by T. S. Joyce
Kane lowered his voice and pulled the new drink the bartender gave him closer. “I heard about Harper.”
Wyatt froze. “What about her?” he asked carefully.
Kane tinked his glass gently against Wyatt’s. “Congrats man. I’m happy for you. I hope…”
“Harper is strong enough,” Wyatt said firmly. “She’ll get him to air, and she’ll survive it.” But it sounded as though he was trying to convince himself as much as Kane.
“He’ll be a brawny little titan,” Kane said. “You’ll be good at this father crap.”
Wyatt chuckled and relaxed, downed his drink with Kane. “God, I hope so. I’m about to be a lone grizzly shifter in a family of dragons. I’m about to be outnumbered by the fire-breathers, man.”
“Nah, you have the crew. They say it takes a village to raise a child. You’ve got the village, Wyatt, and between you and your mate, your boy will be lucky.” Lord knows Kane could’ve used a village like that growing up.
A loud rumbling sounded down the road, and Wyatt turned, glanced over his shoulder at the wall of windows. “Speaking of the village.”
Dread dumped into Kane’s system when he looked behind him. One Bloodrunner he could handle. The whole crew he needed to mentally prepare for. He stood up too quickly, and his stool scooted loudly across the wooden floor.
Wyatt’s hand was on his arm in an instant. “Nope, sit down. Ryder won’t let you get away, might as well hang out for half an hour before you duck out.”
He didn’t want to do this. Being around such a close-knit group always reminded him of what he didn’t have. It always made him recognize what a fucking outsider he was. But as he moved to pull his wallet from his back pocket to pay, a familiar set of long legs stepped from the back door of a jacked-up, charcoal gray pickup truck.
Kane’s heart hammered against his sternum. He froze like a dope, completely entranced with Rowan’s graceful stride. She wore a loose, see-through knit sweater that hung off her shoulders over cut-off jean shorts and flip flops. Her hair was pulled in a high ponytail that trailed blond tresses down her long neck and swished from side to side as she walked toward the restaurant talking with Alana.
And there was no leaving now. There was no more avoiding the apology she deserved.
There was no more avoiding the girl who had taken up all his headspace for three straight days.
Sounds like you’re in trouble with this one.
Wyatt didn’t even know how right he’d been.
Chapter Ten
“It’s early mornings, though,” Alana warned about the job she’d just offered Rowan. “Early mornings, but then we close up around two or three in the afternoon, so you get a good chunk of the day off.”
“It sounds perfect. I don’t mind the hours at all,” Rowan said excitedly. Honestly, she’d expected a real hard time finding a job since she was a dangerous shifter, but Alana had just offered out of the blue on the drive over here.
Rowan couldn’t stop smiling. Her cheeks were actually getting tired right now! She pressed her palms to her cheeks to cover the blush there and turned to Alana in front of the River’s Edge restaurant Ryder insisted they go to. “Alana, this means more than I can even tell you. I’ll be the best employee you ever had. I swear you won’t regret this.”
Alana pulled her hands away from her face and grinned. “You can start on Wednesday. I’ll get you an apron with the logo, a nametag, and everything. Training starts at six.”
Rowan made a high-pitched squeal and hugged Alana’s shoulders tight. Must’ve been too tight because Alana grunted a pained sound, and Aaron snarled from behind her. “Oops, sorry.” She released Alana and put some space between her and Aaron. She loved him like a brother, but Bear had always been a beast. Aaron’s eyes were bright gold right now, and he stank of dominance. Second in the crew had made his animal even heavier than she remembered. Probably having a mate to defend now didn’t help.
Alana squeezed her hand in silent forgiveness, and then she wrapped her arms around Aaron’s waist. He was even bigger than she remembered, tall and blond like a Viking, tattoos everywhere, broad-shouldered, and those eyes… Aaron had grown up to be a warrior.
Rowan watched them make their way inside and swallowed hard. She was brought here to protect the Bloodrunners. To protect badass shifters like Aaron? Like Wyatt and Alana? Like two of the most battle proven flight shifters in the world—Weston and Air Ryder? She was in way over her head. God, she hoped there was zero trouble so Rowan wouldn’t fail the Bloodrunners.
