Knight (A Billionaire Paranormal Romance Marriage of Inconvenience #3)

1. Dragon

Chapter One

DRAGON

“Are you going tonight?” Jezebel leaned towards the mirror and pursed her luscious lips. The air conditioner rattled, keeping our prep trailer cool enough to prevent my lipstick from melting.

“No,” I said, frowning at my reflection in the mirror.

My wild curls were coming out of my braid, and I had more scars than I’d had five years ago.

The white line through my dark brow was older than the smattering of small scars I’d gotten the last time a rocket hit my off-road truck.

That old scar was the only thing that showed the invisible scars on the wounded dragon that would never heal.

It was stupid for me to feel anything about the accident that shattered my pelvis and made reproduction a moot point when the odds of me settling down and having kids with some knight in shining armor who swept me off my feet was always incredibly slim.

Still, these feelings were feelings, and my track record showed that unreasonable feelings would trigger bad choices.

When Minx chose Girl’s Night, it was either at the shooting range or an animal shelter.

Either of those was fine, but today, she’d signed us up to volunteer at the hospital.

Not just any part of the hospital, but the NICU.

I was too old to go on drunken rampages, but the feelings didn’t seem to get the memo.

Jezebel hesitated and then said, “Minx will be so sad.”

I frowned down at the black leather corset I was wearing.

Minx’s sadness also led to bad choices. “She’ll get over it.

Why did I let her talk me into getting this corset from her favorite lingerie store?

I need to stick with Jordan. No one else does custom corsets like him.

He understands that women are human, organic beings whose inner organs shouldn’t be shoved into their throats.

I want to find whoever said that was the ideal and strangle them. ”

“With a corset. You know that she needed you to get it so her sale magic worked. I got the pink one. The difference between the two of us is that I promptly lost mine.” She flashed me a sharp smile before returning her focus to the careful application of makeup that would hide the delicate beauty she would never let the world see, like she covered up the natural blonde with a dark brunette hair dye.

It wouldn’t be easy for her to be in a hospital with babies, either.

If there was one thing she was terrified of, it was children; the younger, the scarier.

“It’s a bad idea for both of us. All of us. Didn’t Kitten have a miscarriage? And Felicia…Well, she’d probably be fine if she didn’t choke a kid with a taco.”

She studied me with solemn eyes. “Is that what’s going on with Nix and Sunshine? It’s so hard to tell with that girl. Keeps her cards closer to her chest than almost anyone I know. I guess she won’t be coming then.”

I frowned. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, was I?”

She put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “No one expects you to not be honest. If she told you, she wanted you to tell everyone.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “There’s a difference between honesty and spilling other people’s secrets. I assumed you knew.”

She batted her false lashes at me. “You didn’t notice the special bond you have? It’s because you’re so swash-buckling. And since Minx isn’t here, I guess I should say it.” She did air quotes. “You look like the motorcycle-gang fairy threw up on you.”

I snorted. “And I needed color to bring out my true beauty. The only true beauty I have is the way I drive. And leather,” I added, tugging on my jacket and stomping my leather boot above my leather pants, “is another layer of protection.”

Jezebel flashed her bright, shark-like smile.

“But are you protecting your skin or your delicate heart? You know that she’s just worried about your reputation.

I mean, you don’t need another lawsuit for sexual assault just because you hug someone.

Maybe you can get a dog so you can hug it instead of a sue-happy civilian. ”

“It happened one time. And Janice needed a hug, not me. I wouldn’t hug someone like her for comfort.” I shuddered at the thought of Horse’s hyper-uptight events planner.

“Yeah, when she first got to town she played it like Minx, cute, vulnerable, but without the cupcakes and the actual concern for the welfare of others. Too bad she got her claws into Horse.”

“I think they’d be perfect for each other if Horse didn’t have the attention span of a caterpillar.

They could torture each other.” Horse didn’t date one woman.

He didn’t even walk across the lobby with only one female leaning on his strong arm.

The last time I’d seen him, he’d been surrounded by five knock-outs who should have had better things to do with their lives.

But they’d fallen for the charm, the smarm, the chiseled jaw with cleft chin, and the way he looked into your eyes like you were the only woman in the world.

I pulled on my gloves harder than usual, because thinking about Horse always made me want to kill someone.

Him. And women too stupid to see when they were being played.

That had been me all those years ago, before the scars, before the accident.

Now I knew better than to trust anyone else to take care of my heart.

