Melanie stood a few feet off to the side of the door and tried not to be selfish and wish Arabella wasn’t home. She did truly want to meet Tristan’s sister, but a part of her wanted to see if she could get the dragonman to tease her again, as he’d done a minute ago.
Her intuition that the version of Tristan she’d seen with the children was the true one had all but been validated. He could be decent when he tried.
The question was, could he act that way all the time around her? And why did she want to try to find out if he could?
To be honest, she didn’t know. Or, rather, deep down she knew why she wanted him to act like that around her, but she wasn’t about to get her hopes up. Caitriona had admitted to being that way once, and Melanie didn’t want to end up the same way. True, she could never be as reclusive or shy as Cait, but it would be all too easy to lock her heart against any other dragon-shifter, especially since she had yet to meet one who compared with Tristan MacLeod’s ability to sear her skin with a touch, or make her instantly wet with a kiss. The man did things to her body she’d never dreamt could be possible outside of a book.
As Tristan knocked on his sister’s door, Melanie put her hopes and wishes aside. She didn’t think Tristan had exaggerated his sister’s pain, and if there was a way to help ease it, she would find it. Somehow, she knew winning over Arabella MacLeod would determine how her future would play out with Tristan.
After knocking for about twenty seconds, the door opened a crack. Melanie couldn’t see anything from where she was standing, but Tristan leaned toward the crack and whispered something she couldn’t hear. Then the door slammed shut and Tristan ran a hand through his hair. Melanie was about to ask what had happened, but he put up a hand for her to remain silent.
This time, Tristan didn’t bother to knock. He merely shouted at the door. “Arabella Kathleen MacLeod, open this door or I’ll break it down. The mother of your niece or nephew isn’t feeling well. Are you really going to make her stand out here in the wind and quickly chilling air? I might even scent a storm on the rise.”
Wow. As she glanced up at the cloudless sky, she realized that Tristan knew how to lay it on thick.
At first, she thought it wouldn’t work. But then she heard the lock click. Tristan turned the doorknob and slowly opened the door.
He took one step inside and said something in that language she couldn’t understand. However, it didn’t irritate her this time. For all Melanie knew, Arabella might hate English because of the dragon hunters who’d harmed her all those years ago.
The musical syllables of the dragon language stopped and Tristan turned back to her and said in English, “Can you come to the door but not enter quite yet? Ara wants to assess you before letting you into her house. I told her you were one of the good humans, but she is unconvinced.”
Her heart skipped a beat at his words. After all, Tristan had just admitted she was one of the good humans.
Before Melanie could reply, a woman’s soft yet sharp voice said in English from behind the door, “Belittling my judgment isn’t going to help you, Tristan MacLeod.”
Mel bit back a smile and decided it was best to approach the door without saying anything. Tristan still blocked the doorway, so she stopped beside him and waited. He reached out a hand as if to touch her, but then he lowered it before he could make contact with her arm. He stepped aside and Mel decided not to let his almost-touch bother her.
She took a deep breath and moved into the doorway. At first, all she saw was the outline of a tall, thin woman. But then the tall, thin woman moved into the light and Mel was careful to keep a faint smile pasted on her face as she got her first glimpse of Arabella MacLeod.
The dragonwoman was nearly as tall as Tristan, probably about six feet, and had the same dark hair and brown eyes. But that was where their similarities ended.
A thick, jagged scar ran from Arabella’s right temple, down across the bridge of her nose, and ended near the bottom of her left ear. The right side of her neck was covered in skin that had recovered from a very bad burn; the pink, crinkled skin told her that whatever had happened to Tristan’s sister had been painful both at the time and during the long recovery.
But it was Arabella’s eyes that Mel noticed most. A mixture of hatred, fear, shame, and sadness shown in them, as if Arabella MacLeod didn’t believe anything good would ever happen to her again.
She was on the verge of losing hope.
Tears started to prickle her eyes, but Mel took a second to fight them before she held out a hand and said, “I’m Melanie Hall, Mel to my friends. It’s nice to meet you.”
Arabella gingerly took her hand, but rather than shake it, the dragonwoman raised it to her nose and inhaled. As soon as she had, she dropped Mel’s hand as if it had burned her and looked at Tristan. “The human female is carrying your child. That is the only reason I will let her in here. But if her behavior makes me suspicious, you will leave. Those are my terms.”