Gavin didn’t respond. He kept his back to Casey.
Casey told himself that now wasn’t the time to argue. Not when he had Evangeline in his lap and the air smelled of sweet, smoked meat. If Casey challenged Gavin now, Evangeline would be in the line of fire again. Casey would level the whole damn cabin just to keep her safe.
“I don’t mind it out here,” Erik said as he threw himself into a chair and put his feet on the nearest elevated surface. “It’s a hell of a lot quieter out here. I know it doesn’t look like it, but this place has been good for me.”
“This mountain is pretty,” Dillon said, nodding as if that’s what Erik had meant.
Erik raised a confused brow. Casey wrapped an arm around Evangeline’s middle and leaned back into his seat. She twisted, pulling her legs up to sit sideways across his lap, and rested her head on his shoulder.
Casey didn’t want to lose this. When he’d arrived, he’d assumed he would just drag Gavin home and get on with his lonely life. This little clan of misfits wasn’t what he had in mind, but now he wanted nothing else.
He wanted to walk Evangeline to work, to fix everything that broke in her shop, and to make her smile every day of the rest of his life. He only hoped the rest of his life was a lot longer than the deadline Zander had given them.
11
Evangeline wasn’t ready to go home. She didn’t want to sleep alone after the day they’d had. She deserved to cuddle up against Casey and listen to his dragon’s soft growls. She could see all the subtle ways the beast in him showed itself, from his eyes to the sounds he made.
Casey promised her that he would show her his dragon someday, but said he wasn’t ready yet. While Evangeline was all too ready to grab her pencil and sketchbook so she could draw the creature, she had patience. She could wait for Casey.
Unfortunately, her excitement over his beast fizzled and she was left with fear of what loomed on the horizon. Casey had spoken of a fight. She recalled how he’d told her that he wouldn’t be in town for long. Later, when he’d given her the deadline to figure out what he was, he’d given her until October.
Now, she wondered what awaited them in October. Casey had mentioned another man, Gavin’s father. From the sounds of him, he was not a nice guy. He wanted to hurt her mate and his friends. As a human, she could do nothing to protect them.
And if she happened to get caught in the middle…
“You would never…” Her question stuck in her throat. She couldn’t bear to lift her gaze from Casey’s chest for fear of seeing pain in his eyes. The question would have felt pointless save for the quiver that still shook in her gut.
Casey’s broad hands slid down her waist. He pulled her tight to his chest and became an impenetrable wall against all that would harm her. It was exactly what she needed. A breath slipped out of her and she let her forehead fall to his chest.
“You would never let anyone hurt me. Right?”
Casey’s growl was answer enough. It ripped through the air and carried a promise of savage protection. She turned to press her cheek against him. Breath by breath, she sank into him.
“When Zander comes for us, I’m making sure you’re as far away as possible.”
“But what if something happens to you and I’m not there?” She didn’t know what she could do, but the thought of being unable to reach him in his time of need filled her with ice.
Casey sighed and pressed his head to her chest.
While he had crashed into her life at just the right time, his circumstances had not been so perfect. He had a war looming on the horizon. The way he spoke, it sounded like the four of them against one man, but the way he acted made it seem like they were up against an army.
An army of people who could do what they did, that could change into dragons.
“We have time to figure this out,” she told him as she ran her fingers through his hair. “In the meantime, I’m not going anywhere.”
He trembled under her touch. “Don’t make that promise yet. You might not want to stick around once you see what kind of danger you’re in.”
“Nope. Not going anywhere. I’ve put myself in danger hundreds of times.” Her earlier apprehension gave way to determination. She’d looked in the eye of danger and it’d scared her, but that wasn’t the only time she could have been hurt.
She’d had clients who’d gotten physical after misunderstandings. Hell, Trevor had put her in one awful situation after another while they’d been together. Just because Gavin could hurt her didn’t mean anyone else couldn’t.
* * *
Casey woke in the middle of the night to screaming. He bolted upright and strained to listen, but he heard nothing. For a moment, he wondered if he’d imagined it, then he caught the sound of a strained soul outside.
He crawled over Evangeline, making sure to not rouse her before he slipped out of the room. He didn’t bother to put on a shirt or find a pair of shoes. Instead, he marched right outside in search of the sound.
A figure stood with his back to Casey. Downwind, he caught the familiar scent of Dillon. As he approached, he realized there was another figure, further down the hill. Dillon stood watch over the second figure but made no move to attack. If anything, Dillon seemed wary.
The figure down the hill groaned. The sound of bones snapping echoed between the trees before Casey recognized who he was looking at.
“Is that Erik?”
Dillon nodded.
Erik buckled under an invisible weight. One shoulder bucked while the other fell to the ground. He groaned into the dirt. The sound came out feral, unlike the man they’d gotten to know.
“You can’t fucking take me,” Erik mumbled in the distance. “You can’t have me, you monster.”
He pushed himself onto his hands and knees. Casey thought he could hear Erik’s teeth grinding from where they stood. Maybe that was Erik’s spine as it arched. Casey wanted to look away, but he couldn’t understand what was going on.
