Mel glanced over at Tristan, and he nodded at his sister before giving Mel a reassuring look, as if to tell her she’d done well so far.
She had no proper training when it came to dealing with survivors of tragedies, so she decided to fall back on her anthropology training. She would observe Arabella and her surroundings to find out what she could without talking to the dragonwoman directly. At least, until she could figure out how to deal with the woman’s less than cheerful past and her hatred of humans.
Tristan’s sister melted into the darkness of the corridor.
Standing her ground, Mel waited until Tristan placed a hand on her lower back and said, “Come. Let’s go inside.”
Mel nodded. Without realizing it, she leaned a little against Tristan’s side as the dragonman led her into the cottage. The contact reminded her that if she could deal with Tristan-the-asshole, she could very well deal with his sister. She just needed to figure out the best way to do it.
Chapter Three
As Tristan guided Melanie into his sister’s cottage, he breathed a sigh of relief. His argument for his sister to simply scent the human’s skin to find out if he was telling the truth or not had worked.
Unfortunately, his sister’s sense of smell was as keen as his own, and she had scented Melanie’s momentary sadness as she’d stared into Arabella’s eyes. Knowing what he did of the human, he didn’t think it had been pity. Rather, he believed it had been sadness at what had been done to his sister all those years ago.
Arabella, however, would think the worst of Melanie unless she found a way to change his sister’s mind. Not that he should be surprised. Tristan had acted the same way, and a very small part of him was starting to feel slightly guilty about it.
Melanie leaned against him as they made their way to the living room, and his dragon surprised him by crooning. His beast was usually quiet around Arabella. While his inner dragon had never told him why, he had a feeling it was in sympathy of his sister’s circumstances. After all, her inner beast had been silent since she had escaped from the dragon hunters ten years ago. After arriving on Stonefire’s land and shifting into her human-form, Arabella had never again shifted into a dragon.
He had debated telling Melanie that little detail, but had decided against it. Knowing Arabella had all but lost her dragon-half might make the human act in a way counterproductive to Arabella’s acceptance. If Melanie knew about his sister’s fear of shifting, she would probably push and ask why. The few times Tristan had brought up the topic with his sister, it hadn’t ended well. Ara put up with it from him, but would never tolerate it from a human. If anything, it would cause her to hate Melanie more, and he didn’t want that to happen.
And yes, as he tightened his grip on the human female at his side, he wanted his sister to accept Melanie. It wasn’t just fulfilling his dragon’s wishes; Tristan, too, wanted to get to know the mother of his child. She’d spoken fondly of her brother, and while he vaguely remembered his vial of dragon’s blood had gone to heal him, he hadn’t bothered to find out what had ailed Melanie’s brother.
First her brother, then Caitriona, and now maybe even his sister. It seemed that Melanie Hall had a knack of taking care of everyone but herself. Tristan hoped to fix that, especially since his dragon would revel in protecting and taking care of Melanie. Hopefully that would distract his inner beast from wanting to fuck her every ten seconds.
Then he remembered they were in his sister’s house and no fucking would be taking place here. He waited for his dragon to protest, but he kept silent. It seemed even his beast had some sense of decorum.
They arrived in the living room and Tristan guided Melanie to the couch. His sister sat in a plush chair on the far side of the room, one of her laptops in front of her. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the human staring at Ara’s wall of photos. Before he could explain them, Melanie said, “Arabella, why do you have hundreds of pictures of different doors?”
Ara glanced from her computer screen and stared at the human. Tristan kept his silence and was rewarded with Arabella saying, “Because I like them.”
His sister went back to working on her computer, but Melanie pretended as if she hadn’t seen his sister’s cue that the discussion was over. Instead, she got up off the couch and went to the wall covered in pictures of doors. She looked from one to the other until she stopped in front of one that was crooked and a faded blue. “Where did you take this blue, crooked one?”
Ara looked up from her computer again, but this time at Tristan. He crossed arms over his chest and shook his head. No, he wasn’t going to answer for her.
She frowned and he wondered if Ara would actually talk to the human.
Then his sister went back to working on her computer, answering his question.
Glancing at Melanie, he wondered what the human female would do next. Giving up was the last thing he expected from her, so he waited to see what would happen.