His entire body tensed as his heart began to race at their closeness. There was something familiar about this, the way her curves fit into his body and her sweet scent teasing him. For a moment, he could swear he saw the recognition in her eyes, too, but she quickly pushed away from him.
“Sorry,” she murmured, brushing past him.
Damn it! “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“N-no!” she protested, then cleared her throat. “Too many people outside, they’ll see you,” she added. “I’ll slip out as quickly as I can.”
As the door closed behind her, he expelled a long-held breath. “Fuck.” He plopped back down on the chair, raking his hands through his hair. His bear roared at him, pressing him to claim and bond their mate now.
From what Gabriel and Damon said, it sounded like it wasn’t so simple. And Sarah had to want it, too, of course. He supposed if they had done this in the right order, it would have been easier. He could court her, date her, and their feelings would eventually develop. Now, he had to convince her to actually stay married, and accept their bond.
He wasn’t going to give up, not now. She was his to lose, and he wasn’t going to let her go without a fight.
Daniel had never felt so nervous in his life. The rest of his shift seemed to stretch on, and the tension in his chest grew so much he thought he would burst by the time he was finally driving down to Main Street. There was no time to go home and get dressed, but he always kept a nice outfit in his locker at work. You never know when you’ll need to get all dressed up, Dad had always said. He was glad he had taken that advice to heart.
After parking his truck in the back of Giorgio’s, he walked to the front entrance. He was five minutes early, so he waited by the hostess station. Sure enough, at seven on the dot, the door opened, and Sarah stepped inside.
His heart nearly burst out of his chest at the sight of his mate. She was still wearing the same outfit, though he noticed her lips were glossy, and her hair was down in waves around her gorgeous face. Their eyes met, though she quickly turned away, glancing around her. “Nice place.”
Giorgio’s was a classic Italian restaurant, complete with dark paneling walls, cozy booths, and low lighting. It was pretty much where Blackstone’s couples had all their romantic dates.
“Uh, yeah, a friend made the reservation,” he said. “I hope you’re hungry. The food here is good.”
The hostess led them to their table, and Daniel groaned inwardly. It was one of the corner booths, away from prying eyes, lit up by a simple centerpiece of candles. Three red roses were arranged on the table, while a scattering of petals dotted the white linen cloth.
“Just a meal, right?” Sarah said wryly as she slid into the booth.
Damn it. He should have taken her to the diner like he’d originally planned. Gabriel had done a good job, but he didn’t want to scare Sarah away. “Of course.” He flashed her an innocent smile.
After scanning the menu, they gave their orders to their waiter. As soon as he was gone, Daniel spoke up.
“So how was—”
“Did you—”
They both stopped, and an edgy silence hung between them. “Go ahead,” he said.
“No, you go.”
“No, ladies first,” he urged.
“Do people still say that?” she chuckled.
“I’ve been told I’m old-fashioned.” He grinned at her. “But I think old-fashioned is good, especially these days.”
“Is that so?” She smirked at him. “No wonder you proposed right away.”
“Hey now.” He put his hands up. “How do you know you weren’t the one to ask me to marry you?”
She cackled. “Ha! As if.”
Seeing her laugh and smile made his insides turn to mush. “I’ll have you know; I don’t marry on the first date. I have a three-date rule before matrimony.”
“Then it must have been me,” she conceded. “I have been known to propose to any man I come across.”
The tension in the air broke, but before Daniel could say anything else, the waiter came back with their drinks and a basket of bread with Giorgio’s signature strawberry balsamic dip. He was thinking of a way to get back to their banter when she spoke up.
“So,” she began as she put her glass down after taking a sip of her sparkling water. “We should probably talk about our arrangement.”
“Yeah.” His heart plummeted but he continued. “What did you have in mind?”
“So, I was thinking about our backstory.”
“Backstory?”
“Yeah. About how we met and stuff. And how we wound up married.”
“And?”
“It sounds cliched, but the most logical explanation would be that we met on the Internet. A dating site or app or something.”
“Ah, that makes sense,” he said. “We could say we started chatting over a year ago, and then I came to visit you.”
“Exactly. And we were doing the long-distance thing,” she added.
“My job ties me here,” he said. “I can’t exactly be a ranger out on The Strip.”
“And mine keeps me in Vegas. But we see each other every few weeks.”
“And the wedding?”
Her nose wrinkled. “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”
“Hmm.” He scratched at his head. “How about … I was in Vegas for Damon’s bachelor party, and I was so overwhelmed with emotion and tired of the long distance that I impulsively asked you to marry me, and you said yes.”
“Hmm.” She tapped a finger on her chin. “I guess that could work. And we’ve been keeping it secret because …”
“Because I didn’t want to overshadow Damon’s wedding,” he said. “And it’s not really a secret. We just … didn’t tell anyone until we figured out who was going to move where.”
“Right.” She worried at her lip. “Okay, now we should figure out how long this arrangement will last. I can’t stay here in Blackstone forever.”
His bear chuffed, but he told it to pipe down. “Of course. How about two weeks?”
“I was thinking more of three days. I can go home on the weekend.”
