She’d assumed that the fire had been started by one of them, now that she knew what they were and what they could do. Erik’s statement made her pause and reconsider her assumption.
“You think someone started that fire on purpose?” The words left her before she could think better of it.
“Oh, we know who started it. Casey found his mate while she was dealing with a total asshole of an ex-boyfriend. The ex thought he could intimidate a bunch of dragon shifters by setting their house on fire.” Anger lined Erik’s features.
“That should have been all over the news!”
Erik shook his head. “No. We can’t risk exposure like that. The more eyes turn toward us, the greater the chance that humans will catch on to what we are and run us out of town. I’ve heard of some mountain towns protecting the secrets of their local dragon clans, but we’re new here. We don’t have the kind of roots they do. Evangeline, Isabella, and Nellie have lives here. If we get ousted, their lives get uprooted.”
Bree digested his words. “I’m going to need a babysitter at all times. I’m a giant liability!”
Erik sauntered up to her, a swagger in his steps even though she suspected it was forced. “Thankfully, I really like to drink. Don’t worry. You won’t be alone tonight.”
She stared up at him and tried to hold back her yearning. Could he see it in her eyes? Could he tell she wanted to press her chest to his and breathe in his scent? She didn’t know if this would get easier, if it would go away once she did what her dragon wanted. The part of her that wanted to make sure he stayed held her in place.
Erik showed her how to control her fire. She couldn’t believe she could breathe fire in her human form. The flames gathered in her mouth and licked her tongue before flying into the air. She jerked with alarm the first few times, but eventually got the hang of it.
When she brought up that this full force breathing wouldn’t help her learn control, he assured her that letting of some steam helped a lot more than she would expect. And, it did. When he showed her how to tense her throat and limit her blowing, she found it easy to breathe thin lines of fire into the air.
“What do I do when it’s overwhelming? When I can’t think of anything but the heat in my chest and throat?” She nervously adjusted her weight to the other foot.
“That’s when you focus on something that calms you. I haven’t found what works for me yet, but I know Casey always threw himself into construction when he felt out of control. Not sure Dillon has ever been out of control a day in his life. Not even when he beat my ass for breathing too close to Isabella.” Erik turned away from her.
As she watched him, she thought about the fire that had been persistent those first few days. She’d felt like it would consume her from the inside out. Ever since Erik had shown up, the fire had stopped bothering her. She didn’t feel like it would be the end of her, but the beginning of something else. Perhaps that was because the fire had turned to a heat, one deep in her core.
When she broke free of her thoughts, she found him taking his shirt off. The warmth in her body turned to an inferno. She couldn’t look away, though.
“Start undressing,” he said. “It’s time to try this in your other form.”
At first, his words took her thoughts along a sordid path, then she took in the rest of what he’d said. A blush reached her cheeks, but she turned away and began to remove her own layers of clothing. Her beast slithered under her skin. What had been a voice now turned into a physical presence. All she had to do was open the door, and it would come out.
Bree stole another moment to glance back at Erik. Just like the night before, he watched her. Without his sunglasses, she could see the intense heat of his gaze. It flickered over her skin like wildfire. She yearned for more, but it was too late. Her beast had control, and it wanted out.
The sensation was strange. She needed a moment to adjust as the world grew smaller around her. Trees that had towered were now merely shrubs. Her vision wavered when she tried to look down. The little hint of vertigo told her that flying would be an interesting experience, one that she was not ready for.
Erik, the bright blue beast she’d seen before, sidled up to her. His movements were smooth and natural. By comparison, she wobbled around like a drunk hippo. She didn’t need to move for this, though.
She watched his maw open and flames gather in the back of his throat. With the flick of his tongue, he launched a ball of fire into the sky. It shot overhead for a few hundred feet before fizzling out into nothing. Bree didn’t know if she could do that, but her own flames began to climb her throat, all too ready to be set free.
Erik nudged her with his shoulder to make sure her eyes stayed on his mouth. Patient, Erik walked her through the steps. She brought her fire into the back of her throat. It tickled, like a dangerous moth caught on her tongue. It pressed on her throat, tickled her lungs, and tried to frantically break free of the confines of her mouth.
Unable to bear it any longer, she coughed and set it free. The ball of flames didn’t rise into the air. It skidded across the ground, leaving black char in its wake while she gagged. Erik surged forward. She wished he’d stayed by her until she finally looked up and saw what she’d done.
Fire climbed the side of a tree. It reached a branch and leapt from one tree to the next. Dry grass caught and crackled. Panic stabbed her through the chest. She stood and wobbled on her new feet. The trees popped and hissed. The sound pained her. She hobbled forward and tried to stamp on the grassfire, but for every small section she put out, another stretch flared.
Making her a dragon had been a mistake. She would never be able to get the hang of this. This monster would have to stay trapped inside her skin for the rest of her life. If she let it out, the world around her would burn. She dreaded the destruction she would leave in her wake.
She frantically slapped the ground in an attempt to staunch the spreading grassfire. When she looked up, Erik was nowhere to be seen. Her heart leapt into her throat where it pounded wildly. She couldn’t tame this blaze on her own. How could he have left her?
