by Eden Ashe
His body went rigid when she walked into his chest and burrowed into it. She couldn’t wrap her arms around him without losing the sheet, but she didn’t think that mattered when that little voice deep in her soul said “mine.”
This was going to end bad. But he kept roaring at her, and he was a dragon, and he’d looked so peaceful when she’d woken up last night to find his hand molded around her breast.
She wasn’t sure anyone named the Destroyer had ever known peace.
He tangled a hand in the hair at the back of her neck and tugged until he could see her eyes. He wanted her to look at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Hugging you. Hasn’t anyone ever hugged you?”
His brow screwed up in thought before he scowled at her. “No.”
Her heart broke for him. Stepping away, she turned the shower water on, then got under the spray, sheet and all.
She tossed the sheet out once she was hidden behind the pink and white shower curtain.
She took longer in the shower than normal, wanting to give Dallas time to get dressed and get out without having to go through another scene or conversation with her. So when the hot water died out and she started to shiver, she finally turned the water off and sucked in a huge breath before she peeked around the shower curtain.
The breath expelled out of her lungs on a long sigh. Of course he was gone. It was what she’d told him to do.
Grabbing a pink and white striped towel off a shelf, she wrapped it around her hair, then grabbed another one to drape around her body.
Because his clothes were gone from the bedroom, she dropped her towel and headed for her closet right as the damn man walked in.
His eyes went right to her breasts. He growled violently at her, turned, and walked out, slamming her door behind him.
It only took her a few minutes to slip into a pretty white sundress with a lightweight yellow cardigan, but it took a lot longer to blow-dry her mass of hair. She kept her makeup fresh-faced and simple because she always felt a little bit like a clown if she tried anything too daring.
She finally left the safety of her room, but came to an abrupt stop when she realized he’d been leaning against the wall right outside the whole time.
She went for a smile because the sex had been all her idea, and there really was no reason for him to feel bad about it. They hadn’t mated, so it wasn’t like anything earth-shattering had happened.
“I thought you’d be gone by now,” she murmured on her way toward the kitchen.
“I’m not.”
She snorted over her shoulder at him as she opened her stash drawer and pulled out a chocolate bar. She nibbled on a corner after she’d ripped the paper off. “I see that. Why?”
He growled at her. “I told you. Something isn’t right, and until I can put the pieces together, you are not leaving my sight.”
She finished her candy bar and tried not to stare at his bare chest. His pants hung low on his hips, showing off those V-shaped muscles perfectly. She swallowed hard. “Then what? You kill me?”
He shrugged, his voice cold as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants. “It wouldn’t be the first time I had to kill a woman after sex.”
The blood drained out of her face. “What happened?”
* * * *
His eye ticked. Ryuu, what the hell had possessed him to tell her that? Half the time he opened his mouth around her he said something completely different than what he’d meant to say. It was pissing him off.
He frowned. “That candy bar wasn’t your breakfast, right?”
She shook her head, her long mahogany waves swishing around her shoulders to mid-back. “No, I was going to have some hot chocolate to wash it down.”
“You cannot function all day on chocolate alone.”
“I usually eat fruit or a salad for lunch.” She grinned.
He scowled at her and stalked forward to lift the hair that covered her ear. She batted at his hand. “What are you doing?”
“Checking to make sure you aren’t part nymph or something. You don’t have magic binding your ears, do you?”
“Not that I know of, and I would know, right?” She was looking at him as if he was nuts.
Which was fine, because he felt fucking nuts.
“I have no goddamn idea. But chocolate is like an aphrodisiac to nymphs.” He narrowed his eyes as he deliberately took a huge step back from her. “You’re not feeling, ah, hot or anything, are you?”
A blush tinted her cheeks pink as she eeked out, “No.”
He growled at her again and put her large butcher block table between them. “You stay on your side of the kitchen. Having sex twice is playing with fire, and I will be damned if I mate to a Hunter.”
“I got it,” she snapped on her way toward the kitchen door, rolling her eyes when he deliberately kept the table between them. “Sex with me is a mistake.”
“Ryuu. Are you crying?” he demanded.
“No.”
“Bullshit,” he snapped.
She let out a pathetic half-snort, then re-focused on him with a glare. “You had to kill a woman you slept with?”
“Yes.” He didn’t want to talk about this. Had never talked about this. But the words came out, anyway. “She was sent to kill me by Alexi, Micah and Luca’s father. The bastard knew I wouldn’t be easy to get close to, so he sent a beautiful woman to me asking for help. She was sweet, and I let my guard down enough for her to seduce me. I woke up a few hours later just in time to see one of my own swords swinging for my neck.”
She didn’t move for several heartbeats, then walked around the table. He couldn’t move fast enough to avoid the quick, hard hug she gave him. That was it.
“I have to go to work.” She walked to the door and opened it, giving him an expectant look. “I don’t need the Destroyer in my shop sucking up all the air and space and reminding me with every breath how much he hates Hunters, thank you very much.”
