He gestured up and down at her. “You have the world sitting on your shoulders, and you carry it like it’s nothing.”
“That’s what all women do,” she informed him before getting into the truck.
***
Ford watched the dragon woman drive away in the massive, lifted truck. He wanted to drag her back, to pull her cowboy boots off one by one and run his hands up her legs. He would never bring her home, though. He was afraid that if he did, he wouldn’t want her to leave.
She needed someone who could support her when the world crashed on her. He didn’t know if he had the strength to be that for anyone ever again. There’d been a time when he’d been a great mate. Then, he’d failed his wife.
The restaurant door opened, and Ginny came running out with something in her raised hand. She slowed to a halt in the middle of the street before letting out a curse under her breath. Ford asked the bartender what was wrong.
“That woman left her ID at the bar,” Ginny said, showing him the card in her hand.
He took it from her and inspected the photo. That perfect smile grinned back at him. She couldn’t even bear a bad ID picture like everyone else. He scanned her information out of curiosity.
Daphne Albright.
Age twenty-six, address in Texas. He didn’t detect a drawl in her words, but not everyone from the state left with one.
“Do you think she’ll come back for it?” Ginny asked.
Ford pocketed it. “I’ll make sure it gets back to her.”
Ginny gave him a funny look but didn’t argue. He knew the bartender had been trying to hook him up with patrons for ages. For all he knew, she’d pocketed Daphne’s license in order to get Ford to visit her again.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “She’ll get it.”
Chapter Four
Daphne did not want to do this.
Her beast didn’t care one way or the other. The sunflower yellow dragon shook itself, happy to be released into the world again. She sank down and inhaled, savoring the smell of fresh earth and green things.
Her beast’s carefree disposition lifted Daphne’s mood a bit. She turned toward Evangeline. The human woman wore a pair of paint-smeared jeans and a bralette that exposed her stomach. She stared up at Daphne’s dragon, but her brow shaded her eyes and kept Daphne from reading her.
Beside them, Bree remained in her human form for support. Daphne had considered asking Bree to shift to give Evangeline a dose of spite to work with, but Evangeline had asked Bree to stand by her. Evangeline’s anger that Bree had been changed before her would have been useful while her body underwent the change. There was no going back now.
Daphne made it quick. She didn’t rise from the grass but darted toward Evangeline and snapped at her lightning quick. At the last second, Daphne saw Evangeline’s eyes. Wide with fear, they nearly stopped Daphne in her tracks. Not soon enough, though.
Teeth broke skin. A howl of pain split the air. Evangeline stumbled back. She raised a trembling hand, blood spilling down her arm in rivulets. Bree tried to get Evangeline’s attention. When that didn’t work, she resorted to yelling. Shouts that everything would be okay turned hollow in Daphne’s ears.
She’d fucked up.
Evangeline’s eyes rolled back, and she collapsed. Daphne grabbed her beast and yanked it back, forcing the change. Her beast didn’t fight. It couldn’t when Daphne flooded it with the force of her will. She stumbled forward on two unsteady human feet and ran for Evangeline. Bree held the unconscious woman in her arms while Daphne reached to check her pulse.
It was still there. Daphne wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but this wasn’t over yet. Evangeline still had hours to go before she would wake. Every shifter Daphne had worked with in her job said that the initial process took nearly a whole day to recover from. From Bree’s account, Evangeline would wake with a hangover, the worst aversion to scents in her life, and a hunger that nothing would slake.
That was, if Evangeline woke at all.
She could give in to the dark call of death and let go.
Daphne straightened. She went to her clothes and found her phone. The first step was over. Evangeline would need her mate now. Casey would help her pull through this. If spite could not carry the woman back to the realm of the living, then love would.
Right?
Daphne sure hoped so. She’d never been in love like that. No man had ever made her feel anything more than a bad orgasm.
Casey’s face took on a pallid shade of green when he saw Evangeline. Daphne held back her impulse to apologize. For all she knew, Evangeline’s fear had been caused by the sight of a massive dragon coming for her. This could work out totally fine.
They took Evangeline back to the cabin where Daphne and Casey could monitor her. Casey would most likely sit with his mate for the next twenty-four hours, meaning Daphne’s job wouldn’t truly start until Evangeline woke. Daphne did her best to busy herself until then, from helping Isabella around the house, to preparing a number of activities for Bree and Evangeline.
All the while, Daphne expected cruel glares from her brother. He didn’t take his eyes off Evangeline for a second, though. Daphne lingered in the bedroom doorway and watched her brother caress Evangeline’s bright hair while he whispered to her.
Jealousy unfurled inside her like a thorny flower. The beauty of what she beheld hurt to watch. Her loneliness tried to sneak up on her, but she swatted it away and ignored the piercing thorns in her chest.
Daphne didn’t need that kind of love. She had her own two feet to stand on and a good beast to spend the rest of her life with. She couldn’t imagine sharing everything she’d worked so hard for with a man who had nothing to do with it.
“Do you think she’s going to be okay?” Bree whispered at the kitchen table when Daphne stepped out.
Daphne gave her a bright smile and said, “Of course.”
Bree didn’t look convinced. She’d been there. Daphne couldn’t hide anything from her.
“We shouldn’t have rushed it, though,” Daphne said. “I should have taken a couple of days to adjust Evangeline to my beast’s presence. Seeing a dragon up close can be alarming. I doubt it was a great vision right before passing out.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Bree said. “Erik changed me without shifting.”
Daphne balked. “That’s not possible. If it were, I would have changed a few men.”
Bree laughed at the implication that Daphne was a biter in bed. “Erik didn’t think it was possible either, but here I am anyway. We both think it has something to do with his second beast.”
Daphne tried to stick around and chat, but the restlessness in her wouldn’t allow her to sit for more than a moment. The knowledge that Evangeline could die in Casey’s arms haunted Daphne. She didn’t want to be the cause of anyone’s pain. To think that she could ruin two lives today didn’t sit well with her.
Finally, she gave up and borrowed her brother’s truck again. She hadn’t realized how late it was until she noticed the stars twinkling around soft gray clouds. Night had descended somewhere between folding laundry and sharing empty gossip.
Would the restaurant be open? Would Ford be working? Though she knew the answer to neither question, she made the trek into town anyway. Her stomach sank at the sight of the dark windows at the front of the restaurant.