15. Jalen
JALEN
Idrive us back up the mountain with a case of Shelly’s herbal tea in the back seat. Zuri rides beside me with her shopping bags from Lena’s Crafts crowded around her feet.
She went crazy in there, and it was the best thing I’ve watched all year. She bought yarn, paint pens, and a little wooden box she wouldn’t explain. Every time she held something up, I said yes. She checked the price tags anyway at the start. By the back of the store she’d quit checking.
My kind dreams about treasure. Watching my mate grab whatever she wanted beat every vault in this mountain.
We park in the garage, and I gather every bag while she’s still unbuckling. She watches me do it, grinning.
Under the grin, her scent still runs a thin line of caution. She likes me plenty. She’s also waiting for the day I turn cruel, because someone in her old life taught her that day always comes. I keep my face easy about it. My dragon wants to burn something.
One cup of Shelly’s tea in and my sneezes are already backing off. The itch stays.
She reaches for some of the bags anyway. “I’ve got it,” I tell her.
“You’re being grouchy,” she says.
I groan and look over at her. “Let’s go inside.”
She shrugs and follows me in.
Dorian meets us in the main room and takes every bag off me without a word. Brandy is already coming down the hall, and she’s glaring at me. I know why.
Malachi comes in behind her, sneezing, smoke curling off his nose and both ear points.
“I’m already catching this shit,” he says. “Did you find out what it is?”
I hold up the bag with the herbal tea. Brandy snatches it and pulls a jar out to inspect.
Zuri steps up. “It’s the cleaning solution, the one Stillwater makes,” she says. “Dragons are allergic to it, and the shopping center was selling Stillwater soap until the doctor got it pulled this morning. The whole town’s been treating the sneezes with herbal tea.”
“It’s the same solution from the Shadow Suds break-in,” I add. “The ghouls didn’t get every case out of Derrick’s storeroom.”
Brandy pushes the jar she’s holding into Malachi’s hands.
He groans at it. “I put some of that shit on my hand for a sniff test. It was a tiny amount.”
“I’ve been around it way more,” I say. “That’s why my case is so severe.”
Brandy steers Malachi toward the big couch with one hand flat on his chest. “Looks like you’ll have to rest for a change. So you can recover.”
Malachi drops onto the couch arm instead of the couch. He snorts, and smoke rolls out of his ears and nose both. Brandy waves it off without looking.
Dorian hasn’t moved from the middle of the room. The shopping bags look like doll purses on him. He lifts them. “Craft room?”
“One of the empty rooms on my and my mate’s floor,” I tell him, hooking my thumb toward the stairs. “I want to build Zuri her own craft room.”
Zuri turns from the hall table and its fresh flowers with her mouth open. She hasn’t said a word yet. I answer her anyway.
“Yes, Zuri.” I give her my biggest grin.
Dorian crosses the room and stops in front of her. Zuri tips her head all the way back to meet his eyes. “Are you hungry, sister?”
“I had a light meal at Stanley’s,” she says.
Brandy sits down next to Malachi and laces her fingers through his. “How’s Andy doing?”
“He wasn’t there,” I answer. “Took the day off or something.”
Brandy nods, her thumb moving over the back of his hand.
“I will cook you dinner, sister,” Dorian says.
Zuri looks up at him with a soft smile. “Thank you.”
I slide the bags off Dorian’s forearm and set them by the stairs for the trip up. “No feast, brother. She’s on soft foods until her face heals.”
Dorian’s face folds up. Cooking is his one bragging right in this family, and I just took the privilege from him. Then he opens his mouth and lets the quiet part out. “Can’t you two just get on with the mate bond so I can feed her?”
I tilt my head at him. The whole town gave ME the nickname, and my brother’s out here saying things like that to a woman he met yesterday.
Zuri takes off for the stairs, leaving embarrassment thick in her wake.
Dorian watches her go. “Why is she embarrassed?”
Brandy pats his arm. “Read the room sometimes, brother. Time and place. We talked about this.”
He bows his head to her. Then he looks at me and shrugs. “Sorry?”
“She’ll get used to us,” Brandy says. “She needs time.” She grabs Malachi’s arm. “Let’s go, Alpha. Off to bed.”
I glare at Dorian. He glares back. He gives up the staredown after a while.
“Soft food,” he mutters, and heads off toward the kitchen.
