Adrien nervously waited in the hallway, checking his watch and wondering when Kelsey would be coming out.

He was determined not to screw things up tonight. Determined to be polite, caring.

All the things he’d never openly been before.

Yes, he’d been protective of his friends and the people in his village and circles. But that was different.

He had still been standoffish and surly, because he hadn’t particularly cared if anyone liked him.

Now he cared intensely, and he didn’t even have time to think about how weird it was that his mate was human, because he was too busy trying to win her for himself.

He stepped forward and rapped on the door lightly. “You okay in there?” He guessed she was probably getting ready, using the stuff in those bags she’d brought back from the shopping center.

“Yes,” she said in a muffled voice, as if she were changing.

He’d dressed a little differently for their date as well, in jeans and a nice tee shirt with a sharp blazer over the top. A mix of casual and tailored that he felt suited him nicely.

He tapped his designer shoe on the ground as he waited.

“Be out in a minute. Sorry,” she called.

He frowned. She apologized far too much. “It’s fine,” he said, his tone overly sharp. He took a deep breath, telling himself to relax. The more nervous he got, the more uncomfortable he was, the more he tended to put his foot in his mouth and say things he would regret.

He was pacing back and forth, muttering, when he heard her door click open. He whirled around to see her and had to fight letting his jaw drop when he did.

She looked beautiful.

Well, she always had. But now?

It wasn’t the clothes or the makeup or jewelry. It was the way she held her head up, the pride in her eyes, the way he could tell she felt beautiful, and that made all the difference.

“You look… Wow,” he said, hating he didn’t have better words or a mouth that was less dry with desire so he could say them.

She’d pulled her curls back from her face with a few pins, and with a bit of makeup darkening her lashes, her green eyes looked positively luminous.

She was wearing a black tunic, belted in the middle, emphasizing her feminine shape. She wore tight, dark jeans that hugged her legs almost obscenely and black boots with wedges that gave her a little bit of height.

She looked like a curvy little dream, and he wanted to just grab all of her, pull her in against him, and never let go.

He also wanted to drag her into her room, lock the door, and order in takeout so no one else saw his mate like this.

But that wouldn’t be fair, and he was positive no matter where they went, he’d be able to protect her.

He put out his arm for her to take it, and she glanced at it curiously, clutching a small purse in both hands.

“I want to escort you,” he said, wondering if men in this day and age had any manners at all. “Is this not how it is done?” Maybe he should have paid more attention to Citrine about modern women after all.

“I mean, it is,” she said hesitantly, flushing, taking his arm. “I guess it’s just… kind of old-fashioned.” She walked forward with him, keeping her head up. “I guess I have to get used to the fact that you’re a little bit old-school.”

“Old-school?” he asked, wrinkling his nose.

“Um, you like things that are a little more traditional, from an older time in the past.”

He fought back a grin. She had no idea. “I suppose that’s true.”

“So where are we going?” she asked.

“It’s a surprise,” he said. He’d looked up restaurants and decided on a French establishment downtown. It would be fancy and a long enough dining experience for him to get to know her.

Dante had said he should try and figure out more about her past, see if there was anything he could do for her to help her, and really work to understand her.

Dante had said until he really understood his mate, he hadn’t been able to win her.

And that made sense in some ways. If Kelsey was going to be Adrien’s—and she was—he wanted all of her. Her secrets, her past, her dreams.

Especially her dreams.

When he had his powers back, he could make them all come true. Sure, he’d be expected to help humanity now and again, but his main focus would be on his mate.

No one should expect otherwise.

They drove in his car, and he saw her adjust her tunic before putting the seatbelt on, as if she wasn’t used to her new clothes.

It was kind of cute.

While they drove, he asked her about how shopping with Robbie had gone, before the bathroom incident. She didn’t want to talk about what was going on with Robbie, and he wanted to respect that, even if the whole situation worried him.

Still, with his strength, he was sure he could handle whatever came their way. He probably wasn’t going to let her out alone again with Robbie, though.

“Here?” she asked, and he noted a sudden nervousness in her voice as they pulled into a street parking spot in front of the restaurant he’d chosen.

“Yes,” he said. “There a problem?”

