by T. S. Joyce
Avery, Weston’s mate, was quiet and had trouble meeting her eyes, but she gave Rowan a hug and said, “Thank you for coming to help us at Raven’s Hollow.” Was she crying? Rowan gave her another hug, a tighter one, a longer one because it must’ve been very scary for a timid raven shifter to go against her people. Rowan remembered her. Avery had fought fiercely beside Weston while Rowan had been terrified just to leave Damon’s Mountains. This little raven didn’t know it, but she was braver than a dragon.
And then there was Wyatt, all spiked-up brown hair, piercing blue eyes, and that shit-eating grin that was just the same as when they were kids. Rowan was crying now, too, because Wyatt had disappeared at age eighteen, and she hadn’t seen much of him since. Damn, it was good to hug him. He squeezed her tight, rocked them back and forth while she leaked tears onto his T-shirt.
“You were so angry when you left. So…”
“Shhhh,” he said against the side of her head. He was stroking her hair like she was a babe in need of soothing. God, this felt good. “I’m okay now, Roe. Harper saved me.”
A sob worked its way up her throat as she reached for Harper with her other arm and hugged them both close. “You did good, Harper girl,” she whispered.
Harper was sniffling, and now Rowan could feel hands on her back. She could feel the crew crowding close, touching her just to reassure themselves that she was here and she was all right. It was just like with the Gray Backs.
This should’ve been such a happy moment, but all Rowan could think about was Kane, sitting alone at the restaurant at the end of a bar, eating by himself. He would never have this because he would never allow it.
There was something so tragic about that.
Shaking her head to rid herself of thoughts that hurt her heart, Rowan eased back and cupped the tiny swell of Harper’s belly. The Bloodrunners went quiet.
“Have you felt him kick yet?” she asked reverently. Harper was carrying the next generation Bloodrunner Dragon. She was carrying a little boy who would grow up mighty and fierce. A fire breather if Beaston’s predictions were right, and they were always right.
Harper pressed her hands over Rowan’s and shook her head. “Not yet. I’ve been drinking orange juice and lying on my back, but I think it’s still too early. Rowan?”
Rowan looked up into Harper’s eyes—one glowing blue with a long pupil, one soft brown. “Yeah?”
“Thanks for coming to protect my crew. It means…” Harper’s eyes were rimmed with moisture, and she swallowed over and over again before she finished her thought. “It means the world to me. I know how hard it was leaving Damon’s Mountains.”
“Yeah, well,” Rowan said shakily, “I couldn’t leave the protection of the next Bloodrunner Dragon up to a bunch of wussy flight shifters.”
“I resemble that,” Ryder said, shoving her in the shoulder.
“It’s resent,” Weston said with a sigh, but his lips were curved up in a smile, and his green eyes, so much like Beaston’s, were dancing with happiness. Whatever Avery was doing for Weston, Rowan liked her all the more for it. She’d never seen him give smiles this easily.
They all started walking toward the cabin, 1010, and Aaron pulled her against his side, nearly squished the life from her, and ruffed up her hair. “I’ll have you know we would’ve been fine without you. Bear is extra aggressive lately with Alana to protect and now Harper’s pregnancy. I could’ve handled it all on my own.”
“Okay, man,” Wyatt said with an eye roll. “I could’ve offered a little help, too.”
“And me,” Alana said. “My bear is big and scary.”
Aaron snorted. “Two days ago you asked me to paint your bear’s claws pink with glitter.”
“For science!” Alana exclaimed as the others laughed. “I wanted to know if my claws were painted, would my nails stay painted when I Changed back to my human form.”
“Wait,” Avery said. “Does it work like that?”
“That’s why I asked him to do it, but he refused.”
“Bad mate,” Ryder said. “I would paint Lexi’s if she asked.”
“Mmm hmm,” Lexi said, not falling for his bullshit. “And what would you have asked in return.”
“Barbecue.”
“And?” Lexi asked.
“Dick kisses,” Ryder muttered.
Rowan bellowed a single, surprised laugh. “Alana, I’ll paint your claws next time you Change. I’ve got you.”