“Is he fighting his change?” Casey asked Dillon.
“Seems so.”
Casey shuffled uncomfortably. He didn’t want to stand around and watch Erik suffer, but he also didn’t feel right interfering. Whatever Erik was working through had to be dealt with on his own. If Casey and Dillon barged in, they might startle Erik’s beast and start a fight.
The only person who could help them right now would have been Gavin, but Casey didn’t know where he was hiding. Gavin could have commanded Erik to stop shifting.
“Fuck, why aren’t we a real clan?” Casey muttered.
“We are,” Dillon replied without taking his eyes off Erik. “We just need to get our leader through his shit first.”
Casey and Dillon slowly lowered themselves to the ground and watched over Erik while he was vulnerable. They watched as two different sets of scales tried to take form on Erik’s arms. Neither said anything even though no man had ever had two dragons.
Hadn’t Erik mentioned that he’d had a twin?
Casey didn’t know what that meant for Erik, only that his friend was hurting. They had to hook Gavin up with a mate. He needed a reason to live. If Gavin could find that again, then he could see that they wanted to be his clanmates. Gavin would be able to see past his own pain to the struggle that the rest of them were fighting through.
12
Evangeline panicked when she woke alone, but as soon as she sat up, she glimpsed Casey through the nearby window. He trudged back toward the cabin, looking exhausted. She rushed into the hall to greet him with a rushed flurry of questions.
He gently put his hands on her upper arms to calm her frantic gestures. “Everything is alright. I stayed up late watching out for someone. Nothing to be worried about.”
She wasn’t convinced. Dark circles sagged under his eyes, and he hunched like someone was crouching on his shoulders. When she put a hand on his chest, he covered it with his own and offered her a sweet smile.
“Trust me,” he asked. “Everything is okay. I just
need to get some sleep because that definitely didn’t happen last night.”
She bit her lower lip, trying to think over everything that could have happened, before nodding. Casey stole a kiss from her before he pushed past her.
Though she wanted to follow him and curl up against his warm body, she had work. But once she reached the front door, she remembered they had taken his truck to the cabin. Her car was still waiting for her back at her apartment.
She muttered a curse under her breath.
“You swear like a sailor,” Erik said, startling her.
Her heart thumped. She spun toward him and found that he didn’t look much better than Casey. His sunglasses covered his eyes, but she could still see how terrible he looked.
“Casey did me a favor last night,” Erik said. “Would you mind if I drove you home to repay him?”
She glanced back, wishing Casey would appear. As much as she wanted him to come take her home, she knew that they were all going through something right now.
But Erik was his friend, a part of this family they’d made here. She was a part of it now. Here was a chance for her to get to know one of them. And, after she nodded and made her way toward Erik’s truck, Dillon came to join them.
“Did either of you sleep?” she asked as she pulled her seatbelt over her chest.
“Not a fucking wink,” Erik confessed.
She wanted to ask what’d happened while she’d been sleeping, but if they weren’t going to give up that information on their own, then she probably didn’t need to know. Whatever it was, it was their secret. They would work through it on their own.
“You don’t have to drive me back to town,” she said. “Both of you should be sleeping.”
Dillon shrugged.
“I wanted to talk to you anyway,” Erik confessed.
She stiffened, expecting him to proposition her. With Dillon present, he might not do it. Erik could find other ways to get between her and Casey, though. She didn’t want to assume bad things about Erik, but her past experiences reared their ugly heads and tainted this interaction.
“So, you do tattoos, right? You’re not just like, the receptionist. Are you?”
She let out a relieved laugh. “I own the shop.”
Erik nodded. “Alright. Cool. Because I want everyone to get matching tattoos and you’re going to help me.” Erik jerked his chin toward the rearview mirror. “You in on this plan, big man?”
“Duh.” Dillon’s one-word response put him all in.
They waited outside her apartment for her to get ready, then drove her to the shop and helped her get everything ready to open. Evangeline caught Nellie hesitating outside. She didn’t think Nellie would want to come inside, but Nellie shook herself and made her way in.
Nellie kept her distance from Erik and Dillon, but the four of them put their heads together to devise a design for their clan.
That’s what the guys called it. A clan. They explained that was what dragons called their families. Even though it was just the five of them, Erik wanted them to be a clan. Evangeline was honored that he’d included her. Since she hadn’t seen a fifth shifter, she had to be the fifth he’d mentioned.
Right?
Nellie cast her wary glances, as if to ask if Evangeline was sure about this.
“I didn’t leave my mate behind on purpose this morning, but I’m liking how this worked out,” Evangeline said with a wide grin.
They came up with a flat black design, and Evangeline embellished it with a smoky background to make it pop into the forefront. Erik declared that this was the design. She expected him to schedule an appointment and come back after he’d slept, but he slapped down his debit card.
He lifted his sunglasses and peered at her with oddly mismatched eyes. “Are you free right now?”
Evangeline looked to Nellie, who did all the scheduling. To her surprise, Nellie had stuck around for the whole meeting. After all her proclamations of mistrust, it seemed like Nellie was actually enjoying herself.
