Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (41 page)

“Were you taught nothing as a child?” he spat.

The muscles in her clenched jaw twitched. Her eyes challenged him.

Fire and burn, how she got his blood up. Her scent was affecting him, too. All those modern products loaded with perfumes. He passed a knuckle over his mouth to breathe through it.

Her gaze dropped to his hand and lingered on his fingertips for a moment. These past years, the dragon growing emergent, his nails had grown black, thick, and slightly tapered.

She rolled her eyes.

Shock warred with a flare of his anger.

“I think I saw a fly.” She stepped back, putting space between them and exaggerating her movements as she looked around the room.

He couldn’t help himself. He laughed. What a little liar. Thane Ryce Ealdian had stalked this earth for over a thousand years, and she thought him a fool. Thought the signs of his imminent final shift were…what? An affectation?

“Are you Bloodkin or not?” he demanded.

“I am.”

“Are you sure?” She didn’t sound it and seemed utterly ignorant of their ways.

She swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “I apologize deeply for any offense I might have caused.”

He’d bet gold she was going to blame her “allergies” again.

“Really, the pollen is killing my eyes,” she said. “I’d better go.”

Ha!

She made a wide berth around him to get to the door. “Mr. Chandler has my contact information if you need me. And I’ll be in touch when I hear from Dr. Buckley.”

“Stay,” he commanded.

She opened the study door. “I’m sorry, I can’t. I have a dinner date.”

“With whom? One of the Heolstors? Ransom or Locke?”

She smiled politely. “No, neither. Rest assured, this has nothing to do with the Bloodkin.”

And then she had the gall to turn her back on him and start down the hallway to the front door.

The dragon stretched within him. His vision went hazy, breath hot. His gaze lingered on her tiny waist and the sway of her rounded hips.

“My lord—” Matthew clutched the hilt of his short sword, sheathed at his belt under his suit jacket. Did he think to use it on his lord to save
her
? Had the whole world gone mad?

“I’ll be in touch.” Emerson Clark opened the door and walked out.

A Bloodkin woman of age, with no protection but her intelligent eyes and that clever mouth.

Thane gaped after her. “What is she?”

Matthew shook his head. “I don’t know. Bait? Or a provocation?”

Meant to force his final shift into dragon? Thane growled. “The first casualty, more like.”

“My lord?”

Thane turned away from the sunlight, disgusted. “In what will most certainly become a war. Follow her. See that she gets wherever she’s going safely.”

Emerson stood at the restaurant’s bar, her skin hot with anger, frustration, and that omnipresent prickle of fear. Apparently, it didn’t matter what city she was in, the Bloodkin always had someone following her.

The restaurant bar was packed with people drinking margaritas and noshing on tortilla chips. The place was vibrant with color—reds, oranges, yellows, and greens—and the decibel level of music and chatter hovered at ear ringing. She found it comforting, concealing.

She wished Bryan would get there. Get his take on the Bloodkin situation. She’d lived with it alone for too long, and no one else she’d complained or reported it to had done anything to change it.

Leaning down to eat a salsa-laden tortilla chip, she cut a surreptitious glance to her left, where, yes, Mr. Chandler was discreetly watching her. He was a nondescript, near-invisible suit against the far wall. He wasn’t trying to hide from her—more like pretending to be secret service—which didn’t make it any better.

She was tempted to approach him and demand that he leave, but she’d tried that in the past with others and they’d just moved to watch her from another spot. What really burned was that she didn’t know when it had begun. At first, she’d only been suspicious, that niggling feeling on the back of her neck. And when she’d become certain—about six months ago—her boss explained that all the Bloodkin in the office had been assigned security because of problems with an ex-employee. And she’d accepted that until she noticed that almost everything in her life was owned or controlled by the Bloodkin.

The restaurant door opened and a man with a familiar, though older, face entered, his gaze searching the crowd.

“Bry!” Emerson went up on tiptoes to wave, her spirits rising. Everything was going to be okay now.

He weaved through the crowd toward her, and she couldn’t help smiling and bouncing in anticipation. He’d grown up good. Tall and lanky. His hair was scruffy and too long, but it suited him. And those brown eyes had always been so warm.