Smoke surrounded her. The sound of more trees catching, that sizzle of sap trapped beneath the bark, made panic tighten around her throat. She could barely breathe.
A flood of water rained down over her head. She crouched, alarmed and dripping. Daring a glance into the sky, she saw Erik flying away with some sort of bucket. No, it was too large to be a simple bucket. She thought it could be a water trough or maybe a…dumpster?
Either way, the wildfire had been staunched. The earth under her feet squelched as she backed away. A group of trees had black marks up their trunks and a few branches had burned away completely. The grass didn’t look any better.
When Erik returned, he shifted as he descended. Bree watched with awe as human feet touched the ground. He didn’t pause before heading toward her. She reached for her beast and tried to pull it back, but the creature refused to budge.
You will not lock me up forever.
Bree’s frightened decision to never shift again had scared the beast. It clung to their current form and wouldn’t let Bree talk to Erik.
“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Erik said, nonchalantly.
Bree desperately wanted to say something, anything. She tried to fight her way out of the beast, like when it made her feel too small for her own body, but she didn’t have enough presence to make a dragon feel small. She couldn’t grab the reins and pull. Trapped and helpless, Bree wanted to cry.
First the fire, now this. She was the worst dragon to ever come into existence. Nothing she did would ever amount to anything more than a problem.
“Bree? You alright?” Erik’s voice sounded distant.
Bree’s beast lowered its head to Erik’s chest. He hugged her, his hands gently grazing the rippled ridge of her jaw before he leaned back to look her in the eye. Bree wanted to scream, to beg for his help, but no sound would leave the beast’s mouth.
Still, Erik’s brows furrow
ed as his lips twisted to the side. “I figured that would cause some contention. You have to let Bree out. The two of you will find balance eventually.”
Her beast huffed. Bree wanted to kick and scream and punch, but she had no form. Her willpower wasn’t enough to overpower a dragon, not even when fury consumed her entire being. She never wanted to be as helpless as she’d been today. If she thought the first few days as a dragon shifter had been bad, this was worse.
Finally, the beast relented. It gave way to Bree’s human form. She gasped, relieved to be free of the dragon’s confines. Erik caught her before she could drop to her knees on the wet earth.
He pushed back her hair. “That happens from time to time. We all have days where our human halves argue with the dragon half. It’s like when you really, really want a beer at noon but the logical part of you says to wait until five.”
Bree tried to laugh. The split between human and dragon had been terrifying. She’d lost all control over a single thought. The beast had cast her aside far too easily.
“Why did my beast listen to you?” Bree clung to him. She wanted to bury her face in his chest, but she realized he was very naked.
He cocked a sly grin and wiggled both brows playfully. “Maybe your dragon knows she can’t have a good time with me on her own.”
His fingers teased their way up her ribcage. His touch ignited a hot need in her core. Her entire body thrummed, but she still scowled at him.
“This isn’t the time for jokes! I nearly burnt down the valley. I’m never going to be able to get the hang of any of this. I’m always going to be a liability. What…what happens when I’m beyond help?”
Erik pulled her tight to his body. His voice deepened into a growl. “You’ll never be a liability. Don’t talk about yourself that way.”
Her heart fluttered like an excited bird, but that wasn’t enough to drown the doubt lurking in her mind. Bree wanted to fight. She wanted to make this work because, well, she had no other choice. Doubt overpowered her, though. It told her she would never be able to go anywhere without an escort.
Erik tucked a finger under her chin. “There isn’t a single one of us who hasn’t fucked up in the last…week. I require constant surveillance myself.”
His lips took on a sour expression, like the words that’d slipped from him had left an awful taste on his tongue. Bree didn’t dig. She didn’t have the energy for it. Instead, she let her head fall against his chest. The feel and scent of him comforted her. The knot in her chest wasn’t quite as tight.
“What if I set a fire at your place?” she asked. “There are so many people living there. I don’t want to endanger them.”
“Most of our family is pretty fireproof,” he said, a hint of laughter in his voice.
“A house isn’t fireproof. Evangeline and Isabella aren’t fireproof.”
He tried to get her to look at him again. She didn’t want to, not with so much going through her mind. Finally, she relented. His mismatched eyes shone with the light of the beast inside him. He didn’t look inhuman, but like he had gemstones for eyes. She could easily get lost in their multifaceted beauty.
“No one knows everything. You’re new and you have so much to learn. Don’t expect to be good at everything on the first try. What are you? A formerly gifted child?” he teased.
“You can tell?” Her laughter felt forced at first, until her lungs eased into the sound. The tightness around her ribcage finally gave away, and she found herself smiling again. “I was voted most likely to succeed in my senior yearbook. It seems I don’t like being told what to do because I immediately started bartending, and I haven’t looked back.”
Erik shrugged. “Sometimes we aren’t meant for big lives. I’m more of a simple life kind of man. You. Me. A few goats. Maybe a llama that we can dress up.”
She froze. His words tumbled through her mind, leaving electricity in their wake. Had he just described a future with her? Surely, he couldn’t have meant it. Bree told herself that she was a stand-in, someone to fill the space while he told her what he wanted.
