Alphas of Summer: A collection of shifter romances

by Lia Davis

Chapter 7

  This was certainly not how Pahlin had envisioned bringing a woman back to his house. What the hell was he going to do? Ariv was probably looking for him, to say nothing of Violet’s employee who’d seen him go outside after her. They probably thought he had hurt her, and Fidhur had likely spun some story to make himself look good. If he was as clever as he was dishonorable, he would report Pahlin to the Gatekeepers and claim that he was the one to compel Violet and assaulted Fidhur for trying to intervene.

  “Vazredakh,” he muttered. He couldn’t control that now. And he didn’t have his phone, so he couldn’t call Ariv to ask him to come up with a story. He’d handed Violet his clothes, hoping she would have the presence of mind to hold onto them for the flight. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to him that seeing him transform into his dragon form would shock her into dropping them, along with his phone.

  One thing was certain. Fidhur had compelled her. Pahlin had assumed it was to make her compliant for his advances, but as soon as she’d gotten her hands on Pahlin, she’d been happy to change targets. He suspected that she’d be satisfied with bedding any man she could get her hands on. He was a bit ashamed to say that his body lagged slightly behind his moral compass. When she’d touched him, he’d been more than eager to take her up on her offers. She’d been painting quite the picture with both her words and her hands, but he couldn’t take advantage of her under a compulsion. This was exactly the sort of thing that was forbidden by the Gatekeepers. And even if it wasn’t, it was so profoundly distasteful and dishonorable that he was disgusted with his own body for responding to her advances.

  The door rattled against his back. “Paul, if you let me out, we can have some fun,” Violet pleaded. “I know you want to. Or you can come in here. I’m naked.”

  “Violet, go to sleep,” Pahlin said, trying not to picture her.

  “And I’m lonely in here.” There was a coy desperation in her voice that didn’t suit her. The uncharacteristic sound made him angry all over again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Go to sleep.”

  More pounding came, but this time it was from the front door. Before Pahlin could get up to answer it, the door swung open. He had left it unlocked in his hurry to usher Violet inside before someone heard her shouting. Most of his neighbors were also Kadirai or Edra, but it wouldn’t do for them to see him naked on the lawn with a human woman bellowing at the top of her lungs. The situation did not paint the kindest picture of Pahlin.

  Ariv rushed in, hurriedly yanking on his pants. The sheen of sweat on his shoulders and chest told Pahlin he’d also transformed in a hurry to get here. He tossed a bundle of clothes onto the living room floor as he entered. “What happened to you?” he demanded in Kadirai. “I leave you at the bar for five minutes, and when I turn around you’re gone. No bartender, no Pahlin. Just your clothes in the parking lot.”

  “I know,” Pahlin said. “It’s a crazy story. So—”

  “Who’s out there?” Violet demanded.

  “You can’t be serious,” Ariv said. “Vazredakh. Tell me that’s not the bartender.”

  “It’s the bartender.”

  “Hey, we could all three have some fun,” Violet said. “Paul, is that your friend?”

  Ariv’s eyes went wide. “What did you do to her?”

  “I didn’t do anything! Do you really think I would do such a thing?” Pahlin said. “Fidhur did something to her.” Speaking quietly and ignoring Violet’s interruptions and invitations, he told Ariv what had happened since he saw Fidhur walk into the Back Porch. By the time he had finished, Ariv’s eyes were wide and his mouth hung open.

  “That’s serious,” Ariv said.

  “I know,” Pahlin replied. “I tried to override it and make her stop, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know what else to do, so I brought her here to be safe. I couldn’t let her go back in there for someone to take advantage of her.”

  “Wow,” Ariv murmured. “Well, I might have compelled the other girl at the bar.”

  “What?” Pahlin spluttered. This was just what they needed. Suddenly, the image played out. Fidhur would call the Gatekeepers, and Pahlin would be brought in with no way to explain himself. He would be banished back home with shame hanging heavy on his shoulders.