It was getting dark out, but River’s Edge was a long cabin set right beside the river. The soft, inviting glow of artificial light streaming through the numerous windows beckoned to her. Movement caught her attention, and she locked eyes on a man she thought she would never see again. Kane. He was wearing a thin black T-shirt that clung to his chest and shoulders, and his tattoos down one arm were stark against his pale skin. His hair was tossed to one side and fell forward in front of the left side of his face in dark waves. She hadn’t noticed how big he was until now when he was surrounded by humans. He was a full head taller and much wider than any of them. He stood as frozen as her, trapping her with that inhuman gaze. And thank God for tiny blessings—he wasn’t wearing those damn sunglasses tonight.
He was stunning.
He’d also told her to leave him alone. Was he angry she was here? She couldn’t read the expression on his face. It wasn’t her fault. Ryder had said Wyatt was out drinking and told her to get dressed, end of story.
Rowan swallowed hard and lifted her fingers in the air, gave him a little wave.
Kane leaned over to Wyatt at the bar, murmured something, then strode toward her. Shit, he was coming. Rowan tugged at the hem of her shirt and rushed to make sure it was settled on her shoulders just right. She pulled her ponytail tighter and pursed her lips, checking on the consistency of her lip gloss. Be cool.
Rowan cocked her hip and crossed her arms, then felt stupid so she let her hands drop down to her sides as he came out the swinging door.
“Hey—”
“Hidey ho—” she said at the same time he greeted her.
Rowan laughed nervously. Kane ran his hand through his hair, smoothing it out of his face as he tracked a slow moving car behind her with his gaze. “So, I fucked up the other day. I popped off because I didn’t like where the conversation was going, and I handled it all wrong.”
“Oh.” Rowan looked at her painted pink toes. “If you could go back, how would you do it differently?”
A smile ghosted his lips. “I would’ve gone after you. I would’ve caught you before you got in your car and drove away. I would’ve said sorry then and let you leave on a better note.”
Rowan was trying her best to hide a smile. He shouldn’t be off the hook this easily, but something inside of her said Kane didn’t apologize often. “Is that all?”
Kane scrubbed his hand down his dark facial scruff and stepped closer. He brushed her hip with his finger and looked uncertain as hell. He lowered his voice to a deep rich timber that lifted the fine hairs on her body. “I maybe would’ve got your phone number too. I’m sorry, Roe. I didn’t mean what I said. I don’t want you to let me be.”
“Oh, so you want me to continue annoying the shit out of you?”
Kane snorted. “Apparently.”
She shoved him in the chest, but he didn’t move or flinch away from her. He laughed instead. God, she loved the way laughter sounded from him, so easy and deep. He caught her hands, intertwined their fingers, leaned forward like he was going to kiss her.
Knock, knock, knock! A fist pounded on the glass window of the restaurant, and Ryder’s muffled voice carried through. “Gross, are you two gonna make out?”
Kane froze like an ice sculpture, then eased away and looked back over his shoulder. In the River’s Edge, all the Bloodrunners were staring at them through the window, expressions of utter shock eerily similar on all their faces. Ryder’s mouth was hanging o
pen, and his hands were smushed against the glass.
Kane muttered his favorite word. His body hummed with stress, so Rowan wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her chin between his defined pecs, stared up into his eyes.
Kane stumbled backward a step and righted his balance. He dragged in a long, ragged breath and murmured, “Princess, it’s terrifying how easily you make me lose my head.”
That didn’t sound like such a bad thing, though.
Rowan pulled his hand toward the restaurant, but Kane balked outside the door. “Wait, wait, wait.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I just need a minute.”
Rowan looked from him to the Bloodrunners through the window, who were dispersing and meandering toward a bar area. “Do you not like them?”
“No, no, it’s not that. It’s just…I’m not good in crowds.”
“In crowds of shifters?”
“Yeah, that.”
“Who do you like best?”
