Page 14

“D ude? You cook?” Kian barges into my cabin like he owns the place, strutting through the front door without so much as a knock.

Like he’s got the fucking key.

Which he doesn’t.

I don’t hesitate.

I launch the knife I’m holding straight at his face.

It whistles past his ear and lodges in the doorframe with a satisfying thunk.

He yelps and ducks— barely in time.

“Fuck, man!” he hollers. “I already shaved today, fuck you very much!”

He marches over, yanking the knife from the wall and— seriously?

He wipes it off on my dishtowel like he’s doing me a favor.

“Wash it before you use it again,” he mutters, setting it on the counter like he’s the one being annoyed.

Then he snags a tomato slice from my cutting board.

I snarl, low and dangerous.

A puff of smoke curls from my nostrils before I can stop it.

Kian freezes, the slice halfway to his mouth.

“Okay, so no sharing,” he says, placing it back down slowly, hands up like he’s just negotiated a hostage exchange.

I finish wrapping the food I prepped.

Simple stuff.

Cold fried chicken.

Some pasta salad I remembered Casey saying she liked from last night’s meal.

Fresh tomatoes with basil and an extra virgin olive oil drizzle.

Nothing fancy, but it’s hers. Meant for her .

I don’t know what the hell is happening to me, but the urge to feed her, take care of her, give her things— it’s swallowing me whole.

It’s not just instinct.

It’s need.

My Dragon’s pacing inside me like a feral thing, claws scraping bone. He wants her fed, touched, marked, mated.

“Why are you here?” I growl, grabbing drinks from the fridge, tossing them into the soft cooler like it’s a shield between me and whatever conversation he’s dragging me toward.

Kian shrugs like this is normal. Like I’m normal.

“Just checking on you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Is that a cow joke, bro? Cause I had enough of those from your girl this morning,” he mumbles.

I roll my eyes. Then I snort. He’s right. That was his fucking Bull wandering around that Casey spied when she left my cabin.

I don’t like that she left, but it’s fucking hilarious she kept calling Kian’s animal a cow.

Snort.

The bovine in question hops up onto the counter like he’s not a huge ass Shifter and one wrong move from getting tossed out the window.

“So, you and Casey, huh?”

I pause. My jaw clenches.

“Me and Casey what?”

“Easy, bro.” He holds up both hands. “I mean, it’s good news, right?”

I zipper the cooler shut, making way more noise than necessary.

My breath shudders out, and I feel it.

Heat pulsing right behind my ribs. My rose burning as it stretches, trying desperately to bloom.

My Dragon isn’t just agitated.

He’s desperate.

Find her. Bite her. Mate her. Before it’s too late.

But I can’t.

Not like this.

Not when she doesn’t even know what I am.

Not when she thinks I’m just a man and not the fire-wielding monster clawing at the inside of his own skin.

I press my hands flat to the counter, bracing against the weight pressing down on me.

“I haven’t claimed her,” I mutter.

Kian blinks. “Wait—what? You haven’t?”

“No.”

“Why the hell not?!”

I shoot him a glare, and for once, he backs off. Just a little.

“I’m older than all of you,” I say quietly. “Not just by a decade. I’ll be a hundred and thirty-two next spring.”

He goes still.

“I came from a different time. A different place.” My voice roughens.

“We weren’t like this. My old Clan was hard and cold, Kian.

This here? What we’ve built on the Motley Crewd Ranch?

The way we care for each other, the way you and Emmet, Dante, and Max treat your mates?

It’s fucking alien to me. I didn’t have that growing up. ”

“Neither did I. So what?”

“So, it was bad,” I whisper, afraid to bring attention to the past.

“How bad, man? What did you have?”

I laugh. Bitter. Cold.

“Secrecy. Greed. Infighting. My Clan warred among themselves over gold and power while our women were locked away—hoarded like property, bred until there were no more. Until the magic started to rot.”

Kian says nothing. Just listens.

“I swore I’d never become that. Never take what wasn’t freely given. Never repeat their mistakes.”

He tilts his head. “So you think claiming Casey is what ? Stealing?”

“I think it’s damning her,” I rasp. “Binding her to me before she even knows what I am? That’s a sin where I come from.”

Kian leans forward, face uncharacteristically serious.

“Zeke, I ain’t gonna lie. That sounds fucked up. But,” he says, hopping down and walking towards me, “you’re not your past. You’re not your Clan. You’re not that darkness.”

He rests a hand on my shoulder, firm and grounding.

“You said your old people rotted from the inside out. You think that’s what’ll happen to you if you don’t claim her?”

I look at him, and I don’t have to say it.

He already knows.

“Then don’t let the fear win,” he says. “Casey’s not your cage. She’s your salvation. All our mates are.”

My throat tightens.

“She makes you better. I’ve seen it. Hell, she makes you smile, which I didn’t know was physically possible.”

I huff.

“It hurts.”

He grins. “Yeah, I bet. See, that’s your soul stretching. You’ll get used to it.”

My phone buzzes, and I nearly leap for it.

It’s a text.

But I don’t care who is buzzing me. I have something else to do today.

Picnic ride with Casey.

I stare at the back door like it holds the rest of my future.

Maybe it does.

“Go to her,” Kian says, slapping my shoulder one last time before heading for the door. “And maybe don’t throw knives at the next guy who shows up to say hi.”

“I make no promises.”

But my heart’s already racing.

Because whatever I am— Dragon, monster, relic —I know this much, I have to tell her the truth.

I have to tell Casey what she is to me.

And if she says yes, I’m never letting her go.