  “No, no,” Ariv said. “She was starting to panic, so I told her everything was fine, and that Violet wasn’t feeling well, so she’d gone home. I figured it would be better to keep the police out of things while I figured out where you had gone.”

  “What about Fidhur?”

  “I didn’t see him,” Ariv said. “He probably left after realizing he wasn’t going to get laid.” He shook his head. “I’ll call the Gatekeepers and tell them. They’ll want to hear her side of it.”

  Pahlin shook his head. “Call them in the morning, but tell them not to come immediately.”

  Ariv tilted his head. “Why?”

  “Just don’t,” Pahlin said. He wanted to deal with Fidhur personally. Though nothing serious had happened, the potential for what he could have done—had tried to do—was abhorrent. Just the violation of Violet’s will was bad enough. And while he trusted that the Gatekeepers would deliver punishment, Pahlin wanted the visceral satisfaction of doling it out himself.

  “Do you want me to stay here for the night?”

  Pahlin shook his head. “I’ll be fine. Just go get me one of the kitchen chairs.”

  A minute later, Ariv returned with one of the wooden chairs from the kitchen. Together, they wedged it under the door handle, so that it was tilted with its legs against the wall. Carefully, Pahlin got up and retrieved the other pillow and blanket from his bed and arranged them outside the door.

  “Okay,” Ariv said. “Call me if you need something. And I’m giving you until tomorrow afternoon before I call the Gatekeepers. If we know about something like this and don’t turn him in, we can get in trouble, too.”

  “Understood,” Pahlin agreed. When Ariv had left, he fluffed the pillow, then laid down on the hard, carpeted floor. Light spilled from the crack under the door. Shadows danced as Violet moved around inside the laundry room.

  “Are you still out there?” Violet demanded. She pounded on the door. The handle jiggled, and the chair butted against the wall. “Paul?”

  He ignored her and rested his head against the pillow. The rapid transformations had left him tired, and it felt amazing to lie down even on the hard floor. Violet kept calling for him, but eventually quieted when he didn’t respond.

  What was he going to do? A compulsion could last for days, but unless Fidhur had put all his might into it, it would likely pass more quickly. But Violet was going to have questions, and Pahlin wasn’t sure what to tell her. The rule of their kind in this world was takara vhan—keep the secret. It was fine to have their fights and even to transform out of sight of the humans, but they weren’t supposed to be announcing their presence. They certainly weren’t supposed to be transforming in front of them and carrying them away like cargo.

  The smart thing would be to assure her that everything was fine. He would ask Ariv how to arrange for a ride like he had the other night, escort Violet back to her bar, and then give her a gentle nudge. He wouldn’t try to make her forget, but rather make her think it had all been a vivid dream. When the Gatekeepers had instructed him in protocol, they’d told him specifically that if a human ever saw him do something questionable, it was far easier to make them think they’d dreamed it or imagined it, rather than to erase the memory entirely.

  Then that’s what he would do. And then he’d likely have to avoid the bar for a while. It wasn’t as if he had a real sort of connection to her. She was an attractive woman, and that was it. He would be perfectly fine, and so would she.

  So why did the thought of it leave him feeling hollowed out, as if he was sacrificing something dreadfully important?

  Chapter 8

  Violet Ray had been in some strange situations, but she had never woken up on the floor of an unfamiliar laundry room. Pla
in white sheets were knotted around her legs. She sat up and winced at the twinge in her back from sleeping on the hard white tile.

  “What the hell?” she whispered. As soon as she was upright, the memories of the previous night flooded back in a nightmarish slideshow. The tattooed guy, and her uncharacteristic determination to get in his pants. And then Paul, who’d apparently been her next target, because she hadn’t cared as long as she got some action. “What the…”

  Her stomach swirled with nausea. Had she been drunk? No, she hadn’t touched a drop all night. After kicking the tattooed guy out of the bar the other night, she’d decided not to risk dampening her instincts and had stuck to regular old ginger ale. So what the hell had gotten into her? Had he put something in her glass? She was always watching other ladies’ drinks for that reason, but maybe he’d done something to her drink when she wasn’t paying attention. He could have paid one of his buddies a couple bucks to do it while she was distracted and flirting with Paul.

