Page 24 of Princess Seeks Dragon
“Oh, right—until Mom gets in touch and tells me... something.” I put my head in my hands for a moment, then shudder and stretch. “I thought I should try to blend in. I have my old license, so I could look for a job under my old name. I don’t know if I could even find someone who pays under the table... I normally wouldn’t do that, you know, but for this one circumstance...” I trail off, not sure if I’m saying too much, too little, if I should ask to see some kind of badge, or what.
“Do you like flowers?”
“I like tomatoes better, but yeah.”
“I’ve got a truck outside. We’ll talk on the way.”
“Hey, Kane Landscaping! I was going to apply to the garden center today,” I say with a smile. That’s too much of a coincidence. There are a lot of coincidences. Too many. I have a feeling I should connect the dots better, but I don’t seem to be able to. Maybe it’s stress or fear, or just a crappy dinner of motel room snacks and popcorn, but things feel a little slippery here in Pine Ridge. “My brain isn’t working as well as it should,” I mumble. “Something about this place—or maybe the stress of running away and putting my life on hold has really messed with my mind.”
“It’s the stress.”
“Wait, why do you have one of the Kane trucks?” I ask, holding onto the door frame as Graham exits my room.
“Because I’m Graham Kane, and I’m the manager.”
“You’re the managerandmy bodyguard?”
“You’d be surprised at how well I can protect.”
Without warning, he scoops me up in one arm and slams the door with the other. “Strong.” He crosses the parking lot in the time it takes me to blink. “Fast.”
I find myself sitting in his truck and blinking to clear my head as he climbs in next to me and beams. “Full of tricks. Come on, I’m taking you to my place. You can stay there or come to work with me at the garden center.”
“I’ll decide once my head stops spinning,” I groan, closing my eyes and lying back against the seat.
***
COLD FEET, MY TAILSand scales! Angela Argento is no bratty little girl running away from her lover in a fit of pique. She’s not a scared bride who isn’t sure about saying yes. She’s a strong, articulate person who looks like she might break down and sob at any moment, and maybe I would do the same if I were “sold” into marriage.
I’m a lot of things, but I’m not going to force an innocent woman into domestic slavery—more like sex trafficking—under the guise of an arranged marriage. “I guess your groom-to-be took it pretty hard when you walked out on him?”
“Huh? Oh, no. We only met this week. I thought my parents were just trying to nudge me into having a social life. He didn’t want to marry me, either. He has a girlfriend. And a mistress.”
“Yikes.”
“I didn’t even know any of this was going on. I thought they were just trying to fix me up, but no. Or, well, yes. Fix me up in the permanent way.” She rubs her temples, her dark hair falling out of a messy ponytail.
She’s so cute.
For a human.
And short and curvy, the kind of woman you can sink your teeth and talons into—if she were a shifter, like me.
“It’s crazy that they thought they could just pair us up because he’s a mafia ‘prince’ and I guess I’m what they call a ‘princess.’ Or the closest thing my stepdad’s family has to one, anyway. Like, who does that?” She flings up her hands, but the double cab pickup is wide, and she doesn’t smack into me. “That’s like saying just because you put a man and woman together, they’re going to fall in love. We’re not animals. I don’t even know if animals vibe like that...”
“Yeah, I don’t know.” I squirm in my seat, her words and Ian’s lectures closing in on me like a net.
Was I doing the same thing? Waiting for my dragon “princess” to magically waltz in and set up shop as a wife and mother? For what reason? I’ve always said it was to stop our race from dying out. Sure, that’s noble.
But Vanessa and Ian proved it didn’t have to be that way. “Some people are stupid,” I mutter. Am I in that club? For years, I’ve thought my brother was the foolish one.
“You know what’s funny? I know my stepdad was mixed up in this, and it’s bad, but I still love him. I don’t think he wanted to do this. I think he was kind of forced into it. I guess... I guess those Genovese guys are bad news.”
Considering that Genovese knows someone who can contact a literal demon? “You’re right.”
“Where are we going?”
“My brother and his wife are visiting our family in Scotland, but their house has an amazing security system. That’s where I’m staying while I’m in town. It has a whole guest suite you can use.”
