He talked to the woman for another hour while trying not to look toward Bree. He hadn’t heard anything that sounded like disaster in her direction, so he figured she was handling everything just fine. If he didn’t meet her gaze, then the guilt for what he was about to do didn’t feel quite as heavy.
“So,” he said. “Do you want to get out of here?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
* * *
Bree replayed the kiss over and over. Her body came alive, and her core throbbed with need. Unfortunately, while her skin begged to be touched by Erik, it hated the rough denim of her jeans. She kept fidgeting with her waistband between serving drinks.
Bree had been horny before. That wasn’t all that new to her, but she’d never been this sensitive. She risked a glance across the bar, to Erik. He sat in the far corner and nursed his drink alone, sunglasses covering his eyes even though the bar was dark.
Just looking at him turned her sensitivity up to max. She hissed as she bent to grab something from under the counter. As she reached, her bra hooks dug into her back. They’d never hurt more than they did now. She couldn’t duck into the bathroom to fix the twisted flap that was supposed to cover the hook.
When she straightened, two more men signaled her. One needed a refill, the other wanted a drink that she was pretty sure he’d made up just to occupy her time. She gritted her teeth, passed another beer to the man waiting.
The second put his elbows on the bar and leaned into her personal space. She backed up, wary of his predatorial smirk. But before the man could even attempt to flirt, she saw Erik moving through the crowd. A head of red hair bobbed in front of him. Bree’s gaze dipped and caught Erik’s hand in the woman’s as she led him toward the exit.
Bree’s breath escaped her.
“My friends didn’t think I’d be able to get your number,” the guy said. “Do you think you could help me prove them wrong? I’m not looking for anything right now. I just want to fuck with my friends.”
Bree’s eyes would have rolled into the back of her head had she not been distracted by Erik. She slammed the guy’s complicated drink onto the bar in front of him.
“The bet is a nice ploy, but you’re not the first to try to use that trick on me,” she said.
His face went ghostly pale. He took his drink and dove into the crowd, probably to disappear.
Bree paid him no attention. She darted around the bar and raced for the door. Her beast growled deep inside her. It filled her with an anger unlike any other she’d ever felt before. Fire scorched the back of her throat, hot but not painful.
Just as she threw the door open, she heard a pained grunt. Erik stopped dead in his tracks and clutched the sides of his head. The redhead backed away from him. A bit of fear raced across her features, followed by confusion. Bree had nothing to fear, so she closed the distance between her and Erik.
He dropped to the ground before she could reach him.
“I can’t…have…what…I want,” he snarled under his breath.
From the way the redhead kept backing away, Bree figured only she had heard what Erik said. The redhead was too far. When Erik pounded his fist into the sidewalk, the redhead yelped and ran.
“That’s what you get,” Bree said before she could think to stop herself.
Jealousy tainted her words. The ugly emotion tried to take control of her. She kept it at bay with reason, reminding herself that she and Erik were not a couple. Her logic could only do so much. Anger wrought a kind of tension in her muscles that made her want to fight.
“You big dumb asshole,” Bree grunted as she hefted Erik back onto his feet.
He laughed. “You’re not wrong.”
She carried him around to the back of the bar where she’d told him to park. When they were out of sight, she shoved him into his truck. It shuddered and groaned under him. At least something would tonight. It certainly wouldn’t be her.
He dragged in a ragged breath. With his sunglasses in place, Erik’s gaze was hard to read. She wanted him to look her in the eye and admit that he screwed up. His chest heaved, rising and falling so fast she thought he might be close to hyperventilating.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked, a blanket question that covered everything she wanted to know
He let out a bitter laugh and turned away from her. She didn’t hesitate and stepped forward to grab him by the front of his shirt. She did nothing but hold him in place.
“I want…” his words trailed off when he shook his head.
She narrowed her eyes at him. He sank back against the truck. She felt the fight bleed out of him, like he’d given in to his fate, to whatever punishment she decided to heap onto him. That wasn’t what she was looking for, though. She only wanted to know why she hadn’t held his attention more than a single afternoon.
But the swell of her conflicting emotions held her questions back. Instead, she asked, “What’s happening to you? First the bathroom, now this.”
He ran a hand through his hair, pulling the sandy locks back to reveal his arched brows like he was relieved she’d asked about that and not about them.
“Give me your phone,” he said, confusing her. “I want to put in Dillon and Casey’s numbers so you can call them if you need anything. You won’t want to be around me once I answer your questions.”
His self-loathing was so apparent that her heart broke at the sight of it. Her grip on his shirt loosened. She wanted to wrap her arms around him but held firm until she understood why he felt this way.
He put out his hand. “Well? Give it to me.”
“I thought you filled your asshole quota for the night.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. She almost smiled but managed to hold it back.
“Did your asshole quota just increase? Do you have to keep pissing me off? Just tell me what your problem is. Maybe I can help you, like you help me.” She meant it. She wanted nothing more than to give back to him, if only he would let her.
