“Carl,” Kane called, making his way from behind the bar. “This nice lady wants to arm wrestle me. If she wins, you can have your free round.”
Carl swayed on his feet like a tranquilized bull. “Aw, man! She got skinny arms.” He sat heavily into a chair, crossed his arms over his paunch, and pouted.
“But she has a dragon eye,” Beergut called from a few tables down. “She’s a match for Kane.”
And then the betting started. Not well, because alcohol plus math equaled disaster, but some five dollar bills were handed around as Harper sat across the table from Kane.
Kane smiled an empty expression, then settled his elbow on the table and offered his hand. Gripping his warm palm, Harper blew out a steadying breath and nodded when he asked if she was ready. Beergut said, “Ready, steady, go,” and Harper was shocked to her bones when she tried and failed to slam Kane’s hand to the table.
He was strong. Inhumanly strong, and she scented the air again as she strained against him. No fur. A bird of prey shifter perhaps? Gritting her teeth, she growled a deep rumbling sound as the dragon surged with power inside of her, and at least now he looked like he was trying.
Kane’s arm muscles strained against his sweater as she moved him closer to the table, but he countered and brought them back up to even again.
“What are you?” she gritted out, pushing with all her might against his hand.
Kane yanked his glasses off, revealing two blazing gold-green eyes, both of which had elongated pupils. “I’m a Blackwing.”
Harper gasped, and he slammed her hand against the table. A Blackwing Dragon? No. No, no, no, Marcus’s line didn’t exist anymore. Harper’s grandfather, Damon, had killed him. Only Bloodrunners remained.
She yanked her hand out of Kane’s and stood so fast the chair behind her toppled backward.
“I win,” he said through a hollow smile. “Now get out.”
The small drunken crowd cheered and booed around them, but the sound was muffled compared to the volume of her pounding heartbeat. She rubbed her throbbing hand where he’d gripped her too hard and whispered, “Wyatt was mine once.” Because Kane should know who she was. Not the Bloodrunner ancestry that ran through her veins, but the real her, the one who had loved Wyatt once upon a time.
Kane’s face faltered, and some emotion slashed through his unnerving eyes too quickly for her to decipher before his mask of disdain was back in place again. “This place isn’t what you think,” he said. “You should go for your own safety.”
Harper dared to hold his gaze for a few seconds more, then nodded and made her way to the door. She’d lost the bet, and she had to live with that. She’d underestimated Kane and let him surprise her into losing, and that was her fault. She was walking out of here with no clues on Wyatt because she’d let her guard down.
A Blackwing. She couldn’t even wrap her head around that. Kane was an ancestor of one of the last immortal dragons, turned mortal in a war with her grandfather. His entire lineage was poison, and what the fuck was Wyatt doing living in a town where a Blackwing had set up territory? The Unrest doubled her over in the rain. The humming was so heavy in her chest it was hard to breathe. One minute of hell was all it took to snap her out of hating Kane’s ancestor.
And when she sucked that beautiful oxygen back into her lungs, Kane was standing against her car, directly in front of her, arms crossed and head canted like he’d been standing there for the entire show. “Yours how?”
“What?” she rasped out.
“You said Wyatt was yours once. Yours how?”
She shook her head for a long time. How did she explain what they used to be without exposing the deep fissure in her heart? How did she tell it to this unfeeling Blackwing without her voice shaking? Just say it.
“How?” Kane demanded louder, his eyes flashing with impatience.
“He was everything to me. I wasn’t the same to him.”
Kane dipped his chin to his chest, but his eyes didn’t leave her. “Fuck,” he murmured. Scratching his forehead in what looked like a gesture of irritation, he stared off down the dark street and said, “You’ll find Wyatt’s cabin off Old Sycamore. Third drive on the right. He’ll be into something you aren’t ready for. You picked the wrong night to come for him. He won’t be your everything anymore.” Kane sauntered off toward the bar. “Try not to die tonight, Bloodrunner.”
“So you can kill me yourself?”
Kane turned and walked backward with a cocky gait and a bright grin. “Something like that.” And then he spun back around and disappeared inside.
Under the thick fabric of her sweater, Harper’s arms were covered with gooseflesh. Kane might have done her a favor by telling her where Wyatt lived, but there was something very wrong about him. He felt dangerous and had her dragon clawing to escape her skin and defend herself.
Harper rubbed her arms, desperate to get warmth back into them, then got into her car and locked the doors.
Behind Kane’s cocky smile was the devil in disguise.
And now Harper got the distinct feeling that the third drive on Old Sycamore was a trap.
Chapter Three
The autumn leaves were turning, and if Harper was here for pleasure, she would take a moment to enjoy the vibrant reds and oranges illuminated by the occasional street light along the black asphalt road. As it stood now though, with her instincts kicked up, these woods looked haunted. Little tornadoes of dried leaves swirled around the street as she coasted by, and the creaking branches of the towering trees that lined the road arced across, creating a dark funnel for her to drive through.