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I open my mouth and talk to him.

“I hope you had a good week.”

Blair makes a noise in the back of his throat that might be a yes, but also might just be him hoping I shut the hell up.

“I did,” I go on, fully stress-rambling now. “Even after Monday. My week was good.”

Stop. I need to stop. Why can’t I stop?

“So,” I continue, unable to dam up the mortifying stream of words coming out of my mouth. “Everything is fine. Totally cool. Work here has been awesome, and I even have a date lined up tonight, so there’s absolutely nothing you have to worry about when it comes to…”

When I glance over and see his expression, my words die in my throat. Blair is utterly stone-faced, golden eyes burning a hole through me. A slight twitch near his side catches my attention, and I look down to see his hand clenched into a fist at his side, knuckles white.

Okay. No more small talk.

Fixing my eyes forward, I stay absolutely silent until the elevator comes to a stop at the ground floor.

When the doors open, I bolt. I cross the lobby toward the exit, only glancing back once over my shoulder to find Blair still standing in the elevator, eyes fixed on me as I make my escape.

6

Blair

She’s going on a date tonight.

As Kenna hurries away from me through the lobby and toward the front door, the sudden, insane urge to give chase rises in me like a blaze.

Follow her. Catch her. Steal her away.

The dragon in me is already thinking of the best place to hoard her. He’d take her somewhere comfortable and safe, somewhere we’ll always know where she’ll be, somewhere we can always find her.

Fuck.Fuck.

I stay rooted in place, fighting every instinct that would send me after her.

She’s going on a date. Tonight.

That’s fine. A completely normal thing for a young, single woman in her twenties to be doing on a Friday night.

Fire burns beneath my skin. The muscles in my back ache and clench, demanding a shift that I absolutely will not,can not, let happen. It’s there, just there, in the edge of insanity that whispers in the back of my mind.

The freedom in the shift. The ecstasy of letting that side of my nature take over.

It’s been years since the urge to shift rode me like this. Godsdamn it.

The elevator doors close, and I curse under my breath, smashing the button to open them back up. It doesn’t work, and the elevator rises toward whatever floor it’s just been called to.

And, somewhere below, Kenna Byrne is headed out into the Seattle night on a date.

I can still smell her in the close space. Her scent has hints of ginger and citrus, along with a dark floral note that smells like sex and temptation.

I concentrate on breathing through my mouth until the elevator glides to a stop and the doors open. George from Finance and Mikayla from HR are standing there, waiting to get on—standing a littletooclose to be strictly platonic—and they spring apart when they see me.

But far be it from me to worry about inter-department fraternization right now. I don’t spare the time for more than a cursory nod and clipped greeting before exiting the elevator and acting like I meant to be here.

The third floor is almost entirely empty this late in the evening on a Friday, and thank the gods for that. Walking swiftly between the empty rows of cubicles, I head for the back stairs, throwing open the door and pausing on the landing to take a few deep breaths.

Kenna is going on a date tonight.