Zara hated the knee-jerk reaction her brain had. The dragons were trying to be welcoming, and Zara saw it as a threat. Her mind was messed up from everything she’d endured. She didn’t know if she would ever be able to live freely. There was a possibility that everything would be a threat for the rest of her life.
She dreaded that existence almost as much as she dreaded her classes. Soon, she would have to drag herself out of bed every day and trudge to the boring lectures. Her instructors would drone on about online marketing techniques and try to fill her head with terminology that she could barely remember.
Casting one more glance back at the covered books and the easel, Zara told herself she could use some time away. It wasn’t like her ex-fiancé could bother her if she was surrounded by a clan of dragons.
Actually, she would have paid to watch the clan intimidate the tenacious old man. Maybe all together they would be able to rid her of her biological family’s expectations once and for all. There was no way the foxes would pit themselves against seven dragon shifters. Zara still couldn’t believe that she’d come across dragon shifters in Michigan. Least of all ones that were willing to treat her like one of them.
On the way out the door, Asher brushed his fingers against hers. His smile was stretched and there was a distance between them that hadn’t been there in the shower. It wasn’t just the physical space that separated them. It was more than that.
Zara didn’t know what had changed. Had he expected to keep her away from his clan while she stayed with him? The lake house was wonderful, but she didn’t mind meeting his family.
They were all dragons. She couldn’t believe how many of them there were. And they were all gorgeous. The leader had luscious dark hair that tumbled down her back and eyes that glimmered like gold in the light. Her mate was like her shadow. He was never far behind her. The short haired dragon woman was bouncy and bubbly, the total opposite of her grim mate. Then there was a woman who looked like she should be the vocalist for a punk band. Vibrant tattoos climbed her supple limbs. The man that followed close behind her could have been on the cover of a fashion magazine. His ash brown hair had a silver gleam in the light and his green eyes were like stunning emeralds.
She felt out of place among them. Here there were so many strong and beautiful shifters. The women were the kind of people that Chelsea would have fit in with. They were far prettier than Zara ever considered herself. She didn’t quite belong here.
Maybe that was a sign that her time among them was limited. No, that’s exactly what it was. Zara reminded herself that she needed to fall for someone soft and patient. Dragons were not what she had in mind.
Yet, as she stole a glance at Asher, she remembered all the times he was gentle with her. When he wiped her leg clean after they made love. The night that he carried her to his bed so she could sleep in solitude. Asher was more than just a brute, but she couldn’t allow herself to forget his brutish side.
Zara leaned into Asher. “Are you the only one who’s unmated?”
12
His stomach flipped. The beast inside him had bonded to her, but he feared she would never bond to him. So, Asher said nothing. He just flashed her a quick smile before leading her outside with everyone else.
Asher couldn’t tell her that he considered her his mate. She was still so afraid of being forced into anything that if he mentioned this, she would definitely run as far away as possible. He wasn’t sure what he would do if she left him now. His dragon would push him to go after her, but it would only push her further away.
The best he could do was keep his mouth shut until she came to the same decision. If that ever happened.
“It’s Asher’s turn to pick the group activity,” Jude said.
They needed to work on their communication skills. If he’d known this in advance, then he could have arranged something. There weren’t many places that could easily fit eight people, let alone eight big shifters. He grumbled something that Jude caught. She lifted a brow at him, a clear warning not to talk back, but Asher wasn’t intimidated by his new clan leader.
Jude wasn’t Alistair. She was nothing like the megalomaniac that led the guys when they were younger. She had patience and a protective streak that encompassed everyone who ever passed through her life. Just a week ago, Jude had called in a favor from her cousin and sent a whole clan of metallic dragons to visit Charlie’s old clan.
“Fine. If it’s my turn to pick, then we’re going to the gym.”
His clan groaned in unison. Zara gave him a funny look, but he assured her that it would be fun. Asher wanted to teach her to defend herself. Even if he couldn’t keep her, then he could at least show her how to kick that fat fox’s ass. No one would ever touch her against her will.
The gym was just outside of town in a massive concrete warehouse that had been refurbished for exercise. It was owned by a local shifter from the pack in town. He’d outfitted the gym with all kinds of reinforcements for shifters. There was even a boxing ring that Asher had sparred in a couple of times.
“Just a second,” Asher told Zara.
He ran into the men’s locker room to grab a pair of sweatpants for her. When he pressed them into her hands, she looked up at him in confusion.
“I don’t think you’ll want to practice any kicks in those pants.”
“Oh, uh. I was just going to stand on the sideline. I didn’t think I’d have to participate. It’s not like I’m strong enough to keep up with you and the others.” Zara scowled at the fabric in her hands.
“That’s why we’re here. I’m going to show you how to kick some ass today. That way you’ll be able to put even me in my place.”
Zara didn’t look like she believed him, but she dutifully disappeared into the women’s locker room. When she returned, the pants hung low on her hips. They were too loose on her small frame and made her look a bit like a child.
Asher tightened the drawstrings at her waist and tied them off. It was a strangely intimate gesture that drew them closer. He liked being near her, smelling the sweet pumpkin aroma that clung to her skin. When the pants were tied off, he rolled the waistband a couple of times to pull the inseam up where it should be.
“This is actually really comfortable,” Zara said when he was done.
The clan gathered around the fighting ring. They sat back and watched her and Asher in the middle. He was trying to talk to her, to teach her how to throw a punch, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. It made her movements jerky and imprecise. Asher scowled, shook his head, and showed her how to do it for the thirtieth time.
She was counting.
A growl grated in the back of her throat. Asher had wrapped her hands to keep her from busting her knuckles, but the wraps just felt like constraints. She couldn’t move the way he wanted her to. She couldn’t hit hard enough. There was no escaping her inability to be what people wanted her to be.
Asher dropped his hands. He regarded her for a while. She paced like a caged animal. The ropes around the ring appeared to inch clos
er and closer. Then Asher waved his hand at the others. Zara didn’t pay attention to them, not wanting to know what was on their faces. One by one, they got up and left. Someone grumbled that this wasn’t a group activity, but there were no longer twelve eyes watching her.
She pulled her shoulders away from her ears and let out a breath. An ache blossomed in her chest, burning from the held breath she hadn’t realized she’d been keeping.
“I’m not doing this because I want you to be like me,” Asher told her, his voice low so that only she could hear. “I’m trying to teach you a few techniques so if that fat fox ever tries to approach you again, you can shove his fist up his own ass.”
Zara stopped her pacing and regarded him. “I didn’t know…”
He shrugged, affable as always. “I didn’t make it clear. But now you know. Let’s try this from the start. Punch me in the face. You’re always saying it’s so punchable.”
She backed up, uncertain all of a sudden. “That’s not what I meant. I mean that other people must want to punch you all the time.”
“Let’s be honest. I just made you perform in front of my whole family. I deserve to be smacked. I know you want to do it. If you can hit me in the face, then we can go home.”
Eyes narrowed at him, she realized this must be some sort of trick. There was no way that Asher would give up so easily. This was the dragon who had chased her through the woods, the man that jumped out of a boat to swim to shore when he saw her on the beach. Asher was a dogged kind of man.
Zara launched her fist at Asher’s face. One moment, he was there. The next, he wasn’t. She staggered forward into the empty space until Asher caught her from behind. She balked at his speed. If he was going to do that every time, she would never be able to land a hit on him.
Scowling, she turned around to tell him as much, but he was already gone. Asher moved with abandon, no longer bothering to hide what he was like he did on television. He was as fast as his dragon would allow. Laughter rang out around her as she spun to find him.
Asher (Keepers Of The Lake Book 4) Page 10