When he hugged her, he lifted her off her feet, exactly what she needed after today. He pecked her quickly on the mouth before setting her down. “Ember, you have no idea how good it is to see you.”

“Well, if I was coming to Santa Barbara, I was going to see you.” She rubbed her thumb on his chin stubble. She remembered when his scruff had been patchy at best. “You look great! I want to hear everything.”

She couldn’t believe it had been seven years. Her family was a bunch of foster kids whose fates had aligned with hers at some point before glancing off in other directions, and now she was determined to get them back in her life.

“Me, too.” He stepped back, glancing up and down in an obvious appraisal of her outfit. “You look fancy.”

She forced herself not to glance over at Mr. Chandler. “I’ve been in meetings all day.”

“Big deal in the works?”

“Mediation. Making people play nicely with each other.” She gave him a wry quirk of her eyebrows. “I’m a very expensive babysitter.” And if Mr. Chandler was eavesdropping, he was welcome to pass that along to Mr. Ealdian.

“So, it pays well?”

She hadn’t meant to sound like she was bragging. “Not for long.” She lowered her voice. “I’m quitting.”

“Oh, yeah? When?”

“Soon. A week at most. As soon as this is done. I want to go out on a positive note.”

The pager in her hand buzzed, red lights blinking all over it. The wait for a table was going on an hour, so it’d been good that she’d arrived early. She grinned. “We’re up.”

They were seated at a comparatively quiet table away from the bar. She could no longer see Mr. Chandler, but she was sure he was there somewhere.

The chips, salsa, and guac were all done by the time Bryan related the basics in his life. He’d been dating, but no one special. His pack was okay, but he and the Alpha didn’t see eye to eye, so he might go lone wolf. Bryan had always known he was Wolfkin. His wolf had just started to manifest when he and Emerson were put in the same home together, his previous foster mom having tried to beat the animal out of him. A beaten dog just gets more feral.

Then it was her turn. Emerson wasn’t seeing anyone
at all
. Her hours just didn’t allow for it. She didn’t tell Bryan that she knew if she
did
meet someone, the guy would just turn out to be Bloodkin. Some shiny pretty boy, like Locke. Or sexy Thane, with his weirdo contact lenses. Basically, her life was work, work, work.

“Would’ve never guessed that you’d go into business,” Bryan said as their entrées arrived. She’d gone with the cheesy enchilada in celebration of hanging with him, but truth be told, Bryan’s sizzling and snapping steak fajitas looked pretty damn good.

He picked up a warm tortilla. “So your job is making you unhappy?”

Here goes
. She’d been waiting for an opening, and now she was nervous.

“It’s more the office environment. The people. The life.” If she could talk to anyone about the creepiness of being Bloodkin, it was Bryan. Of course,
he
could actually shift into a wolf so their situations weren’t exactly the same. But he had his pack, and she had the company. “It’s kind of odd.”

He lifted his brows in question while he took a man bite of his stuffed tortilla.

“Well, the company exclusively serves the Bloodkin,” she said.

He choked and grabbed for his water.

Not a good sign. But, yeah, her thoughts exactly.

She glanced over her shoulder to see if Mr. Chandler was near. No sign of him.

“No kidding, they pay well,” Bryan said when he recovered. “You must’ve been a star student to get recruited by them. Smarty-pants.”

She winced. “I worked hard in school, but I think my being there has more to do with long-lost family ties than anything.”

Bryan’s forehead wrinkled.

Emerson sighed. “As in, supposedly, I’m Bloodkin, too.”

She took a sip of her margarita while he stared at her. He finally wiped his mouth, the look of confusion still troubling his expression. “So I’m dining with royalty, eh?”

“Don’t tease me. The people are so…”
Crazy
. Thane Ealdian thought the six-hundred-year-old skeletons were his dead wife and kid.

“And you’re going to quit?”

“Yes. Reminding myself gets me through every day. I just don’t understand them.” The Bloodkin had taken over all facets of her life down to the gym she went to and when. She lived in an apartment building they owned. They followed her, paid for things, beat up a guy who’d tried to hit on her. Hell, the seat next to her in first class had been empty on her “full” flight.

Bryan picked up his food again. “Well, they’re dragons.”

“Some are,” she said.

“Apparently
you
are. Have you shifted?”