“I disagree,” Jezebel said, and I had to remember what we’d been talking about.

“You don’t think Horse and Janice would be a cute couple?”

She shook her head tightly. “I’ve been watching her. I think she targeted you. Now I think she’s targeting him.”

Jezebel didn’t usually come out and say that she was watching people.

At this point in our relationship, I assumed she was always watching everyone and everything, because no one was more paranoid and vicious than my friend.

But that she was specifically aiming her gaze at Janice was worrying.

I still thought that Janice needed hugs, carbs, and friendship.

Jezebel didn’t dole out any of those. Not that I hadn’t gotten sued for trying.

That had been so humiliating. I tried not to show it, but so often I was judged because I was tall, raced cars, and wore leather.

Being prosecuted as a sexual offender? Horrifying.

The worst was that then I wondered if there were other people I’d carelessly hurt.

I was much, much more careful these days. I guess Janice taught me a valuable lesson.

We left the trailer, stepping out into the dry heat, the sun’s glare cut by my high-performance shades.

“Lookin’ good, ladies,” Pixel called, leering in a way designed to make me punch him out. If I did that, I’d be disqualified and Nix would have to drive for me. Or he’d get Dirk to do it.

“That’s just what I was thinking about you,” Jezebel drawled, eyeing Pixel’s multi-colored mohawk and facial piercing.

“I didn’t mean…” he sputtered, backing away. Being punched out by me was an acceptable risk, but no one knew what Jezebel would do with you. He went and climbed into his beautiful, sleek machine while Horse glanced over at us from where he was talking to his new jockey.

The guy was tiny, looking even smaller next to Horse’s massive frame.

He looked horrible with bloodshot eyes that glanced around desperately, looking for something to drown his sorrows.

Horse always got the least stable people for his team.

Like Death, standing in the background, glowering at the world.

“Be careful with Horse’s rider,” I said.

Jezebel nodded. “They brought out the whole team, like he needs moral support. Be careful with Pixel. He wants to prove himself. You know what happens when kids need to prove themselves.”

Yeah. I’d been that kid. And I had the scars to prove it.

The race was a double loop, off-road racing on a track of medium difficulty, and a horse race in the other direction.

It was set up so that the tricky bits for the vehicles were when the slow parts were for the horses.

That way they could run the footage together in real time, and then separately afterwards.

I put on my helmet, climbed into my truck, strapped myself in, got the helmet hooked up to the oxygen, and then the shot went off, and so did I.

Dust was everywhere as I floored it down the open alley, flanked by the other team’s drivers.

It wasn’t a challenging course, so once we cleared the first rough terrain, rolling over rocks that would tip you if you didn’t know what you were doing, I started thinking about Girl’s Night.

Minx wasn’t the most stable person in the world.

She was so easily crushed. I should just tell her that the hospital thing was a bad idea, and not just for me, but maybe she needed to do this because of her own issues, the ones where she didn’t trust herself to have a real relationship or kids because she wasn’t mentally stable enough to be a good mother.

Why did people tell me these things? At least I hadn’t blurted that out to Jezebel.

At any rate, maybe Minx was looking for closure. I didn’t know and wasn’t going to ask her. I wasn’t good at feelings and issues, but I was good at being supportive. At least physically. Emotionally, it was more hit or miss. At any rate, if Minx needed support at the NICU, then I’d be there.

And if I ended up needing a drink or five, at least it would be for a worthy cause.

I nodded to myself and then swerved, barely avoiding a boulder while Pixel drove too fast, too recklessly on my left rear. Kid was going to get himself killed.

His smile was manic as he chased me. I narrowed my eyes and focused on the terrain, on the engine, and on pulling ahead so he wasn’t a threat. He held on for the rest of the route, but it wasn’t until after I crossed the finish line that he hit me.

I was already slowing down, so I didn’t roll, but I heard the crunch of metal, and then the smell of burned rubber while I pulled the wheel around, dragging away from Pixel. He continued in a plume of dust, not caring that he was choking on his own exhaust.

I was going to kill him. No, he was going to kill himself. And that wasn’t okay. Horse needed to do something about him.

There he was, walking across the track like he didn’t have to worry about a driver accidentally running over him.

A flash of rage had me hitting the gas as I drove past him, close enough to see the shades of blue in his eyes.

But when he looked up at me, he wasn’t concerned that I’d accidentally murder him.

The cocky, arrogant, insufferable piece of horse flesh needed to die even more than his driver.