Chapter Thirty-Two: Briar

“You’re a dragon shifter?” Briar whisper yelled the question, her eyes fixed on the man standing in front of her, before closing her eyes and taking a slow, deep breath as she tried to fight down the panic attack that she felt threatening to overwhelm her. Her chest was tight and the second time she forced air into her lungs wasn’t any easier than the first.

“I am a dragon. But don’t worry. As I’ve said a half dozen times now, and as I’m sure Brielle told you earlier, I’m here to protect you. It’s not like I’m going to gobble you up, Little Wolf.”

She wasn’t sure why, but anger flared in Briar’s chest at Caelan’s light hearted words, especially when he called her Little Wolf. Maybe it was too close to what Torin had called her. Wolfling. Either way, her heart stung the moment his words reached her ears.

“No. I guess I’m not worried about that.” Her anger helped her lie more smoothly than she’d done at any point before, in all her life. Of course she would find her way into the clutches of the ultimate shifter predators. What the Hell was Brielle thinking? Briar found she had no further questions for her guard, but a hundred or so for the girl who had convinced her to come back to California with her.

Briar’s hands went back to her suitcase, searching for something she could sleep in that wasn’t entirely revealing, as she got lost in her thoughts. There wasn’t much in the suitcase that she felt comfortable wearing in front of a man she hardly knew, but she also wasn’t about to sleep in tight jeans and a thick sweater. Apparently Brielle and Oaklyn had packed with seduction and sex on their minds, without thinking she might be spending the night in a hotel room with some random stranger. Briar wrinkled her nose and found the least sexy piece of sleepwear she could find. It was still pretty much lingerie in her book.

Standing holding the pale rose fabric she stood and walked into the bathroom without saying a word, trying to pretend she didn’t know the dragon shifters were more than something out of a fairy tale. Half an hour later when she emerged from the bathroom, her hair was damp from the shower, and she had spent five minutes giving herself a pep talk in the mirror about the pink silk teddy that she was wearing. It was one piece, with beautifully delicate ivory lace across the satin of the bust, which also decorated the bottom hem. Briar had chosen it because it was the only nightie in the suitcase that was opaque and that covered everything that she wanted covered.

Crossing the room as quickly as she could, Briar moved the suitcase to the floor before slipping her legs under the covers of her bed, her stomach growling loudly as her nose caught the scent of dinner, which had obviously been delivered while she was in the bathroom.

“So this is the girl Brielle’s been talking so much about since we got up here? She’s gorgeous. Mr. Rose is going to be pleased. She’s going to-” Briar’s eyes jerked up at the sound of a new voice that she didn’t recognize, her hands grabbing the covers and pulling them up to cover her chest.

“Shut the fuck up Drew. Seriously. Thanks for bringing over dinner. But get the fuck out.” Briar’s eyes took in the large, muscular man who stood in the middle of the room. He’d set down at least three large bags of food on the coffee table in the sitting area, and was now smiling widely at Caelan, who was standing in front of him with his thick arms crossed across his chest.

“Protective already, Cae? Hmmm. Interesting. Don’t get attached. You’re cousin-”

“Get the fuck out before I throw you out, asshole.” Drew was walking to the door now, but he looked back over his shoulder, and smiled broadly at Briar, still clutching the sheets up to her chin in her bed.

“I hope we get the chance to get to know each other better very soon, Sweetheart.” The man said the word very as if he meant within the hour and Caelan gave him a harsh shove towards the door. “I just have to tell you that you look gor-” the door slammed shut before he could finish his sentence.

“I’m sorry about that. Andrew isn’t a bad guy, but he can be an ass around a beautiful woman.” Briar didn’t say anything in response, instead she just let the covers fall back down to her lap, as she busied her hands by tucking a strand of hair back behind her ears.

“Here. You need to eat something. And I even had him get us something to drink, like you asked.”

Briar hesitated for a long moment before throwing back the covers and slipping out of the bed.

“I really don’t know what Brielle and Oaklyn were thinking.” She avoided meeting Caelan’s eyes as she made her way across the room, settling on one of the couches that he wasn’t sitting on. “After I escaped my clothes were pretty much destroyed. They put together a wardrobe for me from what they had, and everything is pretty…” Briar’s voice trailed off and at the sound of Caelan’s soft laughter she finally met his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know Oaklyn but I know Brielle and I’m guessing that just about everything she brought up here is pretty damn sexy. I’m also guessing by how you’re acting that that’s not what you’re comfortable in, especially while spending the night in a room with a strange man."

"Here. I pretty much grabbed my Go Bag to leave to come out with Rian and I’ve got one shirt for tomorrow, unless someone brings my other bag over, and since we’re about to eat all this food, I’d rather not give you that, but if you’d feel comfortable you can wear this tonight. I haven’t even been wearing it all that long. I promise, it’s not sweaty or gross, I’d pretty much just showered and dressed before I got called to leave Anchorage. I was already up here in Alaska for work. ”

Briar smiled and tilted her head. “So you’d give me the shirt off your back so I’d feel more comfortable?”