“What?”
“Out of the Bloodrunners, who do you get along with best? Who do you connect with most?”
“Besides you?”
Rowan ginned, flattered. “Yeah, besides me.”
“Wyatt is okay. Avery, too. She’s calm and quiet.”
“Good. Okay. Kane,” she said, cupping his cheeks and pulling his troubled gaze from the window. “I’m really hungry. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I feel weak.”
Kane was nodding, and his elongated pupils dilated. “I should feed you.”
She bit her lip hard to hide her smile. Kane was just like every other dominant male shifter she knew. He might think himself only a man, but he was wrong. His dragon had more sway than he realized. The urge to protect and take care of a female’s needs was just as strong in Kane as it was in the Bloodrunner men inside.
“I want to eat with you, and I’ll be right there, pestering you all night, so you don’t have to worry about anyone else, okay? Just me.”
“Yeah,” Kane rumbled.
He opened the door for her and pressed his fingertips on her lower back, guiding her inside. She didn’t miss it, though. His hand was shaking. Her protective instincts reared up like the monster from the depths of Loch Ness.
Rowan led Kane to the bar and positioned him right between her and Avery, who gave him an immediate hug. His shoulders were tensed up hard, but he patted her on the back awkwardly and tried to smile. Wyatt gave him the strangest look, flashed the same look to Rowan, then handed Kane a drink and shoved a plate of what looked like trout and grits down the bartop to him. But Kane didn’t dig in, no. He ushered Rowan onto the bar stool and gestured for her to eat up. Then he turned, the tension easing from his body, and got pulled straight into a weird hug from Ryder—one where Ryder rested his head against Kane’s chest and gave Rowan a mushy smile. “You two will make beautiful dragon babies.”
“Jesus,” Kane muttered, clapping him once on the back. “That’s good, man.”
Ryder held on. “I predict a dozen fire-breathers.”
Kane was looking up at the ceiling now with his hands out. Since his lips were moving, Rowan was pretty sure he was counting to ten for patience. She snickered and scarfed another bite.
Ryder eased back, and Kane’s clenched jaw relaxed, up until the point Ryder pulled his phone up and took a quick selfie of them and began typing away. “Hashtag fourth best friend. Hashtag Dark Kane,” Ryder murmured.
“I don’t want to be on your social media, Ryder,” Kane said low.
Ryder snorted. “It’s not mine. I’m adding our picture to your account.”
Kane’s eyes narrowed to suspicious green slits. “I don’t have an account.”
“Yeah, you do. I made it for you. You have two thousand followers. Two-thousand and one. Two-thousand and six. Ha! Look.” Ryder turned his phone toward Kane and showed him the climbing number of followers. The profile pic was one Ryder had obviously taken while Kane wasn’t paying attention. It featured Ryder’s smiling face and Kane sitting a few chairs down the bar with his sunglasses on, watching a television, completely unaware.
Rowan pursed her lips so she wouldn’t laugh as hard as she wanted to. “Friend-request me,” she told Ryder, then winked at Kane and said, “We’re besties.”
Kane looked so defeated.
The food was freaking delicious, so she shoved a bite at him. He looked taken aback completely. “Are we sharing?”
Ryder, still staring at his phone, said, “You almost sucked face with her outside, man. Methinks you should worry less about Roe’s cooties.”
Kane took the bite quick, then gestured to a passing bartender and ordered another plate of trout and grits and a couple shots of whisky.
“I hope those are both for you,” Rowan teased, then told the bartender she wanted, “A panty-dropper drink. Something pink and fruity.” Kane groaned behind her, but he would have to get used to her tastes.
“Tonight, I’m celebrating.” She fed him another bite, and he didn’t even balk this time.
“Yeah? What are you celebrating?”
“Alana just offered me a job at her coffee shop. I don’t even have to job hunt!”
Kane’s eyebrows winged up, and he cast a stunned look at a grinning Alana. “Really?”
“I have a good feeling about her,” Alana said, lifting the straw of her Sex on the Beach to her lips. She took a long draw and then said, “She starts next week. Gonna make sure she gets her treasure back before she starts work.”