“Your noon appointment called out,” Nellie said as she tossed the appointment book aside. “Looks like you have room for two tattoos.”
Evangeline regarded the clock. “Let’s make that three tattoos.”
She told Erik to take a seat while she prepared everything she needed. She pulled out some colors, mostly shades of red. Erik said nothing, only raised a brow.
Nellie and Dillon sat behind her as she pulled on gloves and tested her machine.
“Let’s do this,” Erik declared.
13
Evangeline’s inner ankle ached. It’d been years since she’d tattooed herself. The process hurt a lot more than she recalled, but she didn’t let the pain stop her from driving back up to the cabin in the woods.
She found a parking spot between Casey’s shiny new truck and Erik’s beater. When she got out, she found Gavin chopping wood off to the left of the front steps. He paused, his nostrils flaring before his gaze dropped to her ankle.
“I saw what you and the others did,” he said. “I’m going to tell you right here and now, that you’re going to regret that tattoo. We aren’t a clan.”
Evangeline bristled, but didn’t try to argue with him. “It’s good to see you, too.”
Gavin snorted. “You mean when I’m not throwing tables?”
“You bring a new meaning to Ultimate Frisbee,” she said as she passed.
His laughter filled her with pride. There was some hope for the grumpy shifter.
Inside the door, she paused and reached for the ring hanging around her neck. She hadn’t thought of it before, but Gavin kind of reminded her of her grandfather. While he was a bit prickly to deal with, she could tell that he cared. His way of caring didn’t align with what society thought it should be, but that was fine by her. She would show him that they would all be better off if he decided to keep living.
Evangeline didn’t know what had happened to Gavin to make him so cranky, but she knew that there was nothing in this world worth losing the will to live. Gavin had a nice place in the mountains. The cabin was larger than anything she could have ever hoped to own. He also had brethren, dedicated to keeping him around.
“I can hear you lingering,” Gavin shouted. “Move on!”
Evangeline grinned. She would get him into her seat at the shop, one way or another. He would bear this clan tattoo just like the rest of them.
Following her gut, Evangeline pushed through the cabin and out the back door. She’d hoped to find Casey inside, but something told her to search the sky. A massive shape drifted in circles above the mountain. She hadn’t seen him out front because the cabin had blocked her view, but here she leaned back and watched her mate fly.
He became clearer and clearer the lower he came. Her jaw dropped open as the light glistened off his orange and yellow scales. A ridge of spiny protrusions, speckled with orange and yellow spots, lined his spine.
The ground shook when he landed, making her reach for the door jamb. Any other person would have run screaming as this beast lumbered toward them, but her pulse raced with anticipation. Casey lowered his head, either to avoid the tree boughs or to seem gentle as he approached her.
“You don’t have to behave for me,” she called out.
The beast’s head lifted before he tossed it. The pine boughs trembled and rained needles onto the ground. She laughed and stepped forward, one hand extended. Casey pressed his forehead to her palm. His scales were warm, like he’d basked in the sunlight for hours, but she knew that heat came from inside him.
“Can you breathe fire?” she asked, excitedly.
He pulled away from her and slowly turned. She missed the feel of him pressed to her skin, but the loss was soon replaced by awe. Smoke drifted from Casey’s nostrils barely a second before red flames burst across his tongue. A stream of fire seared the ground.
She stepped back, not out of fear, but to guard herself against the radiant heat.
“As pretty as you are in this shape,
I need to talk to human Casey,” she said.
The beast tossed her a look, as if to say that pretty was not a descriptor it wanted to hear. She rolled her eyes.
“Do you want to be called glorious? Magnificent? Enchanting?”
It huffed and more smoke poured from its nose. She didn’t know how to translate the gesture, so she went back to stand by the door. While Casey shifted back to his human form, Evangeline plotted all the ways she would draw her mate’s dragon. Lost in poses and color composition, she didn’t hear Casey until he was close enough to pull her into his arms.
She stole a kiss, but he quickly pulled back. His brows furrowed and concern flashed through his eyes, a strange look as they slowly shifted back to blue.
“Do I smell blood?”
“Well,” Evangeline said, about to make a joke.
Casey’s warning look cut her off. She sighed and extracted herself from his arms so she could bend and roll her pantleg up. With a flourish of her hand, she peeled away the protective covering from her fresh tattoo.
He knelt and gently cradled her ankle to get a better look. When his gaze lifted to hers, her heart stuttered. She bit her lower lip and tried to calm the wave of desire that rolled over her.
“I’ve never had a man kneel for me before,” she whispered.
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Give it a few months. We get through this, and I’m going to get down on one knee.”
The promise should have warmed her, but it only reminded her of the war that loomed in their future. She hadn’t stopped to question why Casey had been flying over the cabin, but now she realized he must have been on lookout. Gavin’s father didn’t want Casey or the others to exist. She didn’t understand why they couldn’t just live on their own, away from the man’s field of influence, but it wasn’t her place to ask.
“What is this?” Casey asked.
She looked down and found his fingers hovering over her new tattoo. He didn’t touch it, though she could see that he wanted to.
Rogue Dragons Series: Box Set Books 1-5 Page 12