“I’d do it just to see you smile like that, Little Wolf.” Briar rolled her eyes.

“You seriously don’t remind me of any Omega I’ve ever met, Kid.” Now it was Caelan’s turn to smile broadly at her as he grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it off over his head, before tossing it to her.

She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes wide, not at all prepared to take in his chiseled physique. His smile deepened and she noticed that he had dimples, before she shook her head, trying to clear her mind as she pulled his shirt on over her head.

“Kid?” She latched on to this new nickname, liking it even less than “Little Wolf.” “I can’t be that much younger than you? How old are you anyways?”

“Way too old for you, Baby.” He definitely made the last word sound like an insult.

“Yeah. And you’re also, a dragon shifter, so despite looking like that,” she waved her hand in his general direction, “not my type at all.”

He pretended to clasp his hands over his heart in mock pain, but the laughter that escaped from between his lips was genuine.

“But seriously, Dragon-Man, how old are you?”

“I’m twenty-six.” He shook his head and began to unpack the takeaway feast that Andrew had brought them.

“So a baby then. For a dragon. Aren’t you?” He glanced up and saw the teasing look in her eye and shook his head.

“Damn Kid. Who ever told you that you were an Omega?”

Briar froze, taking in a deep breath, which didn’t help at all because his scent was on the shirt she was now wearing and it filled her lungs, a mixture that smelled amazing but also vaguely terrifying to her wolf.

“Everyone. I mean, I am. I have to be. My mother was one, and my father was one. That makes me one. It’s just how it is. Anyways. You’re a Dragon Shifter. How much experience with Werewolf Omega’s can you actually have?”

He stared at her for a long moment before leaning forward and fishing around in the bags before pulling out a burger. She heard him take a deep breath, but he kept his eyes on the food, not looking up at her again before he answered.

“Probably more than you’d expect.”

Her nose crinkled and her eyebrows drew together at his answer.

“How? And where?” She tugged at a strand of hair before winding it around her finger tightly. “How do you know Brielle?”

“You already know that. Work. We work together. I know she told you that.” Briar stared at him hard, but he still didn’t look up at her. She stood and walked to the kitchen before returning with two glasses, setting them down rather loudly on the table. His head jerked up finally, staring at her with surprise clearly written across his features.

“Where are the drinks?” She asked, meeting his eyes squarely now that she finally had his attention.

“Here.” He picked up another bag that she hadn’t noticed that was next to his chair. “He brought you hard cider.”

“And what did he bring you?” Briar continued to reach into the bag, pulling out the other bottle.

“Looks like Bourbon.” Briar stood up again and returned to the room with a corkscrew.

“I’ll go with Bourbon.” As Caelan watched, trying not to notice the way his shirt looked on his soon to be coworker, she unwrapped and then uncorked the bottle easily before pouring them both a glass.

“You drink a lot of Bourbon, Kid?” His eyebrows had risen steadily as he watched her. A little voice in his head told him that he should stop her, but he wasn’t her dad or older brother, or even her friend. He was just her guard and his job was strictly to keep her safe. At the moment she hadn’t done anything he could define as explicitly dangerous. Not in his world anyways. When they got where they were going the sort of thing she was doing now would be encouraged.

“Nope,” she let the p pop as she said the word. “But I had to work in the dining hall at our pack house quite a bit and that regularly included serving. A lot of the time that included alcohol. She handed him his drink, before settling back on the other couch with her own. “I think tonight calls for more than just hard cider.”

“I’d say someone as little as you, even a shifter, could probably get pretty tipsy on hard cider, if you aren’t careful.” She smiled at the warning in his voice as she stared at the amber colored liquid in her glass before taking a sip. She had tasted bourbon and whiskey before when she and a few of the other workers had taken sips of what was left in one of the bottles after a dinner she had worked at, so she knew what to expect and managed not to make a face when it burned its way down her throat.

“Maybe.” She shrugged, but continued to sip.

“Just be careful. We have a lot of traveling tomorrow. You don’t want to be sick. Have something to eat if you’re going to insist on sharing my bourbon. And you have to promise you won’t give me a hard time when I cut you off. Got it, Kid?”

She rolled her eyes at the nickname he seemed to have settled on as she pushed open one of the bags of food and tried to find something that looked appetizing to her aching stomach. She had a feeling her new babysitter wouldn’t consider fries to be an entire meal. Still they were a place to start and they were definitely calling her name.

Picking up a piece of the salty goodness she popped it in her mouth as she watched the Dragon Shifter over the edge of her glass and tried to figure out if stumbling into handsome, dangerous, emotionally unavailable men was her horoscope for the month or what.

Maybe once she arrived in LA with Brielle everything would settle down and life would, for the first time ever, look like some approximation of normal. Even if she couldn’t really expect to find a happily ever after of her own after losing her mate and her one real chance at happiness.