“Oh.” His heart plummeted. “Why just three days?”
“First of all, I can’t really afford to stay in that motel for too long, plus, I have to get back to Vegas to take care of my business. Three more days should be enough to convince reporters and your ‘fans’ that our marriage is real and this is how our relationship works. Then when I leave, we could just … let it die a natural death. If anyone asks, we should just tell them it didn’t work out. Maybe we could say this was the week we were working on our marriage, and we decided to split up.”
Just the thought of her leaving made his stomach clench. “Sounds like a good plan,” he forced himself to say. “But there’s one flaw there.”
Her gaze narrowed. “And what’s that?”
“You can’t stay at the motel the entire time,” he pointed out. “That doesn’t make sense, if we’re really married.”
“I—” Her mouth closed shut and she slumped back. “Then what do you suggest?”
“Move in with me.”
Her brows snapped together. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he said. “Stay with me, and then you don’t have to worry about paying for the motel.”
“Stay with you? At your place?” she asked incredulously. “Where would I sleep?”
“Er … I’m renovating my parents’ house. I’m still working on it but it’s got five bedrooms, so take your pick.” It would only take him a couple of hours to get the place livable again. “It’s not like anyone will know if we don’t sleep in the same room.”
She shook her head. “No, I can’t,” she said. “We’ll just have to be careful. It’s not like those reporters follow you around day and night, right? And it’s been days since you rescued the VP. Once we make a statement to the press, they’ll leave us alone. In fact, that’s probably what we should do first thing. We can wr
ite it up tonight and read it out to the press tomorrow.”
Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of anything else to counter her argument. Fuck. He had three days to convince her to stay, and they wouldn’t even be spending a lot of time together. But before he could even say anything, their waiter came back with their food.
“This looks delicious,” Sarah said.
“Yeah.” But with the churning in his stomach, food was the last thing he needed right now.
“Enjoy your meal,” the waiter said before he left.
As they ate, they made small talk about the food and the weather, but they avoided any more talk about their arrangement. When the check came, he grabbed the black folder from the waiter before he put it down.
“How much is my half?” she asked.
“Half?” He frowned. “I told you, I owe you dinner.”
“Nonsense,” she made a grab for the folder, but he held it away from her. “C’mon Daniel, just give me the damned thing.”
An idea popped into his head. “I will,” he began. “If you at least come with me tonight and see the house.”
Her gaze narrowed at him. “Seriously?”
He wasn’t sure why he was asking her to do this, but it seemed like the right move. Anything to keep the evening going. There was no way he was going to admit defeat. If he only had three days with her, then he was going to make sure they would stick together. “It’s not far from here, and all I’m asking is for you to look at the house and see how big it is. We might not even run into each other.”
“So, you want me to come and see your big house, huh?” she asked, a hint of humor in her tone.
Was she making an innuendo? He swallowed hard. “Uh-huh. You’ll have your choice of bedrooms, your own bathroom, and we even have a pool and hot tub.”
“We?”
“Yeah. It’s my parents’ house, but they live in Texas now, and they left it to me to renovate and update. So.” He shook the black folder at her. “What do you say?”
“Fine.” She snatched the folder from him. “Let’s pay and get out of here.”
She put in a couple of bills into the folder and he did the same, then they walked out to the parking lot.
“Just follow me, okay?” He waited for her to get into her car before heading toward his truck. Turning the engine on, he maneuvered out his parking space, then out of the lot. For a moment, he thought she would change her mind and drive in the opposite direction, but when he turned into the street, her headlights popped into his rearview mirror.
With a sigh of relief, he continued out toward the highway. He wasn’t sure why he asked her to some see the house. But somehow, it felt right. Like he wanted her to see this place he had been fixing up for the last year. For her.
It clicked in his mind all of a sudden. This home he’d been working on, with his own two hands, was all for her, his mate. He wanted so bad to see her live in it. With him. Have their children grow up there and—
The loud kaboom came from nowhere and jolted him out of his thoughts. The world flipped over several times and he realized that sound came from his truck. Metal crashed and scraped on asphalt, making his sensitive eardrums ring. Closing his eyes and gnashing his teeth, his first thought was of Sarah, who had been a few feet behind him.
When the ringing in his ears dissipated, he opened his eyes. The truck was on its side and there was a gaping hole in the windshield where the glass had shattered. Gasoline burned his nostrils as he felt the temperature rise. He knew he had to get out of there now.
He unsheathed a claw and sliced through his seat belt, then crawled out of the cab, getting as far away from the truck as possible. His vehicle was completely trashed, but that wasn’t important right now. Something was definitely wrong.
The hairs on the back of his neck rose and his grizzly tensed before letting out a warning growl. It was eerily quiet outside, and as his shifter vision adjusted to the darkness, he saw six figures approaching him. His inner bear raised its paws, ready to attack. There was something about them that made his brain scream danger, and considering he turned into a nine foot, eight hundred pound killing machine, he knew there was more to those men than meets the eye. They all wore black and were fully armed with several kinds of automatic weapons.
