by Eden Ashe
Giving up the fight against the tears, Lily clutched the baby book in one hand as she flung herself at Dallas, wrapping her other arm around him. She didn’t know what he was doing to her, but she couldn’t protect herself from him when he said things like that.
“Let’s get out of here, all right?” she murmured. “You need to let Seren take care of you.”
He snorted, but he didn’t argue with her. Instead, he hooked one arm under her butt, bringing her with him as he stood. Ignoring Luca, he held her that way and carefully picked his way through the debris. Lily didn’t know what was happening or why, but he was changing everything inside her. Mixing her up and turning her world upside down.
And she had no idea how to find solid footing again.
CHAPTER NINE
While Lily was done crying, hopefully for the next millennia, her eyes still felt swollen when Seren opened the door to her beautiful Tudor home.
Seren studied the three of them. Because of her size, four-feet-eleven, and barely one hundred pounds now that she’d had the baby, Lily knew humans constantly underestimated Seren. But her sister-in-law, a healer and emergency room doctor, could out-stubborn the most determined of their kind. Humans never stood a chance.
Lily was crazy about her.
Seren shook her head, soft light brown waves dancing over her shoulders. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
Lily snorted as she stepped in to hug her. “You don’t. Trust me.” When Seren hugged her back, her grip fierce, Lily smiled. “Do you think you can look at Dallas?”
“Of course.” Seren stepped to the side to let them in and gave Dallas, then her brother, a hug. She smiled at Luca. “Ava’s in her room if you want to go see her.”
Luca nodded. “I will in a minute. I need to talk to Lily first.”
Lily winced as Dallas rounded on him. “The hell you will. Anything you need to say to her, or ask her, you can ask me.” When Luca raised a brow at him, Dallas got in his face. It was a toss up to who looked more pissed off, Dallas or Luca. “I will not have you interrogating her after everything she’s been through.”
This time, when Lily winced, it was because of the way Seren’s gaze snapped to her face. No matter how well Seren looked to be handling her mate’s disappearance, Lily wasn’t buying it. On top of sleep deprivation with the baby, Seren was angry, frightened and desperate for any news about her husband.
Lily reached out and rested her hand lightly on Dallas’s arm. “Luca isn’t going to hurt me.”
“I don’t give a shit.” He shifted so his body was completely facing hers. “He doesn’t need to interrogate you.”
She went up on her toes to brush her lips over his stubbled cheek. “He’s worried about us,” she said quietly.
“Bullshit,” he snapped. “He’s worried that I’m the one who blew up your building.”
Lily face-palmed herself. So much for breaking all of this to her sister-in-law slowly. She sent Seren a tight smile before she turned a glare at Dallas. “Can we not hash through this right now?” Because she knew the dragon’s had a weak spot for Seren, Lily widened her eyes and gave him a look, begging him to understand what she was saying. “I’m pretty sure Seren doesn’t appreciate you bleeding all over her entryway, and besides,” she hurriedly added when he opened his mouth to argue with her, “I’d feel better if you had it looked at. You are losing a lot of blood.”
His snarl rattled the walls, and before it could die out of his throat, Lily had moved into his chest and wrapped her arms around his torso as tight as she could get them. “Thank you, Dallas.”
He sighed, shaking his head in confusion. He wrapped his arms around her neck, pulling her in closer.
* * * *
Ryuu, this woman twisted his brain. She never did what he expected her to do, and he had no idea how to handle that. When he expected her to run, she argued with him. When he expected her to be afraid, she hugged him. When he expected her to kick his ass to the curb, she seduced him.
How the fuck was he supposed to get his bearings if he couldn’t make a damn bit of sense of what went on in her head?
He skimmed his hands down her arms, determined to set her back from him. She couldn’t demand he get himself looked at and then refuse to let him go in the same breath.
He snorted when his own thoughts registered in his head. Of course she could. She was Lily.