“Mmm, I like Rowan already,” Alana said through a grin.
Rowan inhaled deeply as she listened to the chatter and laughter of the Bloodrunners. Things were different with her childhood friends now. They’d grown, settled down, bonded, and had all become closer without her. They’d become a family.
Everyone had moved on, and like Peter Pan, Rowan had stayed behind in Neverland.
She’d pitied Kane for clinging to his safe, lonely existence, but she had no right to.
Because she’d done the same thing.
Chapter Nine
Kane lifted the last three bags of dirt out of the back of his Bronco and made his way inside Martin’s River Gem Mine. He worked here six days a week to cover bills and drinking money. He dumped the bags into the metal bin against the back wall of the shop and then made his way back around the racks of T-shirts and tables of crystals for sale. There was one last family under the metal awning outside, mining still, sifting through the dirt Kane and Wyatt had hauled down from the mountain.
Martin, the owner, was inside his office crunching numbers, like he always did at the end of a day, and Wyatt was outside, helping the clients identify gems they found.
Kane approached slowly, still unsure if he even wanted to open this can of worms.
He’d felt fucking sick for three days, just empty. He’d been hungry for something he couldn’t identify, eaten meal after meal and never been sated. He was hollow. There had been no sleep thanks to the angel face that kept slipping across his consciousness. Blond hair, lighter at the ends, blue eyes, pixie lips, pert nose, little freckles, dark lashes. Those long legs and those hourglass curves, and fuck, he had to stop thinking about Rowan like this. He’d already beat off twice since last night. Why did his body crave her so damn bad? This wasn’t like him. He fucked a woman every once in a while, and it tided him over. But this? He was obsessing. And it wasn’t just in his mind either. His body was obsessing about her.
He'd hurt her. Fucking surprise, surprise. Kane hurting others was the most natural thing in the world. He hated it. Hated what he’d become. Hated the look of heartbreak he’d seen in her pretty eyes when he’d told her to leave him alone. She wore every emotion right there on her face for him to see. He could’ve stabbed her and got the same expression of pain. Rowan was too fragile for a man like him, so why was he so enthralled with her?
If he was a good and decent man, he would leave her alone. He would let her find someone who was a better match, but instead, he’d been thinking of ways to see her. Thinking of ways to run in to her.
He’d attached to a girl like this before, and she’d been Turned into a bear against her will.
He’d been this attached before, and he’d done something awful on her behalf.
He’d been this attached before, and it had ruined his entire life.
Rowan Barnett scared the shit out him.
And yet…
Here he was, considering talking to Wyatt. He was actually considering asking advice from another person who didn’t owe him anything.
Wyatt looked up, nodded a greeting as he continued to talk to the clients about how rubies were cut. Fuck, he couldn’t do this.
Kane did an about-face, which hurt his bad leg, but it was worth it if he could escape. He was a loner for a reason, and Wyatt accepted that about him. Best not to mess that up.
But Wyatt was a link to Rowan, and with every step he made away, the emptiness yawned wider inside of him.
With a growl, Kane turned around again and forced himself straight to Wy
att, who was wearing the deepest frown Kane had ever seen on him. He looked wary, his eyes narrowed to little suspicious slits. Wyatt waved off the family, and Kane gave them a polite smile as they passed, chattering happily as they studied the rocks in their palms.
“Where are your sunglasses?” Wyatt asked.
“Oh, shit,” Kane muttered, patting his pockets, checking the neck of his shirt. “I think I forgot them in my truck.”
Wyatt sat on the bench by a trough of dirt and cocked his head. “What’s wrong with you? You smell sick.”
“I’m not sick, asshole. I’m just…” Sick. Kane cleared his throat. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Forgot your sunglasses? No shit. I think I’ve seen your eyes like five times in the last three years. You look like a monster, man.”
“Thanks.” Kane wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and gave his gaze to the woods behind Wyatt, to the ceiling of the shelter, to the troughs of dirt, to anywhere but Wyatt. “So, I was wondering if I could ask for some advice?”