“Who the hell are you?” he said, standing up to full height, ready to shift at any moment.
One of them, a tall man with a shock of white hair and pale silver eyes, spoke. “You damned filthy beasts are hard to kill.”
He gnashed his teeth. Damn anti-shifters. But, how did they get his truck to flip over?
And more, important, where was Sarah?
It took all his might not to turn around and check for her. These men were focused on him for now and he needed to keep it that way. “What do you want?”
“You, Daniel Rogers,” the man replied. “Specifically, we want you dead.” The others around him moved closer and began to raise their weapons.
“I’d like to see you try.” Clothes ripped and bones snapped as he shifted into his grizzly. The mighty beast roared, its massive arms raising high, claws extending from furry paws. There were more of them, but he was a shifter and thus he had superior speed, strength and healing. He went for the man with the largest weapon and brought his paws down on him, raking his razor-sharp claws down his body, piercing through the body armor he wore.
The human let out a scream, and his companions all pointed their weapons at them. Daniel’s grizzly slammed its body sideward, knocking down two more of his attackers.
“Get him!” someone screamed.
The hulking bear got to its feet, ready to attack as it saw the weapons raised.
“No!”
The feminine shout made his blood run cold. Fuck! He was hoping Sarah had run away when his truck flipped over. She must have come up on them.
He heard the sound of the trigger pulling, and the bear let out a roar. Daniel braced himself for the pain, but it didn’t come. Instead, he felt something heavy wrap around his bear and force it down. They had deployed some kind of metal net that engulfed the animal’s body.
“Daniel!” Sarah was running straight toward them now, seemingly unaware of the danger she was in.
Run away! He screamed from inside his bear, but it was no use. His animal was in a rage, its claws tearing at the steel mesh. These men, whoever they were, weren’t messing around.
“Grab the female,” someone ordered. “We’ll have to get rid of her too.”
The grizzly roared in fury, but the net was too strong. Helpless, it watched as one of the men broke away and ran straight toward Sarah.
“Don’t even try, you filthy animal,” the white-haired man hissed. “That net was made for beasts like you.”
“Why don’t we just kill it now?” Someone interjected.
“You know why.” Pale silver eyes full of hate trained on him. “We must wait.”
“Just because he stopped Jones from killing Baker?”
“Shut up, idiot!”
“Sorry, boss.”
“Get your hands off me, asshole!” Sarah shouted as one of the men dragged her forward. “What did you do to him?”
“Him?” The white-haired man mocked. “He’s a filthy animal. Are you one of them too?”
“Fuck you—ow!” Sarah cried as the man holding her jerked her back.
White hot rage coursed through his veins, and the grizzly gathered all its strength and slashed at the net over and over again. Pain didn’t even register in their brain, even as their claws chipped and tore from the attempt to escape. However, when its teeth caught in the net, the mesh gave way.
“Motherfucker! They said that thing would hold!”
“Get the tranqs ready! But put a bullet in his head if you have to.”
“No! Don’t kill him!”
“Take that bitch away!”
Daniel ignored them as the grizzly continued to chew and tear through the mesh. He could only focus on Sarah, her cries and screams a
s one of them tossed her over his shoulder. No, Daniel and his bear could only focus on one thing: their mate.
“Shoot! Shoot!”
There was a soft pffft sound from behind him and he felt the sting of a needle on his back. It only fueled their rage, and soon they were free of the net. Hopping onto its feet, the grizzly lunged toward Sarah.
“Imbeciles!” The white-haired man shrieked.
The grizzly lumbered forward, but its steps faltered. Not now, Daniel raged. But the tranquilizer was already slowly making it was through their system.
“He’s going down! Abomination! You—”
A loud screech pierced the air, interrupting the white-haired man’s tirade.
“What the fuck is—”
“Jesus Christ Almigh—”
“—get out of here!”
The wind picked up around them, like a hurricane passing through. Daniel felt something big around them, a presence that he couldn’t name. However, as his grizzly was falling over, it bent its head back toward the sky before it hit the ground.
Holy shit.
At first, he thought he’d hit his head too hard. But the air above him was definitely shimmering as something large appeared overhead. Something very large, with wings and a humungous snake-like body. Light rippled across green-gold scales as the creature let out another earth-shattering shriek.
What the fuck.
“What do we do, boss?” someone said. “That’s a—”
“Dragon!”
Daniel blinked. Dragon? Was it Matthew or Jason Lennox? Had they seen the accident and swooped in to investigate? He’d only seen the twin dragons a few times in his life, but he remembered them clearly. And that snake-like dragon with the green and gold scales was neither of the Lennox siblings.
“Goddammit, not again!” The white-haired man hissed. “That meddling—”
The dragon swooped down low, its tail flicking on the ground like a whip as it approached them.
“Duck!” The men ran, scattering away. The creature beat its bat-like wings hard and flew up again.
Daniel could feel the effects of the tranquilizer ebbing away. They must not have used a large enough dose. As his grizzly’s body began to shrink, he closed his eyes, trying to speed up the change. When he was fully human, he shot to his feet.
Blackstone Ranger Hero Page 8