And he was as bad. Instead of moving her away like he meant to do, he found his fingers linking with hers. “You need to learn to stop arguing with me. I’m two thousand years old, Lil. I know how to take care of myself.”
Her brow jacked up in a decent impression of the look he always gave her. “Then why are you still standing here with me instead of getting it taken care of?”
“Because I’d rather be here with you,” he snapped. “I can heal myself.”
Lily blinked at him for a long moment before her smile went beautiful. “I’m not going anywhere. Just down the room to see Ava. Luca won’t yell at me if I’m holding Ava.”
Next to her, Luca tightened his jaw. “I’m not going to yell at you, goddamn it.”
Lily smiled at him, then turned and smiled at Dallas. “See? I’m fine. Now go let Seren look at you.”
“Fine,” he gritted out, “but only because I don’t need you worrying about me.” He turned his head to growl at Seren. “Fine. Let’s do this.”
She gave him a look that suggested he’d gone mad, then led him to the small clinic Adrian had built at the back of the house. “Perfect.”
Dallas followed her and waited until they were out of ear shot of Lily and Luca before he let out a quiet sigh. “I’m not going to let you heal me. You know that, Seren, right?”
Seren opened the door to the exam room and pointed at the bed. “I know,” she murmured. “What lesson did you learn today?”
He barked out a humorless laugh as he pulled off his boots. At least she wasn’t arguing with him anymore. He rarely let her heal him, not because he didn’t trust her, but because he firmly believed that every injury he sustained happened for a reason, and the slight, barely noticeable scar it left behind was a reminder of that reason. Whether it was not to trust anyone outside of the small band of dragons he’d been fighting with for almost two millennia, as the scar across his chest reminded him, or the long slash down his left bicep reminded him that women were capable of as much violence as men.
He waited until she’d turned her back on him before he unbuttoned his pants and kicked out of them. He sat on the bed and pulled the pillow into his lap. He wasn’t attracted to her in the least little bit, but she was Cage’s mate, whether he was dead or not. That male would gut anyone who dared to make her uncomfortable.
She barely blinked at the glass that stuck out from his legs, though her brow furrowed when she retrieved the gauze and antiseptic to clean off the worst of the blood. “What happened?”
He exhaled slowly. “Someone torched the flower shop. I took the impact as I shifted into my dragon form and got us the hell out of there.”
Seren’s hand hesitated. “How did you manage the escape?”
He winced. “The roof.” He didn’t even blink when she used the tweezers to remove a large chunk of glass from his shin. “I, ah, kind of broke her building in the process. She may hate me once that sinks in.”
Seren shook her head. “Lily isn’t capable of hating anyone, especially not someone who saved her life.”
Dallas snorted. “She’s a Hunter, Seren, and I am the Destroyer. How nice to her do you think I’ve been?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured after a long moment, “but she trusts you completely. That’s huge for her. She feels things so much more than anyone else. I think it has something to do with her magic, something she works very hard to convince herself doesn’t exist.”
His chest tightened. “She shouldn’t trust me. I will kill her if I think I have need to.”
“Yeah,” Seren drawled as she finished with one leg and move
d on to the other, “that Lily, she’s a dangerous one all right. Watch out for her chocolate habit. It turns her lethal.”
“Go ahead and mock me.” He let out an impatient sigh. “I am not mating to anyone, Seren, so get that out of your head. I mean it. It’s not going to happen.” And no matter how tempting Lily was, he was going to keep reminding himself of it.
She opened her mouth to argue, but instead she said quietly, “Okay, Dallas. I believe you.”
He changed the subject. “How’s Bain?”
“He’s all right.” She grabbed a towel and antiseptic then leaned over to clean the blood off his legs. “He’s upstairs resting, and should be good as new by tonight. I haven’t told him about the attack on Lily last night.”
He jerked his head in a nod. Logically, he knew Bain wasn’t the one who’d scared her, but it didn’t make his need to pound his face into dust any less real. Someone had used her trust of the younger dragon to terrify her, and that pissed Dallas off on about a hundred different levels.