He decided not to take the hint she was all but clobbering him over the head with. Instead, he grabbed her purse, phone, and keys from the entry table and handed them to her. “After you, sweetheart.”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, the timid female inside of her warring with the inner hellion he suspected she’d long since buried. “I admitted it was a mistake. What more do you want from me? If you’re going to end up killing me in the end after you find whatever proof you need that I’m an evil Hunter, could you just do it now? I’m not sure I can handle the wait.”
Instead of answering her, he held her cell phone out. “Why don’t you text your brother and let him know I’m with you. If he’s still alive, that should draw him out of hiding. Better yet, tell him I slept with you.”
She slowly reached out to take her phone from him, though her eyes stayed searching his. “Why are you so convinced he’s alive?”
He lifted a brow. “Why are you?” He jerked his head toward the phone. “Text him.”
Lily sighed and rolled her eyes. “Alright, but I want to know why you think he’s alive.” Her fingers tapped impatiently at the on-screen keyboard before she thrust the phone back at him. “There.”
Without waiting for him, she moved past to lock her door and double check it before she headed down the double flight of stairs.
Shaking his head when he realized he was watching her, he growled quietly and turned his attention to the phone. She’d left the text screen up, and her message sent a shot of guilt straight to his gut. It read simply:
I messed up, and my instincts aren’t safe. I need you, big brother. Please come home.
Dallas gritted his teeth together as he stared at those first three words. I messed up…
He shoved the phone in his back pocket and started down the stairs at a slow jog. While he was certain Cage was alive and would get the message, Dallas wasn’t sure he was going to be able to convince himself that Lily was a danger to anyone anymore. She was a Hunter, but she wasn’t dangerou
s.
He didn’t know why he’d changed his mind about hating her, but the woman didn’t seem to be capable of going five minutes without crying. He doubted a woman that would kiss him in front of every dragon in the world to save the Destroyer’s life had it in her to hunt anything down and kill it.
She was waiting outside the door when he hit the bottom landing. He plucked the keys out of her hand and slipped them into the locks, his instincts going off the second he pushed the door open. “Go back upstairs, Lily.” He shoved her behind him. “Now.”
“Dallas?” She gripped his waist and peered around him, a strangled sound coming from her throat at the gaping hole where the shop’s front window should have been.
He saw the red numbers flashing 00:05 in the same instant Lily turned to follow his command.
With a savage snarl the dragon leapt out of him, covering her with a wing as the blast of the explosion catapulted them through the air.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Even in his massive size, he crashed through walls and the stairway that led from her apartment to the shop, crumpling everything in his path. He hit the ground hard enough to crack the concrete like an egg.
With the ground still quaking beneath him and Lily trapped against his chest, he lumbered to his feet and leapt skyward. He was grateful the glamour spell that hid him from sight was ingrained in him because he hadn’t thought about it. He used his wing to shield her from the plaster and wood that splintered and broke apart on his ascent through the stairwell and her apartment. The second they were free of the building, he dove for the roof across the four-lane street. Even when he was on his feet again, he had to force himself to set her down and let her go. His breathing was too ragged, her building still crumpling, and no way in hell did he want her to see the aftermath of the damage yet.
Vibrating with anger, he shifted back into his human form.
She let out a soft, terrified sound. “Dallas?” Her voice was nearly drowned out by the collapsing two story building. “What happened?”
Dallas dragged a hand over his face. The hell if he knew what was going on. It didn’t make sense. Why bomb the place if only yesterday they were trying to grab her? The whole situation threatened to turn him from a dragon on a mission to full-on homicidal.
Mine.
Dallas went still as the thought banished everything else out. The word was crystal clear, as if he had spoken it aloud. His dragon had claimed her.
Ryuu. Fuck. No. He was not claiming anybody. He was not mating to anyone. No matter how fucking hot she was or how ridiculously possessive he felt toward her... No. It wasn’t happening.
He shook it off when he vaguely remembered she was waiting for an answer. “Someone blew up your building.”
It was only partly true. While the bomb had incinerated her store front, he was positive the worst of the damage came from his sudden shift to dragon form and their escape through the roof.
She moved in a step closer to him, her fingers hooking in the hem of his shirt as she avoided looking toward the remains of her home and store. “I’m scared.”
“I know.”
He’d expected the tears, so they didn’t surprise him. Burn a hole in his gut, maybe, but they didn’t surprise him.
What did shock the hell out of him was how quickly she stepped back, then threw her tight, trembling body into his. She hung onto him for dear life, and even more surprising, he let her.
Deliberately keeping her back to the wreckage, he folded himself around her as the muscle directly under his eye started to twitch. He didn’t know how to do this part. Going to war against a group of Hunters was nothing new to him, but going into full-on battle mode to protect a woman he’d slept with was something entirely fucking different.
But goddamn it, she’d had enough fears in her life. She didn’t need any more. And morphing into The Destroyer to ease the pressurized rage building at the base of his skull would definitely fall into the “more” category.
“Dallas?”
“Yes?”
