Twenty-Two
Riley
Gareth and I squabbled a bit over which car we would take now that mine had been repaired.
Walt had even put on new snow tires, the old ones too worn to be safe.
With the snow once again coming down outside, I won that argument.
Gareth drove us to the entry point in my car.
After all, he had more experience driving in the snow.
He steered my newly repaired car carefully through the streets of downtown Greyhaven toward another route that I hadn’t explored. We had to wait until Paxton properly crossed the wards, because I couldn’t venture out of Greyhaven without enacting the curse.
Gareth pulled the car over a good few hundred yards from the marker that signaled where the wards began.
“Now we wait,” he said, keeping his focus on the road ahead of us.
Snow was coming down in that way I’d grown used to during my time in Greyhaven.
Thick, fluffy flakes landed on the windshield until the wipers whisked them away.
It didn’t take all that long for Paxton’s beat-up old camper van to come into view. I was surprised it had made the journey, honestly. He pulled over to the other side of the road and exited at the same time we did.
We stood and stared at each other for a long moment before Paxton broke the standoff and rushed forward.
I met him halfway. He clutched my shoulders, staring at me intently for a second.
Then he yanked me close, wrapping me in a massive hug.
“I’ve missed you, Ry.” His voice broke. I felt his hands tremble.
“Missed you too.” I pulled away, my eyes as wet as his, though neither of us acknowledged the rare show of emotion. Keeping an arm around him, I led him back over to where Gareth waited. “Come meet Gareth.” In an undertone, I added, “Remember, he’s safe.”
Paxton squeezed me before stepping forward to shake Gareth’s hand. He managed to look as if the gesture didn’t faze him in the slightest. “Welcome to the family, such as it is.”
“Thanks. Listen, it’s cold as balls out here. How about we head back to my house, or would you rather get some sleep in your cabin?”
“Cabin?”
I brandished the key I’d kept hold of—after asking permission, of course.
It had delighted Debra that my brother was moving to town.
Once he got on his feet, he could rent somewhere like Oscar had.
The town was great for having the cabins, but they hadn’t designed them for long-term use.
Only as a stopgap until newcomers found their feet.
“This,” I said, wiggling it. “Is the key to the cabin I was staying in. Now I’m living with Gareth.
The mayor agreed it would be best to give you the key.
Better than staying in your van, right?”
Paxton moaned in delight, his dark eyes sparkling. “Tell me it has decent water pressure and a full-size bed.”
“It does,” I confirmed with a grin.
“I love this place already!” This was the most enthusiastic I’d seen him in years.
“It’ll be even better once this curse is off me.
Tomorrow, though. Today I just want to shower, and have dinner with my little brother, his mate, and anyone else you want me to meet.
Then we can hit the hard stuff tomorrow before my curse has a chance to kick in. ”
Right, we were in a time crunch. Much like my curse, Pax got a couple of days’ grace, then people started treating him like shit or forgot him completely.
Sometimes I thought his curse was worse than mine.
I could handle being with him longer because I’d known him prior to the curse, and we were blood related.
Still, after a while, it got to me, making me gruffer with him than he deserved.
While Gareth was probably ready to get this curse broken, I knew Pax was probably gearing up for Gareth to use magic on him, which I understood completely.
Though he hadn’t had magic used on him as often as I had, Boyce had still abused him.
He saw the damage inflicted by Boyce’s magic, and that had affected him almost as much.
“Would you rather eat out or at our house?” Gareth asked Pax.
It gave me tingles to hear it called our house.
It had been so long since I could consider anything as mine.
Yet here I was with a mate, a home, friends, and a town that accepted me as I was.
After he’d come to help Keeley, I’d shown Oscar what I could do.
It felt unfair to have Fen know and not him.
Both were my friends. I’d actually made friends of my own.
“I’d like to see more of the place, but nothing too fancy.” Pax looked a little overwhelmed. Eating out was probably pushing it, but so was heading to a warlock’s house. He didn’t have the luxury of a mate bond to protect him.
“The diner?” I asked Gareth.
“Yeah.”
A sudden gust of wind took Paxton’s response from me. Then I heard the now familiar sound of wings beating. Dragons. Guess Pax was getting the welcome wagon after all.
“You said it, but I didn’t fucking believe it!” Pax shouted over the noise of the two dragons landing.
It was easy to pick out Fen. Even in dragon form, he was pretty.
In that form, he was sleeker than his cousin.
Tatsuya was massive, his form built for brute strength and being the muscle.
Fen was graceful and elegant. His body was long and lean with ice-blue coloring on top and an underbelly of navy.
The pair landed further down the road and shifted in a fluid movement.
Like me and Pax, they shifted with their clothes intact, which was useful since the snow was coming down around us.
They jogged the distance with Fen’s limp obvious next to Tatsuya.
Fen stopped in his tracks just before he got to us and sniffed.
“No fucking way!” His eyes widened, and he looked hopeful, awestruck, then fearful at… my brother.
No.
No way!
“Are you?” I wondered aloud.
The wind blew the dragon’s scent over us. “Shit!” Pax exclaimed.
“Hey, is that a bad or good shit there?” Fen looked ready to flee as he waited on the answer.