* * * *
At a month old, freckles were starting to pop out all over Ava’s beautiful, chubby face. Her cheeks and cute little nose were covered with them, and combined with the light brown hair starting to curl at the ends and the same dark green eyes as her daddy, Lily was positive her niece was the most adorable little girl ever.
Lily loved her so much it hurt. But it hurt even more that sweet little Ava was never going to get to know her daddy. Never get to know how amazing a father he would have been, and how much he had loved her before she’d been born, and how much he would have loved her and protected her all of her life.
Lily lifted the drowsy little one out of her crib and hugged her tight. “Hi, Ava girl. I missed you.”
Ava’s tiny, onesie-clad body curled into Lily’s shoulder, and she rested her head against the baby’s. She raised a questioning brow at Luca, prepared to give her niece to her uncle, but he leaned over to drop a kiss on Ava’s cheek.
“I’m waiting, Lil,” he finally murmured after she’d settled herself and Ava into the hand-crafted rocker Adrian had made for Seren. “What the hell is going on?”
Because she didn’t know what to say when it didn’t make sense in her own head, she went with the truth. “I don’t know. I know I shouldn’t trust him and that I should be running as far away from him as I can get, but that’s only when I can’t see him. Whenever he’s near me, all of my common sense goes right out the window, and all I want to do is curl up on his lap and demand he never let me go.”
Luca’s face darkened at the last part. He leaned against the white dresser and crossed his arms over his chest. The whole room was done in soft pastels and distressed, shabby chic furniture, and while he should have looked too big and burly to be comfortable in the small space, it didn’t seem to bother him at all. “He’s the Destroyer, Lily. He’s not safe for you.”
“I know you believe that.” She met his eyes. If he thought for one moment she was hiding something from him, he’d have her moved somewhere safe, somewhere Dallas would never be able to find her. “I do, but I can’t seem to remember that. He saved my life today. He didn’t think about me being a Hunter, and he didn’t think about leaving me and escaping. He just saved me.”
Luca scrubbed both hands over his face, then crouched in front of her so they were nose to nose. “Look, I like Dallas.” One corner of his mouth turned up when she pretended to be shocked that he’d admit to liking someone. “And I would trust him with my life, and Seren and the baby’s. But he’s a wildcard when it comes to Hunters, Lil, and I can’t put you at risk. For fuck’s sake, he used Shelby to draw your brother out just last month.”
She snorted so hard she almost hurt herself. “Luca, listen to yourself. Was I was in danger when he shoved me under a dragon wing to protect me? Or when he opted to go up and out through my apartment rather than waiting to see how much damage the bomb did? Or when he held my hands when I demanded he get himself looked at? I’m not afraid of him. I know I should be, but I’m not. It confuses me, and it worries me because I don’t trust anyone, you know that, but I trust him. And I like him, Luca. I like him a lot.”
He searched her eyes for a long moment, then blew out a breath and shoved a hand through his hair. “You know your brother would kill me for even allowing this to happen, right?”
She nodded, her chest hurting. “I know. But he isn’t here, and this is my decision.”
Luca sighed. “What are you asking me to do here, Lil? Are you expecting me to let you mate to him?”
“We already had sex once.” When his whole face went blank with shock, Lily had to bite on her bottom lip to hide the grin. He needed to remember she was an adult and stop treating her like a kid. “I’m aware of what it takes to mate to a dragon, and right now, he’s positive he doesn’t want a mate.”
“I will kill him.” He shoved to his feet and pointed at her. “Stay here.”
“No.” She scrambled to put Ava back in her crib and herself in his path. She had no doubt he’d succeed in carrying out his threat. “I seduced him, Luca. You can’t hurt him for something I did.” When he finally stopped to look down at her, she crossed her arms over her chest and gave him The Look all dragon and Hunter males seemed to be good at. “I’m twenty three, Luca. Deal with it.”
He wanted to argue with her. She could see it. Instead, he shook his head. “Do not make me regret this, Lil.”