Where is Jules when I need her? She keeps this family under control, and the baby has her napping again.
I groan and take the stairs after my mate.
I make it up to my floor. Her caramel is drifting from under my door, embarrassment still cooling off it. I walk past my own room and start opening the empty ones instead.
We had good talks today, and I learned plenty. But you learn a woman by how she moves. Her eyes lit up in that craft store, and no interview would ever have gotten that out of her.
The room at the east end has morning light and a view of the tree line. It’s the one.
I shake my head at myself and add a note to my list: tell Malachi to go ahead and approve Lena’s expansion budget. No way is my woman not getting whatever she wants in this town.
I go in and set the bags down. I look the room over, collecting measurements in my head and sorting what stays from what goes. The spare furniture can move to storage, and the closet wall wants shelves. I’ll shop for supplies online while she sleeps.
I step out and close the door behind me. My nose itches, but it’s not as bad as this morning. I rub it and head for my own room.
Zuri’s in my bed with her shoes off, curled up with her arms wrapped around her knees.
I smile at that. I kick mine off and crawl in with her. I put my hand on her knee and scoot closer.
“What’s with everyone pushing for me to bang you?” she asks.
I laugh. “It’s not that. The mate bond is sacred. It’s very special in our community.”
She groans into her arms. “I know nothing about it.”
“Why’d you move to Millbrook instead of Shadow Wolf Creek?” I ask her. “You anti-supernatural?”
She glares up at me. I throw both hands up in surrender.
“I already knew the answer,” I say. “It’s in your scent.”
“If you must know,” she says, “it’s because it’s hard to get into this damn town. The only jobs available are waitress or cleaner, and that’s not my line of work.”
“Okay, okay.” I keep my hands where she can see them.
“And Stillwater, before I knew what I know now...” She sighs. “A job there is great on a resume.”
“But now my life is all up in a frenzy,” she says.
I put my hand back on her lap. “No, it isn’t, baby. I’m not trying to push myself on you. But I’m asking you to give me a chance.”
She looks up at me with soft eyes. “Would you still like me... if there wasn’t a mate bond in place?”
“Yes,” I say.
She glares at me, and the disbelief comes up in her scent again, sour as vinegar.
“When I first met you,” I start.
“In the alley,” she says.
I shake my head. “When you bumped into me in the lobby at Stillwater. I couldn’t smell you at all. My dragon was acting strange, and I didn’t know why. I know who you are to me by scent, Zuri. And nothing was there when you passed me.”
“I was there to find out if Delilah had any dealings with the company,” I tell her. “But the minute you walked by me, nothing mattered but you. I followed you. From your job, to the bar. I just watched. And then you took a bathroom break and confirmed everything I’d been suspecting.”
It’s the whole truth, and I hand it over knowing how it sounds. A dragon followed her through a town that hates his kind, and I’m asking her to hear it as devotion. My heart is going hard enough that she can probably feel it through the bed.
She opens her mouth. Nothing comes out.
I wait. I’ve sat across from alphas and witches without flinching, and none of it wrung me out like the quiet of this one woman deciding what to do with me.
Then her scent moves. The vinegar thins. Warm caramel comes up where the doubt was sitting, and I could roar with what that does to me.
“See.” I take her hand. “I wanted you before I knew.”
I pull her hand up and press a kiss to the back of it. Her hand in mine is the first thing I’ve ever been scared to lose.
“If you ever doubt the mate bond,” I tell her, “know that.”
She surprises me. She leans in and presses her mouth to mine. I hold real still so she won’t stop.
Her kiss starts soft and slow. This whole valley needs me, and no one in it has ever wanted me. She doesn’t know it, but she just offered me the world. There’s no world without her in it.
Then she shifts. She climbs into my lap without breaking away, her knees on either side of me, and her cool hands come up and cup my face. My dragon’s heat rises to meet her palms. She pushes in deeper, and I answer her, and we find a rhythm neither of us is leading.
Then she winces against my mouth.
I break the kiss. “No. Stop.” It comes out rough. Her hurt is the one thing in this room I can’t burn.
“I don’t want to stop,” she says, and she presses her lips to mine even harder.
So I give her the kiss without the fight in it. I cradle the unhurt side of her face and slow us down, and she softens into my hands.
My dragon goes quiet and warm underneath it all, done pacing at last.
She kissed me first. I plan to be insufferable about that one too.