She let out a sniffle and wound her arms around his neck, all but trying to crawl into his skin. “Are you sure you’re all right?
He went utterly and completely still. “What?”
Her desperate fear went straight to his gut, leaving him raw inside. “The explosive hit you. You can’t be okay.”
His brain twitched. It made no fucking sense why she’d be concerned with his safety. Yeah, he’d hurt like a son of a bitch until he could get some sleep, but nothing he was concerned about. But the tears in her eyes were killing him, and considering what he was hiding from her, he owed her the damn world. If she wanted him to go to the moon and back, he’d do it.
So he growled, simply because he knew she liked it. He meant for it to be a quiet one, but the temper in him was still too close to the surface, and it came out as a dark, terrifying rumble that quaked through the roof until it trembled the earth.
“I need to get you out of here, so do me a favor, babe, all right?”
She sniffled one last time and looked up at him. The trust in her vivid green eyes as she nodded was a sucker-punch to his soul. “What?”
“Close your eyes and bury your face in my shoulder, and don’t look until I tell you.”
* * * *
Dread settled like a dead weight in Lily’s belly. She’d felt him take flight, and with his guilty expression, it had to be bad.
“Why?” she asked, searching his face. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He grabbed her chin before she could look around him. He was covered in dirt and blood. She yanked her face out of his grip and shifted out of his arms. Her mouth fell open at the absolute destruction of her shop and her home. Her heart threatened to fail. Everything she possessed, everything she loved, every last bit of Adrian she had was in that building.
His voice turned monotone. “I thought the safest way out would be up.”
“Okay, that makes sense.” She swallowed hard as hysteria started to bubble up in her chest. “What am I going to do?”
He opened his mouth to say something, only to apparently think better of it and snapped it shut with enough force she was sure he’d cracked a molar. He managed to grit out through clenched teeth, “We’ll figure it out. Right now, I don’t know who’s watching or who wants you hurt, so we need to get out of here.”
She could feel the numbness creeping over the mountain of emotion putting pressure on her chest. He kept her curled up against his chest as he took a quick leap off the side of the building. He landed in a catcher’s stance in the darkened alleyway as a dark figure stepped out of the shadows.
Luca scanned the destruction before the roar he and his brother were notorious for echoed through the entire neighborhood. “What the hell happened?”
Dallas winced. “Someone threw an explosive through her front window, and I, ah, sort of broke her building on our escape out.”
Luca nodded once, the slow fisting of his hands the only indication of how pissed off he was. He crouched so he was closer to Lily’s eye level. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.” She met Luca’s furious look. “Dallas took the hit and got me out.”
Luca nodded, a frustrated sound rumbling in his chest. “Yeah, I saw the smoke from a few blocks over as the building collapsed.” He stood and looked at Dallas. “Get her to Seren’s. I’ll meet you there.”
“Fucking hell, woman, you’re hurt?” he asked on a panicked roar. He set her on her feet, and then his hands moved over her, trying to find the wounds. “Where? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lily’s heart suffered for him as she moved in between his searching, frantic hands and cupped his face in hers.
Immediately, he stilled, his soft green eyes snapping to hers.
“What?”
“I’m not hurt. You are. You need Seren to look at you.”
He glanced down at himself, noticing for the first time the glass shards sticking out of his arms and leg
s. There was also a decent gash across his chest.
Luca stood there, watching them, before he cleared his throat. “You will pay to have this place rebuilt from the foundation up, you know that, right?”
“No.” Lily spun around, deliberately putting herself between the two raging dragons. “He was saving my life. I can afford to do it—”
“No!” they roared at once. But Dallas snarled at Luca as he gently moved Lily out of his way and stalked forward. “Do not raise your voice to her.”
Lily hooked her hand in one of the back loops of his jeans and tugged. When he glared at her over his shoulder, she smiled sweetly. “You yelled at me, too.”
His brow jacked up. “So?”
A flash of something silver caught her attention. Ignoring the arguing dragons, she picked her way carefully over the debris and let out a soft sob as she crouched next to the now dirt-stained photo album.
Ava’s beautiful face was torn on the front cover, and the entire book looked as if it had been smashed by a Mack truck. Her heart sank as she sat down in the middle of the wreckage that had blown clear across the street. She brushed the debris off the baby book she’d been putting together so painstakingly for her brother.
Dallas crouched beside her and wiped away her tears with the pads of his thumbs. “I’m so sorry, Lil. You were in danger, and I just… reacted.”
She rubbed the back of her hands over her eyes, managing a small smile for him. “You hate Hunters.”
“I do.” He nodded his agreement and tangled a hand in her hair, pulling her head against his. His voice was quiet. “I can’t seem to make myself hate you, though.”
Iosa. Lily’s heart suffered for him. Sweet. He’d let his guard down with the woman who tried to kill him because she’d been sweet. No wonder he kept waiting for Lily to show her evil side.
He was starved for love. It was the only thing that made sense to her. He didn’t know it, would never accept it, and would only laugh at her if she pointed it out, but it was there. He needed someone to care about him.
