3. Kiron
The city wind tore past me as I pulled out of the parking lot, cold enough to bite, and I dragged it deep into my lungs like it might scrape her scent out of my system.
It didn’t. Nothing could erase her scent .
I’d only been near her a few minutes and already she clung to the back of my throat like smoke. My fangs had dropped before I even hit the street, gums aching with the need to feed, to bite, to taste, to fuck.
I snarled under my breath as I twisted the throttle harder, weaving through traffic just to put distance between me and Jack’s Bar. It didn’t help. I was practically salivating for her.
Fuck , I hated being a vampire.
Like the bloodlust wasn’t bad enough, I had a damn dragon living under my skin for the past three years.
A violent, possessive, fire-breathing problem that only woke up for three things: blood, sex, and violence.
Tonight he wanted all three, and now he was prowling just beneath the surface, restless and hungry, like he’d finally scented something he had no intention of letting go.
‘Mine.’ His growl was low and possessive.
Every negative emotion fed him. Thirst. Lust. Rage.
The stronger it got, the thinner my control felt, until holding it together was just a lie I told myself so I could make it through the night without killing someone who didn’t deserve it.
I could still feel the heat of her under my hand, the way her pulse fluttered when I touched her back, the sharp spike of awareness that tore through her body and straight into mine, dragging heat low and leaving my cock thick and aching.
I wanted to taste her. I wanted to bend her over the nearest surface and bury myself inside her until every other male scent was gone and she carried nothing but me .
My mouth flooded at the thought, fangs throbbing in time with my pulse, and knowing she’d just been with some other asshole in that bathroom stall sent something dark and ugly twisting through my chest.
I wanted to hunt him down. Break him. Make him regret touching what my dragon had already claimed.
I shook my head hard and leaned forward over the tank as I hit a red light near the waterfront.
My arms were locked, shoulders tight enough to ache, breath coming heavier than it should have been.
Heat coiled low and heavy in my gut, not just hunger, not just lust, but something deeper and more dangerous.
I dragged in another breath and tasted her all over again, sweet like fruit, ripe and fucking edible.
“ FUCK . Get it together,” I muttered.
‘Take her.’
The command slammed through me, hot and absolute, followed by images that made my vision pulse.
Her throat under my mouth. Her body pinned beneath mine.
Blood, heat, possession. The dragon didn’t care about choice or consequences.
He only cared that I claimed her. Bit and pumped my venom into her skin.
The man in me knew better. I couldn't just claim her.
“Not like that,” I growled as the light changed and the bike surged forward again.
I cut toward the waterfront instead of the highway, taking the long road along the water where traffic thinned out and the night opened up around me.
The dark surface of the bay flashed between buildings, wind carrying salt.
I tried to let it distract me. It should have helped.
It didn’t. Nothing was going to quiet him tonight.
I never should have gone to Jack’s. Putting him at risk like that was selfish as hell.
It didn’t matter that I missed my brother.
It didn't matter that I hadn’t seen him for a year.
According to Jackson, his brother was dead.
Stabbed in a street fight. Another violent ending for a guy who never knew when to walk away.
If Harlow hadn’t found me that night, that story would have been true.
I was supposed to stay in the shadows. Check on Jack from a distance. Make sure he was doing okay. Then leave before temptation to feed on some innocent got claws in me. That had been the plan.
Until she came out of that bathroom.
She was the kind of woman who pulled attention without trying.
Curves that filled out her clothes in a way that made my hands itch to touch her, to see if she was as soft as she looked.
She was tiny, barely over five feet. Copper hair tousled in loose waves falling around her heart-shaped face, and her lips were pouty, parted just enough that my eyes caught there and stayed a second too long.
Hell . That red gloss did something to me.
My dragon had a different thought entirely. He wanted our blood smeared there instead, crimson against that soft mouth, sealing a bond she didn’t even know existed yet. The image hit hard enough to make my pulse kick.
That was the moment it startled me.
I thought I was just checking out a gorgeous woman. Turns out she wasn’t just pretty. She was mine .