But the way his hand slid along the side of her neck made her question everything. His eyes darkened. They fell on her lips and made her heart flutter again. She’d never gotten so much cardiac exercise in her life. Every time she came near him, her heart did acrobatics.
“You’re going to do fine,” he whispered while he ran his thumb along her jaw.
Her lips parted. She wanted him to make the first move. If she did it, then she would never know if he actually wanted her or if he let it happen. She wanted him to want her. Oh, she needed him to want her.
His thumb found her lips. The slight touch sent shivers through her. He watched, seemingly transfixed. Could he feel her quake in his arms? Couldn’t he tell how badly she needed him?
Then she felt the rumble in his chest. The beast in him growled. For her?
With her hands on him, she felt the rumble intensify. She could have sworn there was more than one beast growling within him. That was impossible, though. Right?
She didn’t have long to think about the sound. Erik cupped the back of her head right before his lips found hers. What she’d thought would be a sweet and soft kiss quickly turned passionate. His tongue pressed its way between her lips. She yielded, all too eager to let him explore her. He filled her senses so completely, doubt had no room to lurk inside her. It was forced out by his touch, his growls, his scent.
She wound her arms around his neck and pressed into him. She thought he would lay her down and take her right then and there. Every part of her wanted it. The press of his cock against her stomach told her he wanted it, too.
But he broke from her, his breathing heavy. He rested his forehead against hers. Every inch of her body pulsed with sensation. She pressed her nails into his skin, eager to pull him back for more.
The voice of reason cut through her body’s desire. She had work. Even though she’d become a dragon shifter, that didn’t mean she could forgo work. Bills needed to be paid. Life kept going, no matter how badly she wanted to give herself over to Erik.
“I should get ready for work,” Bree said. The words felt like lead in her mouth.
“We can set more fires another day,” he said.
She shuddered at the heat in his voice. Desire climbed over her skin, and for a moment, she thought she would lose the war between recklessness and responsibility. Then, Erik pulled away from her. She flexed her empty hands and mourned the loss of his warmth.
Then she recalled that she was completely naked. She darted toward her clothes, heaving a sigh of relief when she found them dry and untouched by the fire. After this, she wouldn’t be able to wear them to work, but at least she wouldn’t have to wear wet clothes when Erik drove her home.
40
Erik watched Bree from the shadows. He told himself he wouldn’t interfere in her daily life. She was her own person, not his mate. Yet, he wanted to grab the man at the bar by his hair and drag him out of the bar. Bree narrowed her eyes at the man. She could handle herself. No human man would ever be as strong as her now.
Erik had to look away. Jealousy didn’t taste very nice. He’d kissed her while she was vulnerable. He never should have allowed his beasts to drive him into doing anything so foolish. He’d been helpless when both had urged him to take her. Only the last bit of his self-control had stopped him from laying her on the ground earlier.
Bree might be a dragon now, but she hadn’t been made just for him. Being a greedy asshole wouldn’t help her acclimate to her new state of being. Erik needed to back off.
He scanned the room until he laid eyes on a redhead sitting alone. She waggled her fingers at him, like she’d been waiting for him to notice her. A week ago, Erik would have happily lost himself in her plush curves for a night. Now he fought back a grimace when he watched her grab her drink and saunter over.
She batted her fake eyelashes and took the seat across from him. “I’ve seen you around here a few times. You neve
r leave with the same woman.”
He couldn’t help it, he glanced at Bree. Both beasts growled with hunger. Not for food, but for the pleasures of flesh. Thankful that his sunglasses hid where his attention had gone, he turned back to the redhead.
“What can I say? I’m looking for that forever kind of love sooner rather than later.”
She bit her lower lip. “What makes you think you can tell if that’s what you have if you only spend a single night with someone?”
Her fingers danced over the table until she could run her red-tipped fingernails along his forearm. He didn’t flinch like he wanted to. The beasts in him snarled at her touch, though. The green dragon, the one he had to hold back, snarled and sunk its claws into him.
He tried not to show the pain. He was pretty well practiced in hiding it, but the beast tore deeper and deeper the longer he let the redhead touch him. The pain only receded when he pulled away from her.
“How about we head back to my place and give your instinct a test run?” she suggested.
Erik yearned for comfort, but when he thought of sex, only one person filled his thoughts. A lump formed in his throat. He couldn’t have what he wanted. It wasn’t fair to change Bree and then beg her to love him. Any feelings she might have had for him before this would always be tainted by what he’d done.
He asked the redhead how she planned on winning him over and only half-heartedly listened to flirtatious description. He already knew she wouldn’t be the one. The idea that he would find his mate in a bar had always been foolish, but it hadn’t stopped him from trying to fill the void.
First, Casey found Evangeline. Then Isabella moved into the cabin and became Dillon’s mate. Even Gavin had someone keeping him busy. He still couldn’t track down the witch that saved them the night of the fire.
Alone and feeling like a burden, Erik tried to spend as much time as he could away from the cabin. He would be there should any of them need him, but he couldn’t stand to see their happiness. As much as they deserved the love, Erik knew he would never get the same, and it hurt too much.
Rogue Dragons Series: Box Set Books 1-5 Page 33
