Chapter 16
Kira chose a path out of the clearing at random. It didn’t go far—just about fifty feet to where two trailers sat side by side. One was a normal-looking single-wide. The other had an expanded front porch with some kind of tent cabana erected on it. And…was that a tiki bar on the other end?
On the ground in front of the cabana was a giant kiddie pool—over two feet deep and about fifteen feet across—with a semicircle of sand around it. A miniature beach. It even had a couple of chaise lounges and an umbrella.
Kira just shook her head. This was the weirdest crew she’d ever seen. Not that she hung out with many shifter crews—and the ones she had worked with had been mercenaries or security crews.
But still. Weird.
There was a shelf of liquor bottles in the bar. Just sitting out in the open, where anyone could take some. Kira found a mostly-full bottle of vodka and sloshed it around, contemplating. They made vodka from potatoes, and potatoes were breakfast food.
Close enough.
She sat down on the edge of the porch with her legs dangling and opened the bottle, taking a swig.
It warmed her all the way down to her belly. She knew it was fake warmth, but she didn’t care.
She’d never be part of this crew. She’d never have what they had. And now she’d made it so Flynn couldn’t have it either.
Maybe she’d just sit here and have some quality pity time, while she waited to see if the visions would hit. And if they did, if she could have them without her brain turning to mush and dribbling out her ears.
If she could, then she’d done what she came here to do. She could find the dragon and the woman. Save them, without involving Flynn. That would be one useful thing she’d done in her life.
If not…did she really have the right to stick around here and expect Flynn to have sex with her some more, on the off chance it would help?
She shivered. She’d give almost anything for another night like last night.
Right. And if Flynn had managed to escape bonding with her permanently, she should just go ahead and risk it again.
Yup. Selfish princess bitch.
She’d been sitting there for about ten minutes, wallowing, when she saw Xander coming down the path, carrying a covered plate of food.
“Hey,” he said. “Flynn was looking for you. He thought maybe you ripped a hole in space and vanished.”
He wasn’t so far off. She’d thought about it. “He thought?” she said. “Or hoped?”
Xander eyed her, then set the plate down next to her, pulling some silverware wrapped in a napkin out of the back pocket of his black jeans. “See for yourself.”
“I’m already having breakfast,” she said, holding up the bottle. “Liquid potatoes.”
“Dude. You’re like, Flynn’s perfect woman. Except he likes whiskey for breakfast.” He nodded toward the plate. “But on Sundays it’s pancakes. Eat.”
Kira gave in. She lifted the cover, and the plate held two giant pancakes in the shape of dragon heads, with horns and big fangs and chocolate-chip eyes, with a side of bacon.
She bit her lip. “Did Flynn do these?”
“Yup. I told him I saw you go this way, and he would have brought them out himself but he got a phone call. Well, okay, he probably wouldn’t have brought them to you. He probably would have just yelled from the front porch.”
That sounded more like Flynn. “Does he make everybody animal pancakes?”
“No,” Xander said. “Only Brandon.”
But he’d made some for her. Why did that suddenly make her want to cry?
Xander jumped gracefully up onto the porch and went behind the bar. Kira heard the mini-fridge open, and he came back with two small bottles of orange juice. He sat beside her, opened one orange juice, took the vodka bottle from Kira, and poured some into the juice. “You can’t just have potatoes for breakfast.” He handed the doctored orange juice over to her.
She put it down to take a bite of her dragoncake. “Oh my god,” she said. “These are amazing.”
“Right?” Xander said. “It’s Flynn’s superpower. One of them, anyway.” He poured vodka into his own orange juice. “He won’t share his secret recipe, either.” He snitched a slice of bacon off her plate.
“Don’t make me cut you,” she said.
He gave a huff of laughter. “I’d like to see you try, Princess.”
He reached for another slice, and she had her knife out of its thigh sheath before he could even get his fingers on it.
Out of nowhere, a knife appeared in his other hand, blocking hers.
Xander smirked, but he left her bacon alone. “Fine,” he said. “I was full anyway. Want to throw knives with me sometime? I have targets set up. Around the other side of the trailer.”
Kira nodded. “Okay. Sometime.” First the dead glitter squirrel, now this. Xander’s hospitality sure as hell wasn’t like other people’s, but somewhere in all the bizarreness, she could sense the hand of friendship being extended.
She blurted out, “I think I messed him up. Flynn. When he—when we—”
“Did the boinkety-boink?”
Close enough. She toyed with her second pancake. “The thing is, what the draken did to us isn’t like regular bonding. They put all this magic in me, and it’s all going crazy, and I thought being with Flynn would fix it. But what if it doesn’t, and then he’s stuck with me? And he can’t be with anyone he really cares about? The bond wasn’t supposed to be about feelings. Draken don’t care about feelings and love. Their bonds are about duty.”
“You sure about that?” Xander said. “Because you don’t make cutesy pancakes for somebody out of duty. You do it to make them smile. FYI, wanting to make someone smile is a feeling. It’s also one of the first signs of true mate madness.”
They definitely didn’t have that. Kira said softly. “I feel like I’m using him.”
Xander snorted. “Seriously? Flynn doesn’t get used. And he doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to.”
“You think so?” Kira said. “He doesn’t want to love you all. But he does.”
That made Xander smile. “We are a major pain in his ass. But that’s good, right? Because even if you’re a major pain in his ass, maybe he loves you too.”
Kira shook her head. “He doesn’t even know me.”
Xander took a long gulp of his drink. “That’s not really how mating bonds work.”
“I told you,” Kira said, putting the plate aside, one of the dragons still half-eaten. “It’s different with us. It’s a magic spell. An oath.”
Xander sat for a minute, peeling the label off his orange juice bottle. Finally he said, “I was born human. Turned. It’s a long story,” he added, at her questioning look. “And I’m not going to tell it now, no matter how epic and tragic it is. But it means I didn’t grow up with this idea of fated mates, so maybe I look at it differently. But true mates are magic, aren’t they? What makes your magic different?”
“Ours was put on us by a sorcerer, for a specific purpose. It didn’t just happen.”
“Maybe.” Xander ran his fingers around the bottom of the bottle. “But if true mates are fated, like shifters say, then someone somewhere—or some thing—decides about that too. It doesn’t just happen. The powers that be, or whatever, pick out the people who are supposed to be mates and make sure they find each other, right? So maybe that something picked you two out to be these chosen ones.”
“Because we were good for the Draken House of Al-Maddeiri.”
“Maybe. Or maybe because you’re good for each other.”
Kira shook her head. It would be so easy to rationalize it that way, but that didn’t make it true. “You got all this from dragon pancakes? Which he didn’t bring me himself, by the way. To supposedly see me smile. He didn’t even bother to yell from the front porch.”
Xander slid off the porch and dusted off the seat of his jeans. “Well, true mate or not, he’s never gonna be anybody but Flynn. And Flynn doesn’t chase after people. Or try and get them to appreciate him. But it makes him happy when they do.” He nodded at the plate. “You done?”
“I guess.”
“Then it’s time for me to give you the tour. Don’t get overexcited and pee your pants or anything.”
“I’ll try not to.”