“Fuck.”
My dragon stirred low and satisfied at the admission.
‘And she felt me watching,’ he said with satisfaction.
Humans always do, somewhere deep in their animal brain. Prey knew when a predator was lurking.
She didn’t see me, but she felt me. I saw it in the way her shoulders tightened, the way her pulse kicked, the way her attention kept drifting back to where I stood in the shadows .
I told myself I would just watch. Just take the edge off the loneliness and go.
Stupid .
Now my dragon was fully awake and clawing at my insides, and I knew exactly what would satisfy him. Blood. Not bagged. Not even directly from the vein would do unless it was the gorgeous redhead with the emerald green eyes and spitfire attitude.
Coming here was a mistake. I repeated that for the umpteenth time. But loneliness makes you do dumb shit. I told myself one look once a year at my old life wouldn’t matter.
It mattered. It was fucking life altering.
My only concern had been Jack seeing me but it had been so much worse.
Danielle had seen me, and I was forced to compel her to forget me right there in front of witnesses.
I felt the push from the dragon when I did it, that instinct to remove obstacles, to clear the path between me and what he wanted.
Her. And the assholes who threatened her were slaughtered. Burnt with dragon fire.
He shoved me straight into a situation I should have stayed out of. Not that the little spitfire needed my help.
I huffed a breath that almost turned into a laugh, remembering her pulling a knife, eyes lit with that wild, barely contained violence. She hadn’t hesitated. Hadn’t flinched. She had been ready to stab that asshole without blinking.
I liked that more than I should have.
But when the men at the table turned on her, when their attention shifted from drunk and loud to dark and deliberate, something in me snapped. I could taste their intent from across the bar. Thick. Rotting. Wrong .
‘Burn them. ’ The dragon roared it like a war cry, and for once we were perfectly aligned.
Did I regret stepping in?
Fuck no.
Slamming that guy’s face into the table had been the best part of my night. Hearing his nose break under my hand had been music to my ears.
Before tonight, I wasn’t scared of losing control. I should have been. My hive kept me steady. Kept the dragon from taking the wheel. But without a mate, that control had an expiration date. For all of us. One bad night turned into a body count.
Nik held us together by force of will. Rafe smoothed the worst of it, kept the edges from getting too sharp when the rest of us started slipping. Harlow burned his off in chaos and blood.
Me?
I had a dragon.
Not a wolf. Not a bear. Not something built to run in a pack or hibernate through the worst of it.
Dragons did not submit. They dominated. They burned first and sorted through the ashes later.
My beast was bigger, meaner, and a hell of a lot harder to leash than the others, and every year without a mate made that leash thinner.
I bottled it away anyway. Let it simmer. Pretended it was not building pressure behind my ribs. Tonight the lid cracked.
‘Mine,’ the dragon said it again. Possessive in a way that felt carved into bone. I should have felt relieved. Instead, I felt fear. Because this wasn’t just attraction. It wasn’t just hunger. My dragon chose her.
If the hive said no, if Nik denied the bond, I didn’t know if I would be strong enough to walk away.
Nik didn’t want a mate for himself. Convincing him we needed one was going to be a fight, and the thought of standing in front of my alpha and admitting I had already lost control once tonight sat heavy in my gut.
That was what scared me enough to run.
She was not supposed to matter. Not some random girl from my brother’s bar. I couldn’t have her without Nik’s approval. The hive would bond her too, tie themselves to her too.
My dragon hated that.
But he hated the idea of not having her even more.
And I wasn’t sure which version of me was more dangerous.
The plan tonight had been simple. Get in. Check on Jack. Satisfy the ache in my chest. Get out. Now I was racing back to the island like the building was on fire.
The bridge lights came into view over the dark water, long reflections stretching across the surface of the bay. Home. Control. Or the closest thing to it.
“Fuck,” I muttered into the wind.
Nik was going to kill me.
And the worst part was, I deserved it.
Because deep down, under all the guilt and fear and excuses, I didn’t regret meeting her at all.
And that was the real problem.