Wyatt’s eyebrows lifted nearly to his hairline. “You want to ask me for advice? Okay. Shoot.”
“No, I mean. Maybe over drinks, or dinner. I can pay.”
“Are you asking me on a date?”
“Fuck, Wyatt, give me a break, man. I don’t know how to do this shit. What do guys do when they have girl problems? Shoot darts? Shoot whiskey? Whatever it is, I want to do that. Kind of.”
“Wait, wait, wait, you have girl problems?” Wyatt’s grin stretched across his whole face, and his blue eyes sparked with triumph. “This is awesome.”
“Forget it,” Kane muttered, heading for his Bronco.
But there was Wyatt, keeping pace with him. “Ryder calls these bro-dates.”
“Well, we aren’t bros, so…”
“You’re driving. My truck is low on gas.”
Kane cast him a quick glance to make sure Wyatt wasn’t dicking him around, but he seemed serious enough when he said, “I’m gonna say bye to Martin. Meet you in the truck.”
“Okay,” Kane said, shocked that this was working. He thought Wyatt would’ve told him to fuck off immediately. He had the Bloodrunners after all, and Harper. His friend card was nice and full, and Wyatt and Kane hadn’t exactly gotten along all these years. More like tolerated each other for work’s sake.
Two minutes later, Wyatt was sitting in his passenger’s seat, slamming the door closed beside him. As Kane pulled out of the gravel parking lot, Wyatt went to work poking buttons on his phone.
“What are you doing?” Kane asked suspiciously.
“Texting Ryder that you asked me on a bro date. He’s gonna be so jealous.”
“What? Why?”
“Because he’s convinced you are his fourth best friend, and he’s been waiting for you to call him to hang out.”
Kane snorted. “Your entire crew is weird.”
“Truth,” Wyatt said easily, shoving his phone into his back pocket and resting his elbow on the open window. “Who is the girl?”
“Someone way too good for me?”
Wyatt huffed a breath. “Ain’t that the way it works. She’ll make you into a better man, though.”
“Is that what happened with Harper?”
“Yessir. I had to up my game to keep her.”
Kane cleared his throat again uncomfortably. “Sooo…what’s it like being paired up with a dominant female? Dragon. I mean since you’re a bear. Do you ever have trouble with the fact that she is alpha? That she’s more dominant than you?”
“Nah. It’s not like that. It’s not like you think. Harper’s dragon is badass, don’t get me wrong, and if I piss her off, whoo, she can rage. But Harper the woman? She’s kind and understanding. She’s sweet and wants to do the right thing. She never makes me feel less than just because my animal is smaller. It doesn’t come up, and being with her, it’s worth the occasional moment of weakness on my part. It’s worth the dark moments when I question if I’m good enough for her. That’s up to me, to rise up and be good enough after everything, you know?”
Kane swallowed hard and nodded. Made sense. But at least Wyatt was a shifter. Kane’s heart was chasing the biggest dragon shifter in the world, and he was nothing more than a man. He was a hundred levels below Rowan. He would never be able to protect her.
“I’ve never seen you show favor to a woman,” Wyatt said quietly. “I’ve seen you be kind and respectful to the girls in my crew, but I’ve never seen you take anyone out on a date. Maybe you do, I don’t know. I don’t see you much outside of work, but you’ve never mentioned a woman before. This one must be big.”
“She feels big.” Kane ran his hand through his hair and pulled into the River’s End, a bar and restaurant near an outdoor center advertising guided rafting and zip lining tours for tourists. It was usually busy as hell this time of day, but they could sit at the bar.
“Big how?” Wyatt asked as Kane shoved the Bronco into park.
“Scary.”
“Shit, man. Sounds like you’re in trouble with this one.”
“Yeah.”
He and Wyatt found a couple seats up at the bar, ordered a pair of jack and cokes and trout cakes over grits. The restaurant was right over the water, and a few straggling white water rafting tours were lazily floating by. Evening was casting the valley in shadows, but the warm glow of the restaurant settled the uncomfortable humming feeling in his chest. Or maybe it was Wyatt somehow. Just talking about Rowan made him feel better. Or maybe it was the shiny rock he was turning over and over in his hand while he waited for his drink to arrive.
