Page 5 of Fated to the Dragon King (Alpha Dragons’ Fated #4)

Hayley

Oh, God. Roxanne.

Alaric spun around, pressing me back against the counter.

My hot arousal, my need for his body, his cock invading me, shriveled and vanished within seconds.

The courage-offering vodka in my system failed me when I needed it most. I’d told Roxanne I wasn’t sleeping with my boss.

Yet here I was, all but screwing him on her kitchen counter.

“Who the fuck are you?”

I blinked, edging my way out from behind Alaric’s big form standing between me and my obviously pissed off sister. I coughed, my embarrassment and humiliation surely on display for both of them to read. My face hot, I glanced up to find Alaric staring down, his gray eyes cold and deadly dangerous.

I suspected I was now as sober as a judge.

“Um, this is A – Alaric,” I muttered, trying to hide my face from his scrutiny. “Alaric, this is my s – sister, R – Roxanne.”

“Ah,” Alaric commented, sardonic. “The rich widow.”

Roxanne’s pouty mouth bowed down in blatant disapproval while her blue eyes snapped with ire. She looked Alaric up and down in a haughty manner that made me wish the kitchen floor would open up and swallow me whole.

“You’re her boss, aren’t you?” she snapped. “She said she wasn’t screwing you.”

I cringed. “Oh, jeez, Roxanne, that’s enough.”

“Nor is it any of your business,” Alaric growled.

“It is if you’re fucking her in my house.”

“We’re not –” I cried in desperation, clinging to my side, “we didn’t –”

“You’re such an idiot, Hayley,” Roxanne grated. “He’ll use you and throw you in the trash. Not that you don’t deserve it.”

“You shut your mouth.” Alaric took a menacing step towards Roxanne. “Who are you to put her down like that? Eh?”

“You don’t know her very well, do you?” Roxanne’s brows arched in contempt. “You must be as dumb as she is.”

“You’re a nasty creature, aren’t you?”

Roxanne barked a harsh laugh. “Look who’s talking. You’re kinda cute, but you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into with her. You should axe her now and get it over with.”

“Roxanne –”

“He’ll get you pregnant, dearie, then dump your ass. I promise, you won’t come back here begging for me to help.”

No.” Alaric stared down into Roxanne’s malicious smile. “She won’t. On either count. You, on the other hand, might consider rethinking your strategy. One day, you may come crawling to Hayley and in dire need of her help.”

“That’ll never happen. Now get out of my house and take your squeeze with you.”

Roxanne spun on her heels and stalked from the kitchen. Perhaps feeling my trembling, Alaric looked down at me. I tried to hide behind my wealth of hair, but he smoothed it away from my face. I peeped up at Alaric with trepidation, but tried my best to smile.

“Come with me,” he said, taking my hand.

It seemed so odd that within the span of fifteen minutes, my life had turned upside down.

I’d gotten drunk to escape Roxanne’s hatred for a time, and now I’d agreed to marry this near stranger.

I’m leaving my home with his hand in mine, the knowledge that I’m expected to live with him spinning my head around.

“Where are we going?” I asked as he led me toward the big truck parked at the curb.

“We need to talk.”

I pulled my hand from his as he opened the passenger door for me. “No.”

Alaric eyed me from his greater height. “What’s wrong?”

“I need time,” I answered, glancing back at Roxanne’s house, suspecting she watched us from behind a curtain. “I need to think about all this.”

“I suppose that’s not surprising,” Alaric commented. “I don’t like leaving you alone right now.”

“Whyever not?”

“You have had a great deal to drink,” he said dryly. “And not much time to sober up.”

“I’m just going for a walk,” I replied, and gestured vaguely down the street. “I think I can handle that.”

“Are you thinking you may change your mind?”

“I don’t know what to think, Alaric. I don’t. Just give me some space, okay?”

He nodded. “Very well. Just don’t take too long about it.”

“So you’re already making husbandly demands?” I snorted. “I take orders from you at the office and that’s it.”

Alaric startled me by chuckling. “That was rather arrogant of me, wasn’t it?”

“Very.”

“Perhaps by asking you to marry me, something changed between us.”

I thought back to the moment we shook hands. “Or something else caused it.”

“That electrical thing?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sure it was nothing. Static electricity.”

I shook my head, recalling the sheer power that slammed its way up my arm. “But we both felt what we felt.”

“It’s nothing.”

“And so we suddenly became attracted to one another,” I snapped, annoyed. “I wanted you to take me right there on the counter.”

Alaric grinned. “I would have if Medusa hadn’t shown up.”

“This alleged marriage won’t work anyway. Lust is not a basis for a solid relationship. Trust me, I tried it.”

He said nothing for a time, but watched me intently. Not liking his scrutiny, not sure whether I liked him at all, I started to walk away. Alaric seized my arm, halting me.

“Be careful, all right? You are still drunk.”

“Around here, all I have to worry about are rich Karens yelling at me.”

***

To marry or not to marry, ‘tis the question.

I pondered this as I walked, quite steadily and in straight lines, toward the trendy shops, restaurants, and sidewalk cafes in the downtown area.

I glanced through store windows at displays of jewelry not even Roxanne could afford, mannequins garbed in expensive designer clothing.

If Alaric was wealthy, how much might he offer me in exchange for the marriage and his inheritance?

Maybe I should demand a salary.

I wasn’t too worried about the marriage’s consummation. After how easily he aroused me in the kitchen, I wanted him naked and in my arms like yesterday. It’s a pity Roxanne showed up when she did. I wanted to have him on me and in me, and without delay.

That man had me hot .