She jerked her gaze at the row of restaurants and shops across the road, then looked at her hands in her lap and shook her head. “No, it’s fine.”

He got out and came around the car, opening her door and reaching out a hand to help her out. When she took his hand with her soft, much smaller one, he felt that odd warmth from before again.

He’d never been that impacted by physical touch. Never been a particularly lustful individual. But apparently, with the right person, even the smallest thing lit him on fire.

If this longing he was feeling now was anything like human women at the club felt looking at him, he could well understand their desperate, imprudent actions toward him.

He sort of wanted to be imprudent when it came to Kelsey.

She smiled up into his eyes as she took his arm and walked with him to the front door of the restaurant. The man at the entrance, dressed nicely in a suit, looked them over.

“Reservations?”

“For Adrien,” he said. “For two.”

“Right this way,” the man said, leading them to an intimate little table toward the back of the restaurant, where they would have privacy.

It was lit mostly by candlelight and one large chandelier overhead, and he loved the glow playing over his mate’s skin. Her face was pretty and soft, her arms bared by the tunic, curvy and sweet.

She sat and awkwardly opened the menu, then gasped when she saw the prices. “I can’t possibly. This dinner is going to cost what I used to make in a week!”

He laughed. “Of course you can. I’m paying, and money isn’t one of my problems.”

She looked at him over the menu. “Then why are you working at Date-A-Dragon? And I still need that name explained.”

He shrugged. “I have my reasons. I’m mainly there because of a mutual friend I have with Citrine. He practically didn’t give me a choice.” He gave a wry grin at how close to the truth that was.

She sighed. “I still don’t understand it, but I guess I can respect you having your own reasons.”

“So where did you work before this?” he asked, wondering who had paid so poorly.

“Well… just a restaurant. But I did manual labor in a stockroom. See, the temp job I was working had ended abruptly, and I had no idea how to make rent. Someone I’d worked with saw me outside the temp agency and said they knew of a place that was hiring. And even better, it came with an apartment.”

“I see,” he said, setting aside the menu and clasping his hands in front of him as he listened.

“The problem was I showed up and the apartment was owned by the boss. Who liked to come by once I was living there.”

“That’s wholly inappropriate,” Adrien said.

The waiter stopped by at that moment to get their drink orders, and Adrien had to encourage Kelsey heavily to get whatever she wanted.

He did appreciate she wasn’t the type to greedily take advantage, but he also sort of wished she would take advantage of everything he could give.

She’d had too much awfulness in the past to not get everything good now.

“So yeah,” she said. “I worked there for like a year, but things kept escalating with the boss. First, he hit on me. Or would hold back my paychecks unless I came to his place to pick them up. Then he started paying in cash, under the table, which was fine with me because I didn’t have a checking account.”

“You don’t have a bank account?” he asked.

She flushed. “I know it’s stupid. But… it’s better to do everything with cash. If not, when you’re poor, you get hit with overdrafts if you aren’t constantly watching, and service fees. And you have to go in the bank a lot, and I just… It was easier to just keep an eye on my money. I was saving it after all.”

“If you’d been saving, what happened? How did you end up on the street?”

“Last week, Bernard came over. He was drunk, I guess angry at me for putting him off for so long. He said he’d put a roof over my head and given me a job for a year, and it was time to show my gratitude.”

“He didn’t give you anything. You worked for it.”

“There are men who will use any excuse to make a woman feel indebted to him. I’m sure I wasn’t the first woman in a bad situation Bernard hit on, and I won’t be the last.”

“So what happened?” he asked, his heart thumping from adrenaline as he resisted the urge to find this Bernard immediately.

“I turned him down, thinking he would be mad but leave, but he tried to force me.”

Adrien’s knuckles popped from the overly tight fists his hands were making. “I see. And?”

“I got away,” she said. “I smashed something over his head and made a break for it, grabbing the backpack I kept packed by my bed with my old sleeping stuff.”

“An escape plan. I like it.”

“I honestly hadn’t been planning to escape, though. If I had, I would have made sure the envelope with my money in it had been in my backpack, rather than under my mattress.”

His brows lowered. “So your money was left behind?” An idea struck him, something Dante would definitely approve of. “What do you say to us going to get it?”