Kane jerked his attention back to Rowan. “You don’t have it yet?” He smelled worried.
“It’s supposed to be delivered to Harper’s Mountains any time now. Hopefully tomorrow is the day. They found it. The suitcase is just in transit.”
Kane opened his mouth to say something, but the bartender handed him drinks. “Thanks,” Kane murmured, then squared up to Rowan, right between her legs, looking down at her with those fiery green eyes. Voice pitched low and gravelly, he asked, “Have you been sick?”
Rowan sighed because she didn’t want to think about it. She wanted a night to escape the stress of the last few days and not dwell on how freaking terrified she was. “Yes.”
“Roe,” Kane whispered.
She forced a chipper smile and bunched the waist of his T-shirt in her clenched fists. “I feel good tonight, though.” Determined to distract him, she handed him one of the shots of whiskey and held up the other. She cocked her eyebrow in a dare.
Kane angled his head, his eyes tightening in the corners, but he gave in and bumped his tiny glass against hers. They both clinked the bottoms of their shot glasses against the counter gently, then threw back the burning liquid.
Tasted like piss, so Rowan chased it with a few desperate slurps of Avery’s ice water. She coughed while Kane laughed at her.
“Stop,” she complained, shoving him. The brute didn’t even move. That was something she was still trying to get used to. That kind of force with anyone else, and they would’ve gone flying.
Kane made no sense. No dragon, which she had a million questions about, and slowed healing, but he still had dragon eyes and brute strength.
“Why don’t you use your dragon?” she asked, feeling the buzz.
“Nope,” he clipped out, then leaned way over her and took a bite of their food.
“Fine, what were you doing around Saratoga?”
He frowned. Around the bite, he asked, “What do you mean?”
“On the plane, you happened to be at the same place as me. But you talk about Damon like you’re scared of him, so why were you in his territory, mysterious dragon?”
Kane growled a convincing sound and tried to retreat, but Rowan wrapped her arms and legs around him like a cat on a tree. “No use running. I’ll chase you.”
“I’m going to take a piss.”
“Kane, I’m serious. I’ll follow you.”
He gave her a wicked grin. “Don’t tempt me.”
She thought about the women h
e’d fucked in bathrooms and wanted to kick both of his shins and maybe his chode, too. “You don’t tempt me, Kane. I brought sanitary wipes in my purse.”
He clipped out a surprised laugh and dragged his fingertips down her thighs. “Sanitary wipes?”
“Yeah, I’m not fucking in a germy bathroom.”
Kane laughed a little harder and stopped struggling away from her grasp. “So, let me get this straight. You aren’t opposed to fucking in a bathroom, but only if you wipe it down first?”
“If it erases those other women from your mind,” she gritted out.
Kane smoothed his hair out of his face and looked around at the others like he was making sure they weren’t listening. “Are you jealous of those girls? I never even saw them again.”
Rowan crossed her arms over her chest and ducked his gaze. Why was she so angry right now? It was hard to even see straight. “I don’t get jealous.”
“Lie.”
“Oh, you don’t have a dragon, but you can hear lies?”
The smile dipped from Kane’s lips. He disconnected his touch from her, leaned his elbows on the bar, gave his attention to the television on the wall by the glass case of bourbon.
Remorse surged through her, chasing the fury out of her veins. “Hey,” she whispered, rubbing her hand up his tensed back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t keep bringing that up.”
“You really shouldn’t,” Kane said, giving her a fiery look. His eyes looked even brighter now, but maybe it was the lighting. “It sucks to think about.”
“Is that why you don’t like hanging out with shifters?”
He huffed a humorless breath and forked a piece of fish, then pushed it around the plate like he’d lost his appetite. “Shifter or human, it doesn’t matter. I don’t belong with either.”
And she could see his point. If he hung out with humans, he had to hide his eyes and his strength. It wasn’t something they would ever get used to. If he hung out with shifters, he had to hear them talking about their animals openly, and he’d lost his somehow.