“Well, that depends,” Paxton said, a smirk on his face. “Fen or Tatsuya? You’ve got to be one of the dragons my brother mentioned.”
Tatsuya scowled but stayed silent next to Gareth. I really wanted to scold my older brother for teasing his mate. He had no idea how much this meant to Fen.
“Um, I’m Fen.” He pointed to his cousin and ventured closer, his eyes hopeful. “That’s Tatsuya.”
My brother’s face lit up. I knew it! Of course my brother would want such a cool mate! Relief nearly made my knees buckle. “Nice to meet you, Fen. I didn’t think I’d come here to find my brother and then meet my mate.”
My brother and his newfound mate stared at each other with stars in their eyes. It was too sugary sweet for me, but considering I ran away from mine the first time I met him, I was going to give them a pass.
“You don’t want my cousin as a mate,” Tatsuya muttered, looking vexed by the situation. His words, cruel and false, had me on edge.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Pax fired back. “I think that’s up to us to decide, isn’t it?”
“No, really. Ask him why he was on community service.” All eyes went to Fen, who flushed several shades of red.
I felt so bad for the guy. Tatsuya was being a total dick and ruining a special moment.
For what, I had no clue. “We’re family, Longwei, but you have a lot of growing up to do,” Tatsuya said to his cousin. “You’re irresponsible. Unreliable—”
“I think that’s quite enough,” Paxton barked, immediately coming to his mate’s defense.
“I don’t think it is,” Tatsuya yelled, getting in my brother’s face.
What the actual fuck did he think he was doing? Gareth laid a quelling hand on my arm. “Pax has this. Just wait,” he whispered, his focus on his best friend’s strange fit of anger.
“He flies about as well as a fledgling and has the attention span of one too.” Tatsuya spat, whirling away from Pax. “Do yourself a favor and think it through. The fates are playing jokes on you all here.”
Neither of them had been looking at Fen, so they didn’t catch how crestfallen he was at Tatsuya’s remarks. I wished I’d been able to say something, but I was too tongue-tied over the situation to leap to defend him like Pax had.
Finally, my brain restarted. I couldn’t stand there and say nothing.
“Fen has been so great to me while I’ve been here.
He’s a good friend already. I think he’d be good for you, Pax.
” Fen straightened at the praise. “He doesn’t take things too seriously.
” He wilted. Maybe he thought I meant it in a bad way, but it was a great quality.
“He knows where the line is and has a great way with people.”
“There’s nothing that says we have to accept the bond.” The man in question finally spoke. “We get free will.” He looked defiant, almost as if he was getting ready to be rejected.
“How about we get to know each other better before we choose either way?” my brother suggested.
I didn’t think that was what Fen wanted to hear. He appeared uncertain before smoothing on a mask of indifference. “We can try that.”
Ugh, this situation was a mess. I hadn’t told Fen much about my brother, so he wouldn’t understand Pax’s reluctance to forge new relationships until his curse could be broken.
Pax didn’t know how Fen had been an outcast himself.
He didn’t know that while Tatsuya called him cousin, Fen had no family.
The only thing Tatsuya and Fen shared was that they were dragons.
The cold was getting to Gareth, so I suggested we move this into town, get Paxton’s van dropped off, and all meet at the diner. I sent a message to Oscar asking him to join us.
Without looking at Tatsuya, Fen shifted back into his dragon form and took to the skies. He didn’t say a word to any of us, and that concerned me. A heavy feeling coiled in my gut.
Tatsuya frowned at his cousin and stepped away from Gareth so he could shift and follow. Once in the air, he put on a burst of speed to catch up with Fen, who seemed to fly even faster to keep space between them.
They were almost over the town when Tatsuya barreled into Fen and nearly took him to the ground. They tussled in the air before Fen shot in the opposite direction, leaving Tatsuya flapping and hovering in the air, watching him fly away.
“Will Fen be okay? And why did that jerk call him Longwei?” Pax asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
I didn’t know how to answer. Gareth sighed.
“Longwei is his dragon name. Only other dragons call him that. The situation with Tatsuya is complicated. I know he’s my best friend, but I don’t get in the middle of dragon stuff.
They butt heads all the time, and normally it blows over in a few days.
It’ll be fine.” He didn’t sound sure of that.
“Hmm,” I hummed noncommittally. I shared a glance with my brother, who appeared to agree with me. “We can call him if he doesn’t show up for dinner,” I said to Paxton.
Gareth went over to the car, leaving me with my brother for a moment. “Maybe being around Tatsuya wouldn’t be for the best right now. Could you give me Fen’s number?”
This sensitive side of my brother was one I hadn’t seen before. The match between him and Fen must have brought out a buried protective instinct. The one he’d had when I was younger, before Boyce tried to sever our bond.
“Okay, I’ll do that, but let’s get out of the cold first. I can’t feel my toes.”
Paxton laughed. The sound was pure and light. “Nah, me neither.”
“Welcome to Greyhaven. All I’ve seen so far is snowy weather, but the people are nice.”
His chuckle followed me all the way to my car, where Gareth was waiting in the driver’s seat.