“No one can help me with this,” he said, voice low.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me that it’s a burden only I can bear bullshit. You’re not alone. You have me. You have a whole family looking out for you right now.”
Bree held on to the bit of sass that was bringing humor to their conversation. Inside, her dragon roared. It wanted to know why he’d chosen the redhead over her. What kept him from wanting her the way he wanted all those other women? Was it because they were human, and she’d become a dragon?
The kiss they’d shared earlier made her think that wasn’t a problem. She’d never been kissed like that before in her life. There’d been so much hunger, passion unlike anything she’d experienced before.
Surely, he couldn’t find that with a human woman. Right?
“I changed you because I can’t control myself,” Erik said. “I changed you and now you will never be able to look at me without thinking about how I ruined your life. I should have noticed you sooner, but because of him I’ll never be able to have you.”
Stunned, Bree could only stare at him. When she said nothing, he spun around, jerked open the truck door and hopped inside. She figured out how to string a few words together, but by the time they reached her tongue, Erik had already sped away.
She stood in the dark parking lot, wondering what Erik meant when he said because of him. Was he referring to his beast? She knew what it felt like to have her beast try to take control, but she had the feeling that wasn’t what he’d meant.
41
After her shift, Bree didn’t go home. Erik had ignored all her messages. Annoyance built behind her breastbone like a pressure she could do nothing about. If she could yell at Erik, if she could get more answers out of him, maybe then the pressure would go away.
Her feelings for him didn’t dwindle, either. She should have walked away from him and his horrible decisions. She didn’t deserve a man who would go home with another woman the same day he’d kissed her. She told herself this wasn’
t about her feelings, though.
Erik hadn’t just changed her. He’d become her friend along the way. She needed to make sure he was alright.
So, she found herself in a field in the dark hours of the morning. Even though she didn’t have Erik coaching her, she rolled her shoulders and struck a deal with her dragon. It wanted to see him, too. She told the beast that if she could fly to the extravagant cabin up the mountainside, then they would be able to find Erik.
Bree figured that if the beast had full rein, then flying would be easy. It seemed to know everything. She’d never been more wrong in her life. She still hadn’t acclimated to her altered point of view after shifting. Worse, even, were her attempts to walk on four legs.
She couldn’t get them all to work together. She hoped using her wings would be a bit easier. Stretching them out felt amazing, like finally getting up after being curled into her favorite reading chair for hours. She savored the sensation before turning her attention skyward.
Stars dotted a clear night sky. She imagined herself soaring between heaven and earth and her heart skipped a beat. This change, between human and dragon, filled her life with more excitement than she’d ever known before. Bree had always wanted more but thought that would come in the form of love.
Becoming a dragon had forever changed her life for the better. Every step forward frightened her, but also brought with it new possibility. She would have liked to share this first flight with Erik, but she needed to find him first.
Thinking that she had to imitate an airplane trying to take-off, she charged forward. She opened her wings and reveled in the air beneath them, but her feet soon tangled. The ground rose as she lurched forward. The impact reverberated through her skull and along her spine. She dug her talons into the earth to push herself back up.
Bree tried everything she could think of. She galloped with her wings tucked into her body, just to get used to her own feet. She stood still and flapped, hoping it would lift her into the air without the use of her legs. When that didn’t work, she tried jumping and flapping, but that made her feel silly.
The night drifted away, and morning light stretched into the sky. Time had run out. If she somehow figured out how to fly soon, she would risk being seen by humans.
“This would…” She sucked in a mouthful of air, struggling to breathe after shifting back. “This would be easier if I had a car.”
Exhaustion weighed her and tried to tug her onto the ground. Bree couldn’t recall the last time she’d slept. It seemed so far away. She’d shifted twice in the span of twenty-four hours, one shift causing a war with a beast that had nearly stopped her from shifting back altogether.
The beast muttered a small apology for the incident and lent her a burst of energy. She surged to her feet, heart racing all of a sudden.
“I didn’t know that was a thing.”
Wary of how long this energy might last, Bree gathered her things and walked back to the road. A few passing drivers offered her a ride to her destination, but she turned them down out of habit before remembering that she would be stronger than anyone who tried to overpower her now. Any human, at least.
An hour passed before she saw the cabin through the trees. Just like she’d hoped, Erik’s truck was parked in the driveway. Bree walked up the pavers that led toward the front door before finding Isabella. The blonde had a laundry basket at her hip. Behind her, a comforter hung from a clothesline strung between two trees.
Isabella paused. “Don’t you work nights? It’s a bit early for you to be up.”
Not what are you doing here or it’s too early for visitors. Isabella had expressed concern first. A warm tingling jumped along Bree’s fingers. She itched to hug Isabella but didn’t know if it was appropriate.
Isabella nodded her head toward the back of the cabin. “I think Erik spent the night out back. Dillon should be back there with him, still.”
Bree didn’t ask what that meant before thanking Isabella and taking off. She should have asked questions, because she found Dillon standing over a small ravine with a green-scaled dragon fast asleep in it. She eyed the dragon and felt a twinge of déjà vu even though she could have sworn she’d never laid eyes on the beast before.