“Pfft,
no. No shifting. I might be Bloodkin, but I’m no dragon. I’m distantly
related
to someone who thought he was. I’d know if I were a dragon, wouldn’t I? In fact, I’ve seen no dragons at all. Not even a suggestion that dragons are
real
.” Mr. Ealdian’s contact lenses and claws didn’t count. “These are very wealthy, very eccentric people. And if you repeat that, I’ll probably be fired. So I guess I should thank you.”

“I wouldn’t dare repeat it,” Bryan said. “My Alpha would beat me senseless.”

“What?”

“Pack life. Forget it. The Bloodkin are very powerful, and supposedly, they have very long memories when it comes to who crosses them. So leave on good terms…if you
can
leave that is. I’ve never heard of a lone dragon.”

“I was a lone dragon most of my life.”

“Won the foster-kid lottery, though.”

She laughed. “I thought that, too, at first.” Not so much now. “They always have someone following me.” She leaned forward. “Even tonight. Here.”

“They have the best security in the world,” Bryan said. “Some wolves I know have worked for them.”

He didn’t seem to get it.

“But I didn’t hire security,” she said. “And I don’t want it. I just want to live my life like any other normal person. But they are everywhere.”

He put down his second tortilla. “Has anyone hurt you or threatened you? Inhibited your movements?”

“No. They mostly anticipate my movements and then I just end up doing what they want me to. I feel trapped, controlled.” Her eyes burned, so she picked up her drink and took a sip. She’d thought Bryan would understand.

“They protect their own.”

“Taking over my life is
protection
?” She shook her head. “You’re as crazy as they are.”

“No, I’m
kin
. Shifter life in a pack is very different from mainstream human life—archaic, bonded, rigid—and we wolves are not the stuff of legend. Shifter life among the magical elite is bound to be another world altogether.”

She sighed. “I don’t want it. I want out. I was hoping you’d help me.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking.” He lifted his tortilla and took a bite.

Emerson forced a smile to cover her hurt. “I understand. I’ll figure it out.”

She wasn’t about to lose him now that they’d reconnected. She’d caught him off guard, and obviously, he was under constraints with his pack. His pack Alpha sounded awful. Maybe Bryan was just as trapped as she was. Maybe
kin
—Wolf or Blood—meant
cage
.

“Sadie’s back in rehab,” Bryan said after a moment’s silence.

Emerson’s strained smile faded, thrown by his abrupt segue. Sadie had been an alcoholic at fourteen, and it had gone downhill from there. For a summer, though, the three of them had been inseparable. One night they’d held on to each other as tightly as they could while ambulance lights repeatedly hit their foster home like lightning. And then they’d been pulled apart.

“How did you find her?” Emerson wondered why she hadn’t even looked.

“Sniffed her out this past year. I’ve been trying to get her into this new treatment place that seems really good. Might help her more than her current program,” Bryan said. “Now I’m thinking you’re in a position to help me.”

“Is that so?” Emerson picked up her fork and tried to focus on Sadie, not the isolation boxing in her heart.

“There’s a long waiting list. A call from a Bloodkin could push her to the top.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Emerson said. At least her Bloodkin status might be good for something. And thanks to Bryan, now she had another sibling within reach. “Send me the information.”

After dinner, he wouldn’t let her go back to her hotel alone, and he saw her up to her door. Her small suite didn’t have the splendor the Heolstor brothers’ did, but it was still an upscale apartment. The enormous basket of fruit, chocolate, and champagne—courtesy of the hotel—had to be a Bloodkin perk. And the robe and slippers? A “gift” from management.

She was pretty sure wolf shifters didn’t get this kind of treatment. He must think she was so spoiled.

“Thanks for bringing me back,” she said. “Want to come in? Hang out?” She was tired but didn’t want to let go of him and her old life so soon, even if she did have a flight back to Seattle early in the morning.

“Ah, no, but thanks. And you’re welcome.” He kissed her on the forehead then sighed heavily. “Been thinking about your situation…”

Her heart double beat, but she didn’t want to get her hopes up.

“You’re going to have trouble leaving your job. I can’t see why the Bloodkin wouldn’t let you quit, but they will hold on to you somehow. Before you make any announcements to your boss, maybe test the waters first.”