  Dread filled her lungs like water, making it hard to get a full breath. She began the grim task of patting herself down. Lifting her snug t-shirt, she checked her bra. It was intact, and there were no marks on her chest or stomach. Please, God, she prayed, unbuttoning her jeans to check herself. Her underwear was intact. Nothing hurt, and if the tattooed jerk had done something to her, he’d somehow gotten her completely dressed again after and left her without the faintest hint of pain.

  “Shit,” she murmured. Her dread turned to anger as she pictured him slipping something into her drink. If she called Sonny and told him, he’d be at the bar every night ready to beat the guy within an inch of his life if he dared to show his face. She wasn’t going to put Sonny in a situation where he might get arrested for assault. But she was sure as hell going to call the cops and make sure he never came close to her bar again.

  And her uncharacteristic lust-fest wasn’t even the weirdest part of last night. The rest of the evening was so outlandish that she had to have dreamed part of it. For one, she’d watched Paul strip naked in her parking lot like it was just a normal Friday night for him. And what a sight. Of course, he’d only done so after she basically told him to screw her up against the wall.

  Rather than accepting her offer, he’d turned into a dragon right in front of her and carried her away into the sky like some fairytale damsel. That had to have been a dream, maybe a residual effect of whatever the tattooed jerk had put in her drink.

  Violet shook her head and searched the floor for her phone. There was no sign of it, nor of her purse. “Shit,” she muttered. Where the hell was she? She took a deep breath, twisted her messy hair into a bun, and secured it with the elastic she always kept in the pocket of her jeans. Then she quickly folded the sheets and piled them neatly on the pillow. She stacked them on top of the dryer, as if the neat corners somehow gave her control over what had happened the night before. She adjusted her bra and straightened her clothes. She needed a shower and a date with a toothbrush, but she could at least look halfway presentable when she emerged from this laundry room in a stranger’s house. Considering last night, she didn’t have much pride left, and she would walk out with every shred of it she could muster.

  After squaring her shoulders and trying to regain some semblance of dignity, Violet pushed the door open. It only moved an inch or so before bumping against something. There was a loud thump outside. Fear spiraled through her, making her muscles go loose and shaky. She was locked in. Her heart thumped with fear. With apprehension mounting, she planted her feet and shoved the door again. There was another noisy thump, then a grunt that had to have come from a masculine chest.

  “Violet?” a man asked.

  “Who’s there?” she asked sharply. She searched the laundry room for something sharp. It was still mostly empty, like the owner had just moved in and hadn’t gotten around to stowing a bunch of junk inside. A wooden broom leaned against one corner. She darted for it, then brandished it like a quarterstaff.

  “It’s Pahlin—Paul,” he said.

  “Paul? From the bar?” Oh God. Were Tattooed Jerk and cutie-pie Paul in on some weird drugging ring? “Open the door.”

  “Uh…are you yourself?” he asked.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Are you going to try to get me into bed?”

  “Get you into…oh, God,” she murmured. “Oh, no.” So it wasn’t all a dream. Then had he really…

  The floor spun under her, and the broom fell out of her hand as her legs buckled under her. She flopped down in a clumsy heap. Something scraped outside, and the door handle rattled. The door swung open to reveal Paul, now fully dressed in a pair of loose pants and a t-shirt. He knelt. “Are you all right?”

  “Please tell me last night was just a crazy dream,” she said, staring down at the beige tile. “Because I thought that trying to jump that guy’s bones was bad enough, but I dreamed that you turned into a dragon and then I tried to get you into bed. And offered…” Her stomach lurched, and she clapped a hand over her mouth as she remembered groping him in the parking lot. “Oh my God.”

  He extended a hand like he was going to touch her, then thought better of it. “Please don’t be upset,” he said. His green eyes were wide, almost pitying as they searched her.