“Dillon,” she whispered to get his attention. “Isabella said I’d find Erik out here.”
To that, Dillon jerked his chin toward the green dragon. Bree understood that the dragon was asleep and was already doing her best to stay quiet. She wondered if the beast was Gavin, but she didn’t think he would be green. For whatever reason, she’d assumed he would be red with golden highlights, much like his hair.
This green dragon… reminded her of Erik’s one green eye much the way his blue beast reminded her of his blue eye.
“That’s…Erik?” she hissed.
A man of few words, Dillon nodded. She didn’t think he would say anything until he offered a short explanation. “We have nights like these sometimes. Usually the beast doesn’t get out. Usually it causes havoc if it does. He’s just…sleeping.”
Without giving it much thought, she slid down the ravine. Dillon tried to grab her, but she moved faster. Rocks and clumps of dirt gave way beneath her feet. She leaned back and caught herself the last few feet, so she didn’t tumble forward into the muzzle of the green beast.
She hadn’t been as quiet as she should have been because the dragon cracked open one eye. Her pulse should have raced in the face of this Jurassic beast, but she wasn’t scared. Though she’d never seen this side of Erik in person, this was still the same man.
Slowly, she lowered herself to a sitting position beside the beast. Both eyes were open now. It glanced at the top of the ravine, to Dillon. The dragon’s lip curled.
“Don’t be rude,” she said.
The beast’s green eyes snapped back to her. She waited for her heartrate to spike, for cold fear to slither through her gut. Everything about this situation told her she should be afraid, yet she couldn’t seem to muster any desire for caution. The green-scaled dragon had been hidden from her, but she didn’t think it would hurt her.
“Are you the reason Erik has been struggling lately?”
The beast looked away. That was answer enough for her.
“Why do you hurt him like that? What has he done to deserve punishment?” Talking to a dragon that couldn’t convey its thoughts in any language seemed a little odd, but this was her only chance.
The beast shuffled toward her without fully lifting itself from the ground. The way it set its head against her thigh and huffed, its whole body going limp, should have told her something. Bree couldn’t decipher the gesture.
At the top of the ravine, more silhouettes joined Dillon’s. She couldn’t see who they were, but if she sniffed the air, she caught the familiar scents of Isabella and Gavin. Isabella had to be the form leaning into Dillon. Five feet away, the dark shape of Gavin watched her.
“Give him indigestion if he eats you,” Gavin called out.
Bree rolled her eyes. She glanced to the green beast.
“I’m tired,” she said. “Can you give Erik back, so I can take him to bed with me?”
The green-scaled beast perked up like a dog who’d just heard someone say walk. She laughed while the beast shrunk back into Erik’s lanky human form. A dragon tattoo on his shoulder caught her attention before her gaze slid down his chest to his groin. Her core tightened.
Erik groaned. The sound brought her attention back to his face. He blinked at the sun and scowled.
“What the hell happened?” he asked.
Dillon answered before she could. “You lost control to beast number two. Your girlfriend decided to hang out with you down there. I called Gavin to help make you throw her up in case you ate her.”
Erik groaned. Bree knew she’d never been in danger of being eaten, but the fact that they’d thought so bothered her. Erik had a lot more to him than he’d let on. She wanted to know more about him. He wouldn’t let her in, though. She could already see him sh
utting down right in front of her.
Maybe, once they were alone, she could get him to open up. He didn’t like the green dragon. It seemed that no one in his family did. Or, they didn’t trust the dragon, at least. The dark circles under Dillon’s eyes as they passed him told her that he’d been on the edge of the ravine all night.
* * *
Erik followed Bree into the house. She led him along by one finger hooked with his. Something was off about her, but he couldn’t quite place it. His thoughts were bombarded by guilt.
He’d let the monstrous beast out again. Only by sheer luck had it decided to take a nap. It could have hurt Dillon, could have wrecked the cabin, could have done any number of reckless and dangerous things.
According to Dillon, Bree had jumped into the ravine without so much as a care for her own life. Erik opened his mouth, ready to warn her that she should be more careful, until she tossed a smile back to him.
He kicked his bedroom door closed behind him. “You’re glowing. I pissed you off last night, but you’re glowing now.”
She probably took someone home. Her beast had needs. Hell, she has needs. I can’t keep her to myself. She’ll never belong to me.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had two beasts?” She wasn’t angry. If anything, Bree sounded…awed.
Erik had never taken any kind of joy in his condition. The monstrous beast lurked in him only to remind him that he would destroy everything he touched. She’d had a life before he came along and forced a dragon upon her. It didn’t matter if he’d meant it or not; there was no changing what’d happened.
She threw herself down onto his bed. Her legs open and her hair fanned out. The sight of her made his blood sink to his groin. He took a step forward but stopped himself before he could press between her legs. His beasts both growled unhappily in the back of his mind.
“What I am…is not good. You could have been hurt, Bree.”
Rogue Dragons Series: Box Set Books 1-5 Page 34
