Wyatt had been a sweet boy once, until he wasn’t.
A sudden humming took her chest, and she doubled over the vibration. She hated this—The Unrest. It made her feel sick, like she was going to Change. Like she would get stuck between her human form and her dragon and be trapped in here as other. It ruined her sleep and made it hard to keep food down, and sometimes it went on for so long she thought she would die from it. Not this time, though. This time, the humming stopped. She gasped for breath and relaxed against the squeaky leather of the seat.
She’d loved her dragon until The Unrest began.
As she got out of the rental, the rain felt good against her flushed face. She couldn’t look like a drowned rat for Wyatt, though, so she hurried to the front door of Drat’s. Inside, the walls were covered in vintage, neon beer lights and rusted-out, metal street signs. She wiped her feet on the mat only to nearly bust her ass in a puddle on the stained laminate flooring.
This was obviously the local hangout if the dirty looks and tight-knit groups of patrons were anything to go by. Perfect. Weston Novak, one of her childhood friends, had said the last he heard of Wyatt, he’d been living in some mountain hideaway near Bryson City, North Carolina. And if she was going to find him, this was her best shot at tracking him down in this small town. She’d bet her left tit Wyatt was a drinker now.
“S’cuse me,” she said politely to a trio of beer-gutted stale-smelling humans. “Can you tell me if Wyatt James lives around here?”
“Who wants to know,” the dark-headed one asked through a suspicious glare.
She pursed her lips to bite back her impatience. “My name is Harper. I know Wyatt from way back.”
“Are you another one of them dragons?” he asked, twirling his finger in the general direction of her left eye.
“One round,” a beefed-up muscle man slurred at the bartender. “Come on, Kane. One round, and if I win this one, you let us all have drinks on the house.”
Ignoring the taunts Muscle Man was throwing to the bartender, Harper offered Beergut an empty smile and excused herself. She wouldn’t have any luck with shifter-haters.
As she approached the bar, the man behind lifted his chin and yelled, “I’m not playing with you tonight, Carl. No free drinks.” He swung his gaze to Harper. “Except maybe for you.” He ran a rag down the counter and cocked his head.
Out of habit, she scented the air, but he didn’t smell of fur. Human. Her sense of smell might not be as good as a grizzly shifter, but she did all right.
“You passin’ through?” he asked.
“Just here for a little visit. I have a f—” Her mouth still stuttered over that word. “Friend. I have a friend who lives here, and I’m looking for him.”
The bartender had pitch black hair, shaved short on the sides and longer up top. A tendril of tattoo ink peeked out from under the long sleeve of his sweater. The black ink extended past his wrist and stretched down his hand to his knuckles, though she couldn’t make out the design. He had chiseled cheekbones and faint dimples that probably deepened when he smiled. He looked about her age, maybe a little older, but his eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. Perhaps he had vision problems. But when she shifted her weight on the barstool, his face turned with her. A fashion statement then.
“Nice eye,” he said with an edge of something she didn’t quite understand in his deep timbre.
“Thanks,” she murmured, uncertain. “Do you know a Wyatt James?”
The bartender, Kane, poured a shot of whiskey and slid it over to her. “On me.”
She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, then tipped her head back and shot the burning liquor. Hissing at the sharp aftertaste, she set the empty glass down and asked again, “Do you know Wyatt James?”
“People around here are real protective of each other,” Kane said, drying a glass slowly.
“I’m not here to hurt him.”
“Surely you can understand my hesitation. I don’t usually have shifters like you show up in this bar. You’re a little dangerous for my taste, and if, theoretically, Wyatt did live around these parts, and if, theoretically, you tracked him down to his cabin in the woods, I’d feel mighty guilty if he turned up burnt to a crisp and in the belly of a Bloodrunner Dragon.”
Harper froze. “How do you know that word?”
The corner of Kane’s lip lifted in a feral snarl. “I know lots of things, Harper Keller. But I don’t know any Wyatt James.”
“See, lots of humans think we can tell a lie from the eyes, from the inability to hold our gaze and say the fib. Your voice gives your lie away, though.”
“Or maybe I don’t care if you catch me lying. I owe you nothing, Bloodrunner.”
She swallowed down a growl. “Don’t call me that. That’s not a term for humans.”
He set his dry glass on the countertop at the end of a row of clean ones “How about this?” he murmured in a dangerous voice. “How about you and I arm wrestle?”
Her face went completely slack. “What?”
“Arm wrestle me, Bloodrunner. If I win, you turn back around and leave my town the way you came.”
Harper shook her leg in quick succession. She wanted to char this asshole for using the name of her ancient clan. “And if I win?”
“I’ll point you in the general direction of Wyatt James.”
Dumbass human, thinking he could best a shifter. “All right. Deal.”