She smiled at him. She was asking him to trust her instincts when she wasn’t even sure it was the right thing to do, but Dallas felt right.
“Lily.”
At Dallas’s graveled voice, Lily spun around. He was in different clothes, a white Henley replacing his white button down shirt, and he’d switched his black dress pants for dark jeans.
He scowled at Luca over her shoulder before he stopped directly in front of her, so close their bodies would touch if one of them so much as breathed deeply. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly.
She wrinkled her nose. “I should be asking you that. You were the one that was hurt.”
“I’m fine.” He laughed quietly. “It will take more than a few pieces of glass to take me out.”
Her breasts slid up his chest when she went on her toes to bring her closer to eye level with him. Relief washed through her in a flash-flood. Relief that he was all right.
She lightly pressed her lips to his. “Thank you, Dallas.”
He shoved a hand into her hair and pulled her mouth back to his, diving in until they were both trembling with need. Luca made a coughing sound, followed by a warning growl.
Dallas cleared his throat when he finally licked at her bottom lip and pulled back. “For what?”
She smiled. “For saving my life.”
* * * *
His world shifted out from underneath his feet. He could pretend she didn’t mean it. He could act as if she was only pretending because she wanted something or because she was reeling him in and setting him up for her people. But the truth was, he didn’t believe any of it. He’d saved her life, and now she was thanking him.
For the first time in his life, it didn’t occur to him to suggest sex as repayment. Instead, he said the words he’d never said to another living being. “You’re welcome.”
He took her hand and led her through the house. He would get her to his place and then do what he did best—protect her. That was it.
CHAPTER TEN
Best laid plans, his ass. It all started to unravel for him in the grocery store.
“We need dinner ideas.” Lily stood in the middle of the first aisle and glanced around. “I don’t know how to plan meals for someone your size.”
He smiled when she gestured to the whole of his giant frame. Considering he took up damn near the whole aisle, it was hard to miss her point. “Multiply whatever you eat by at least four.”
“Not helpful.” She let out a huff and glanced around. “Okay, we need a cart.”
He leaned to the side and pointed be
hind her. “There’s one.”
Her brow furrowed as she shot a look over her shoulder. “That one’s being used.” She refocused on him through narrowed eyes. “Dallas, have you ever been grocery shopping?”
Dallas lifted a lip in a snarl, uncomfortable with how out of his depth he was. “No.”
“How do you—? Never mind.” She moved forward, grabbing his hand on her way past him toward the front of the store. She snagged a cart, then gestured for him to take it. “I’ll shop, you push.”
He was not amused, but after a few heartbeats of watching her saunter away without looking back, he realized she was serious and fully expected him to help her.
It shouldn’t have surprised him that her way of shopping was different than his way—if he’d had a way. While he grabbed what she needed off the shelves and tossed it into the cart, she insisted on organizing it all to death. While he was almost sure it was by food groups or something as insane as that, he figured he should at least be grateful she wasn’t color coordinating his groceries.
An hour after they’d walked into the store, she finally decided they had enough and could head to the checkout line. Which was another nightmare because the damn woman insisted on bending over to grab stuff out of the basket, showing off hints of perfect cleavage.
He didn’t realize he was staring until her finger poked into his ribs. He scowled, his gaze snapping to her face. “What the hell?”
“You’re growling, Dallas,” she hissed, her beautiful face exasperated. “And staring.”
He winced and dug his phone out of his back pocket when it chirped. The text message that popped up on screen from his king had him cursing under his breath. The Castle. Now. Bring the Hunter female.
Ryuu. Daniel Ashborne never texted any of them.
“Dallas?” Lily moved in closer to him and stuck her face in his line of sight. “What’s wrong? People are starting to notice the earthquake you’re causing.”
“We’ve been summoned, babe.” When her eyes went wide, he raised a brow and started loading groceries from the cart onto the belt. “My guess is I’m about to have a new asshole torn into me for dragoning out in public earlier.”
