He jerked his gaze to Hadyn, searching her expression for any sign of duplicitousness. Bait. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d thought when he’d discovered her on the side of his defunct mountain?
She raised her eyebrows at him. “So…what’s the plan?”
No way was he telling her anything…but she was definitely going to talk. “First, I make us food. Then you tell me everything you can about what brought you to me.”
She nodded without hesitation. “I already told you most of it, but fine. And then?”
“Then, I’ll figure that out after I know the details.”
Her nod this time was slower, gaze searching. “Okay. Do you mind if I shower?”
He debated refusing her the luxury. If she was part of the dragons who’d come for him, she could contact her people in private, or send a signal to lure them to her. However, he hadn’t given her specifics of where they were, and in the dark, from the distance his home sat back from the shore, she wouldn’t be able to see or hear the ocean.
“Go ahead.” He waved in the direction of the bedrooms. “The first room on the right is mine. Choose whichever of the others you like best.”
Thirty minutes later, steaks from the freezer that he’d reluctantly thawed in the microwave were sizzling in a frying pan and frozen veggies were boiling away on the stovetop. The scent of a clean woman breezed in, alerting him to her presence. Without the heavy clothes and the days of grime and sweat, her natural scent came through the lemon-perfumed soap and shampoo in all his bathrooms. Fresh. Enticing.
His dragon curled up in contentment inside his head. Damn her.
“Steak?” she asked.
He didn’t turn around. “I didn’t have time to call ahead to have Marissa fill the kitchen with fresh produce and other items. We had to make do with whatever was in the freezer and pantry that hadn’t already expired.”
She appeared in his periphery as she sidled up to the counter, then, to his increasing annoyance, hopped up to sit there, legs dangling. Too casual. People weren’t casual around him. People were nervous.
“After what I’ve been eating lately, that smells like heaven,” she commented.
Rune said nothing as he struggled with the mental image of parting her legs so he could stand between them, then pulling her body flush against his so his erection could rub right against the spot that would make her moan.
“So…you were going to tell me everything.” The words came out harsher than he intended.
Beyond a brief pause, which he ignored, she didn’t quibble. “I’ve lived with Chaghan and Qara since I was ten.”
He frowned at the age. “Don’t lie. I’ll know.”
“Apparently you wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you on that spectacular ass,” she snapped. The first time he’d seen her lose her temper in all of this.
Wait. She thought his ass was spectacular? He shook his head at himself, irritated for even pausing to consider that.
Rune flipped the two steaks, then lifted his head to pin her with a hard stare. “Dragon mates don’t start to show their sign until they—”
“Reach the age of reason, roughly,” she cut him off.
“Exactly. So finding you at the age of ten—”
She threw up her hands. “If you’d stop talking, I could fill you in better, you know.” The words were sharp, but her tone lilting, as though she was on the tip of laughter.
This was not how anyone normally reacted to him. Rune bit off the rest of his words. Gods, this woman. Swinging from nurse to temptress to snarky upstart. “I don’t like being cut off,” he said softly.
“Then afford me the same courtesy,” she shot back.
A small growl erupted from him, and she didn’t even bat an eyelash. She wasn’t wrong, though, and as the initial bout of frustration burned away, he managed to wave a hand at her. “Go ahead, then.”
Narrowed eyes told him she didn’t entirely believe that he’d keep quiet. He turned back to the food and, checking the clock, turned off the heat under the veggies. Then waited for her to start again.
“Chaghan and Qara were already rogue when my parents first met them before I was born,” she said. “Though they didn’t know at the time they weren’t human.”
He was vaguely aware the two green dragons’ decision had to do with losing faith in Pytheios. Something about Qara having known the previous dragon shifter meant to be both king of her clan and High King, before he died, as children. Apparently, she had suspicions in whatever events had snuffed out his relatively young life. Like Rune, seeing other changes happening among their kind that didn’t look good, they’d eventually gone rogue. Walked away from it all. Not an easy decision, as he well knew.
As an enforcer, it had technically been Rune’s job to track them down and kill them when they turned. Rogues weren’t allowed to live.
He hadn’t made any effort. None of his team had. Chaghan and Qara had been friends once. The Huracáns had made excuses that the green dragons had gone into territories they didn’t patrol and left it to the Alliance and other two enforcer teams to deal with it.
“Eventually, to avoid dragons, they moved a lot, even living in the bigger cities, surrounding themselves with humans. They had Kip, of course, and eventually bought a house next door to my family’s farm. They became close to my parents.”
“How old were you then?”
“I was about five,” she said. “I grew up knowing Kip as an older brother of sorts.” The affectionate smile that drew her lips into a soft bow tugged at an unexpected darkness inside him.
“My first dragon sign came when I was nine. We were all having dinner together. I sneezed and lit the dining room tablecloth on fire.” Her lips twisted. “Floored would be an understatement as far as their reactions.”
“I bet.”
The twist became a grin. “That’s when Chaghan explained what they were, and what dragon sign meant. He blew his fire over my neck and their family symbol appeared.” A laugh punched from her. “Kip went practically translucent with shock, and if I’d known ghosts existed, then I’d have said that description was remarkably accurate.”
Rune didn’t blame him. To find a mate at that age, knowing he’d have to wait a decade or more to turn her, having to keep her dragon sign under control all that time, and, as a rogue, keep other dragons from discovering her. A nightmare.
One that hadn’t played out well, apparently.
Rune turned off the burner and forked the steaks onto plates, shoving Hadyn’s at her. “Help yourself to the veggies.”