“I know; it feels normal to be like this. Talking and touching.” I didn’t unfold my arms, but I also didn’t step away from his grip on my waist. “I’m just having a hard time adjusting to the fact that anyone other than Lucy or Jonathan cares enough about me to be worried. I pulled a really dick move sneaking out to rescue Austin without telling anyone. Totally didn’t take into consideration the fact that you all might worry. Like, I knew everyone would be pissed, but that was about it.”
“You’ve not had many people in your life that have loved you,” he observed, tilting my chin up with a finger so I’d have to look at him. “It’s something you have in common with all of your chosen guardians. But hopefully that will soon change. For all of us.”
He released me then, brushing a soft kiss over my forehead before heading inside to join Lucy and Elena as they tried on a mountain of designer shoes. For a moment, I stood there in stunned silence while I processed what he’d just said. Even with his ability to read my emotions, it seemed like he was so incredibly in tune with the sad, lonely, unloved kid inside of me. It scared the shit out of me, but also gave me excited, nervous jitters.
Vali’s fingers stroked down the inside of my wrist, sending warm heat through my sensitive skin and causing my breath to catch. We had ended up letting Elena and Lucy talk us into extending the evening past dinner and on to drinks and dancing at a local hot spot. The two of them were hitting it off, and I had no doubt that if there wasn’t already something between them, there soon would be.
Vali and I were leaning against the bar watching them both dancing on a podium and having the time of their freaking lives. River had not been happy when I’d told him, but what could he really say when I was in the company of a dragon shifter?
“So, you’re going back to Nevada tonight then?” I asked, glancing up at the dark-haired Romanian and wishing he wasn’t leaving. He had a magnetic pull about him, like the rest of my guys did, and it seemed like the more time we spent together, the more physical contact we maintained and the harder it was to accept I might not see him for another few weeks.
“I am.” He looked down at me with heat in his gaze, his strong fingers stroking another lazy pattern on the underside of my wrist. He’d been using little threads of his dragon magic, so it felt like his finger was on fire... in the best possible way. How he was making such minor, innocent contact so damn sexual, I had no idea, but my whole body was thrumming with want for him.
“Being here, so close to Omega’s base when we know they were testing my blood, doesn’t seem so smart, you know?” The corner of his mouth pulled up in a small smile.
“So, why come? Why not send Elena on her own?” I raised my brows at him, already suspecting the answer but wanting to hear it from his lips. His lush, smooth lips.
“You know why, drag?. I needed to see you.” His intense stare captured my slightly alcohol-fuzzed eyes and held them.
“Needed?” I repeated, and he dipped his head in acknowledgement.
“Yes. Needed. This past ten days being away from you...” He shook his head, breaking our eye contact and looking out into the crowd. “I am doing all I can to establish my business as a legal venture and have someone put in place to run it for me so I no longer need to be there. But it takes time.”
“I get that,” I murmured, even though I really didn’t. “You can’t just... quit? Despite your casual attitude toward cold-blooded murder and kidnapping, I don’t feel like you’re really the crime lord type.”
He turned an amused look on me. “Oh no?”
“I mean, yes, obviously you’re this big, bad criminal and whatever. But you’re not your father, and I suspect that guy you shot on the runway when we met, had it coming?” Or at least, I really hoped he had and this wasn’t my weird version of Stockholm Syndrome making justifiable allowances for murder.
“Gheorghe.” Vali scowled, and his fingers tightened around my wrist. “He did. He tried to assault Elena when she was home alone one day. She’s tougher than she looks, though, and fought him off, then locked herself in her room. I’d been biding my time, waiting for an opportunity that my men wouldn’t question, and you provided that for me.”
“Well then, good.” I pursed my lips, assessing my new acceptance of death and violence. Seemed strange to think that a short six months ago, my worst crime had been stealing from slimy child abusers who damn well deserved to be hit in the wallet a few hundred times over. Now I was condoning and even partaking in killings.
“This world we live in,” Vali murmured, returning to drawing patterns on my wrist, “it is not the world we grew up believing was real. Despite the bad things that we both endured as children, I don’t think either of us saw what was beneath the surface.”
“Magic? A covert war for supreme power over all supernatural kind and a startling lack of laws or morals?” I scoffed. “No, no, I definitely did not see this coming.”
“Nor did I,” he agreed, staring at me for a long moment before tucking a loose curl behind my ear. “We should get you home before your Alpha comes to get you himself.”
“Vali,” I warned, narrowing my eyes at his borderline sarcastic tone of voice.
“Don’t worry about me, drag?,” he smirked. “I might like to push his buttons a little, but I know, as my dragon does, that he is the true leader of your dianoch.”
“I don’t know about that, but he definitely has control issues,” I murmured, and Vali snorted a laugh.
“That’s for sure. I think I will have a lot of fun with him over the next millennia by your side.” His fingers tightened around my wrist once more as a little surge of panic ran through me at his words. Millennia.
“Don’t,” he commanded. “It is what it is, and you won’t ever be alone.”
“I know; it’s just... it’s a lot to process in a short space of time.” I set my drink down on the bar and dislodged my warm, tingling wrist from his grip. “I’m going to run to the bathroom, then the girls and I should head back.”
Unable to help myself, I glanced over my shoulder at him as I walked away and snorted a laugh. I’d just caught him unapologetically checking out my ass. Fucking man.
Once inside the bright lights of the bathroom, I realized how unsteady on my feet I was and ran a quick mental check on how much I’d actually had to drink.
Yup, about enough to kill a small horse, so probably just enough to get me tipsy.
Not that I was concerned. I knew my body was working it through at a stupid-fast rate, so probably the level of light buzz I was in would be as bad as I’d ever really get.
I washed my hands and wiped away the black smudge of mascara above my eyes where my eyelashes had been rubbing. Damn mascara never actually stayed where it was meant to go. After quickly ruffling my fingers through my hair, I pushed through the swinging door and collided straight into a girl on her way in.
“Oh shit!” I exclaimed as the door smacked into her and she lost her balance on her stilettos. The girl landed awkwardly on her side and yelled with pain.