I wandered on, not truly thinking about the future as Mrs. Desjardin, but rather let my mind wander.

Dusk wasn’t far away, and soon the stores would close for the night.

Traffic would diminish, pedestrians would go home.

Soon there’d be no one to give me the hairy eyeball for wearing non trendy leggings and a t-shirt on the downtown streets.

Time to go back.

I turned around at the next intersection, the arc sodium lights over my head now illuminating my path.

I passed the sidewalk cafes that weren’t closing down just because darkness had arrived.

Wishing I’d brought my bag and money with me, I glanced at the diners with envy.

I hadn’t eaten since lunch, and I was hungry.

Maybe Alaric will offer me a substantial amount of money for my cooperation in this marriage farce.

Lost in my day dream of having a fat bank account, I crossed yet another intersection, the stop light above my head bathing me in a reddish haze. A car, traveling in the same direction I walked, pulled to a stop beside me. I paid it no attention. Vehicles were always parked along the street.

“Stupid bitch.”

The harsh voice spoke from behind me at the same time strong hands grabbed my shoulders. They spun me around. Confused, I looked up into a familiar and terrifying face.

Brad.

Perhaps the vodka was to blame for my lack of instinctive self-preservation. Or maybe I’d have stared, stunned into non comprehension without the vodka’s help, into Brad’s furious, malicious, eyes. Either way, I stood still while Brad punched me hard in my stomach.

Breathless, pain cascading in waves through my belly to my back and beyond, I doubled over. Brad seized a handful of my hair and dragged me to the car. He opened the rear door while I fought to regain both my breath and my ability to fight back, then shoved me inside.

“Get your ass in there,” he snarled as I fell helplessly onto the nasty upholstery.

I heard him slam the door closed. I worked to get up, to throw myself out of the car before he rounded the front end.

I struggled to simply breathe while he got into the front, and put the car in drive.

By the time I managed to simply sit up, Brad had jacked the car’s speed up to a dangerously high level.

Too fast for me to jump out and survive.

“Thought you escaped me, huh?”

My belly muscles felt as if they’d burst their seams and flooded my abdominal wall with hot blood.

My lungs finally accepted a trickle of air, helping me gain enough strength to look at him.

Brad’s blue eyes danced with demonic good cheer under the thick fall of his russet hair.

He smiled as those eyes met mine in the rear view mirror.

“I’ve been watching you, baby,” he said. “Going to your job like a good little worker bee.”

Crap. I’d hoped he’d have blown me off by now, and found another girl to screw.

I never saw him following me, nor noticed anything unusual as I rode the bus to the office.

His rusted beater sedan should have stood out like an old wooden outhouse amid a field of brilliant tulips in Roxanne’s upper crust neighborhood.

I covered my sore stomach with my arms and bent over, working to breathe.

“You hurl in my car, and I’ll beat you senseless.”

“I’m not gonna hurl.”

Despite knowing Brad might easily beat me senseless without my hurling, I strangely felt unafraid. Only weary. I straightened up and rested the back of my head against the seat’s rest. I shut my eyes. “What do you want, Brad?”

“You’re moving back in with me, baby,” he answered. “And you’ll never leave again.”

Should I inform him I’m engaged? Or almost engaged? I chuckled weakly, thinking of his outrage if I told him. “I won’t move back in with you. Get over yourself already.”

“Bitch,” he snarled, “you’ll do what I say.”

He rocketed the sedan around a corner, the tires squealing. I flopped bonelessly on my side, and lay there, breathing in the noxious stench of the upholstery. I let my mind wander to Alaric, wondering what he’d do when I didn’t show up for work in the morning.

He’ll come looking for me. His inheritance is far too important to let his prospective bride escape him.

“Just drop me off at Roxanne’s,” I muttered. “Thanks for the ride.”

“You don’t get it,” he snapped. “You belong to me.”

The guts I didn’t have when I lived with Brad previously, the sand I showed to Roxanne earlier that day, trickled back in fits and starts.

Sitting up, I glanced out the window to discover Brad had driven us to the east side of town.

The bad neighborhoods with drug deals on every corner, hos strutting in search of customers.

Where I once shared Brad’s ratty apartment with him.

“This isn’t Roxanne’s neighborhood,” I remarked.

“You’re so stupid, Hayley.”

I rested my forearms along the back of his seat just behind him. “I may be stupid, honey bunch, but you don’t have any balls. And you suck in bed.”

He screamed.

His jaws gaped while spittle flew from his mouth to spatter on the steering wheel. His foot slammed onto the gas pedal at the same time he spun the car around. The sedan shuddered, the tires screeching in protest. I hit the upholstery again as centrifugal force knocked me sideways.

The passenger’s side of the car caved in. The window’s glass shattered and showered me with splinters. I rolled onto the floor amidst the remains of fast food wrappers and empty beer cans as the sedan crashed, spun around, and rolled onto its side.

I toppled headlong into the remains of the passenger door as the sedan came to an abrupt halt.

After lying still for a long moment, dazed, I lifted my head. Steam hissed from the busted radiator, but I heard nothing from Brad. Stiffly I tried to sit up. Discovering that while being sore all over, I appeared to be mostly unhurt. I crawled onto my knees and peered into the car’s front.

Brad lay sprawled in a heap, not moving. Dead, I hoped. It was too dark to see if he was bleeding anywhere. Voices raised in shock and concern drifted in through the broken windows, and I turned my head toward them.

“Hayley!”

Huh? That sounded like Alaric.

Above me, the mostly unbroken passenger door was yanked open. “Hayley, are you all right?”

Alaric.