“What’s that?” Wyatt asked, jerking his chin at the stone.
“The girl gave it to me. Said she was giving me a treasure.”
“So she knows what you are?”
Kane snorted and leaned forward on his elbows. “She knows what I’m supposed to be. You and I both know I’m just a man.”
“Just a man with dragon eyes and the strength of a shifter. They didn’t cut him out of you completely, Kane.”
Kane shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about that shit, man.”
“Well, maybe you should. Ain’t no shame in what happened to you.”
Other than Rowan, Wyatt was the only one who knew his dragon was inaccessible. He’d found out by accident.
“I heard what happened with Ryder’s dad.”
When the bartender set a drink in front of him, Kane downed it neatly and gestured for another. He needed to have a buzz for this conversation. “I wanted to kill him.”
“Understandable.”
“Is it?” Kane arched his eyebrows at Wyatt. “Is it understandable that I don’t even have the dragon, and I still have such a darkness inside of me that I would’ve killed that man, no remorse, if Ryder and Weston weren’t there to stop me? Nah. You’re a shifter, Wyatt.”
“So?”
“So you view death differently than normal people. You see the necessity in killing because it’s your nature. Because it’s how you grew up, with shifter wars and fights to the death. I didn’t grow up like that. I grew up with humans, and they don’t see the necessity in killing, not even if the person is evil, not even if it’s to save your life. If they find out you’re a killer, they shun you, shackle you, and rip the dark from you.”
“They failed with you though, Kane,” Wyatt said low. “You’re still here. A woman could make things easier.”
He huffed a breath and downed the second drink the bartender put in front of him. “Another please.” Kane leveled Wyatt with a hard look. “If you were me and cared about a woman, would you strap her with the shit I shoulder?”
Wyatt sighed and crossed his arms. “Does she like you back?”
“I don’t know. Felt like it when we kissed, and she’s affectionate with me, but I don’t know for sure. She could just be like that, you know?”
“So what you just told me is she does know about the dragon, about the shit that happened, about your eyes, about the extra shifter
shit you have, and she still kisses you. She still touches you. So she’s not afraid of you?”
Kane thought of what Rowan’s fire-breathing, badass dragon must look like. “No man. She has no reason to be.”
“Then I’d say she likes you fine, and it should be her decision whether she wants to shoulder your baggage with you. I was like you—”
“I doubt it—”
“We’re more alike than you think, Kane. That pit inside of you that doesn’t ever get filled? I had one of my own for a long time. Harper and I lost a baby when we were eighteen. It ripped me up, ripped her up.”
“A baby could’ve killed her,” Kane murmured, confused.
“Yeah, but she wanted Janey. She wanted her so bad, and I just wanted Harper to live. I didn’t want to be the one who killed her. And she lost that little baby, and there was this moment of relief, like I’d chosen Harper’s life over Janey’s, and I felt awful for it. I spiraled. I left Damon’s mountains, left Harper when she needed me. I lost myself and got so fucking dark I couldn’t see any light anymore.”
“How did you dig out?”
“I didn’t. Harper dug me out. She gave me this little ray of light to get me going again. She gave me hope, and I got my hands moving. I got to work so I could see more light, and there she was, standing there, arms open even though I didn’t deserve it. I’m telling you, man. Just because it’s dark right now, that don’t mean it always has to be that way.”
“So you think I should go after this woman?”
“Yeah, Kane. If she feels scary to you, I’d say that’s a good sign. I know you’re careful about opening up, but you never know what can happen. You just don’t until you give someone that chance to let you down or love you.”
Love. That was a big, terrifying word. Rowan wouldn’t be able to do that. Not with him. Not when she found out all the awful stuff about him. But God, did it sound tempting to try for something like Wyatt had with Harper and Ryder had with Lexi. Like Weston had with Avery and Aaron had with Alana.