  “I…oh shit,” she murmured. His proximity just confirmed all her memories. She’d definitely been ready to bang him seven ways from Sunday. “I am so sorry. I don’t know what happened. I think someone put something in my drink.”

  Paul sat down on the tile in front of her, still not touching her. “It is not your fault. That man with the tattoos did something to you.”

  “I knew it,” she muttered. “But you…Paul? Did you turn into…” her voice sounded faraway in her ears. “I feel like I’m going crazy. And I cannot believe that somehow my life has brought me to a moment where this sentence would ever cross my lips. Did you turn into a dragon last night?”

  “Um…yes,” he said. “But I only did it so you didn’t do something that you would later regret.”

  “Like banging the guy with the tattoos,” she said blankly.

  “Banging?” He tilted his head, then said, “Oh. Yes. That.” He swallowed and winced.

  “Paul.”

  “Yes?”

  “What the hell do you mean, you turned into a dragon?” Her voice went unpleasantly shrill, but she felt it was justified.

  He sighed heavily. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”

  “Paul. I need you to explain, so that I don’t have to sit here and wonder why I tried to screw not only you, but that douche who was ready to wreck my place the other night. Start talking.”

  Paul’s face reddened. He stood suddenly and said, “Do you want a cup of tea?”

  After starting the electric kettle, Paul was oddly quiet as he puttered around the tiny kitchen. The way he opened multiple cabinets before finding what he was searching for told Violet he was still getting used to the house. He found two mugs and added tea bags from a lone box in one of the cabinets. He also took out a glass bowl of fresh fruit from a gleaming, pristine refrigerator. The electric kettle clicked, and he poured steaming water into the white mugs. Finally, he delivered the cups to the small bistro-style table and put the glass bowl of fruit between them.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t keep much food,” he said, gently nudging the bowl of strawberries and grapes toward her. His eyes were still downturned, as if he was the one who had to be embarrassed about last night.

  “Dragons eat fruit? I thought you ate people,” she said weakly.

  His face broke into a smile, and he let out a nervous laugh as he raised his eyes to meet her gaze. The small table put them in close proximity. She’d only seen him in the dim light of the bar, but with the sunlight pouring in the windows, she could see the hints of gold in his dark hair and the olive complexion. There was a beauty to him beyond the nice muscles and the almost unbelievably nice butt.

  Toying absently with the teabag in his cup, he rai
sed his eyes. “I don’t eat people,” he finally said. “I am not supposed to tell you any of this.”

  “But you—”

  He put his hand over hers. It was warm from the cup. The contact stirred the memory of touching him last night. It reawakened a hint of desire, though it was tinged with fear at losing control of herself. “But I will tell you a little because I know you are frightened. You cannot tell this to anyone else.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “My name is Pahlin, not Paul. I am Kadirai,” he said.

  “Which means you’re a dragon?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I am not from here.”

  “Are you from another planet?”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Not exactly,” he said. “We come from a world that is close, connected by many gateways. There is a Gate not far from here that connects my world with yours. I came here to experience life in your world.”

  “Oh my God,” Violet murmured. Her head spun. Either he was one hell of an actor, bat-shit crazy, or he was telling the truth. She wasn’t sure which was the most worrisome.

  “The man with the tattoos is like me. He is Kadirai,” he said. He scowled. “Well, in blood. He is t’haran dan keth.”

  “A what?”

  Paul—Pahlin, she corrected herself—shook his head. “It means someone who lacks honor. His name is Fidhur.”

  “You know him?”

  “Not personally,” Pahlin said, wrinkling his nose. “I told you I had been in fights for money. I fought him several days ago.”

  “Please tell me you kicked the shit out of him,” she said, relishing the idea of Pahlin’s fist splattering Fidhur’s nose against his face.

  Pahlin winced and took a sip of his tea. “Unfortunately, quite the opposite. But I am suddenly eager to fight him again.”

  “So he drugged me,” she said.

  He shook his head slowly and folded his hands. “When he came to the bar last night, he touched you, didn’t he? Did he look into your eyes?”