Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Amir’s smile was slow and full of the secrets between mates. “I flew her in while the fledglings were asleep.”
And no doubt got up to all kinds of things Adam didn’t need to know about. He might be wing leader, but he was also Saoirse’s younger brother by a good six years. “I’m driving Mali down.”
“I’ll walk my girl to the garage. See you in a few.” Amir bumped fists with him.
Adam had only gone a few feet when he saw another clanmate with a mug of coffee in hand, but this one was barefoot and in a bathrobe, with her thick black hair held up by some sort of giant claw clip. He could just glimpse a lock of the white streak she’d had since she was a kid.
“Seriously?” Adam looked the tall wing-second up and down.
Dahlia just grunted before gulping down her coffee as if it was the nectar of the gods. “Hot date last night,” she said after the ritual gulping. “Damn tiger wore me out.”
“There aren’t any tigers anywhere near us.” Adam, as the most dominant being in the region, would have been alerted—for the other changeling’s own safety. Their kind didn’t fuck around when it came to territorial boundaries.
“Not an actual tiger, but man definitely could growl.” Dahlia shrugged off the memory the next second, her skin as vibrant and healthy as if she hadn’t been carousing all night. “Oh well, he was just passing through. One night is all we’ll ever have.”
Adam didn’t comment; he was used to his wing-second’s chaotic sex life over the past year. Never relationships, only ever hookups. They didn’t talk about the whys of it—because Adam had been there when Dahlia’s fiancé left her at the altar. Asshole had texted her later that day, saying that tall, voluptuous, and ruthlessly loyal Dahlia was “too domineering” and that he’d realized he needed a “more feminine wife, a woman who knows how to treat her man.”
Adam would’ve ripped off the fucker’s nonexistent balls and stuffed them in his mouth if Dahlia hadn’t told him to leave it, that she’d be humiliated if her wing leader went after a man for not wanting her. “This is my mess, Adam. I’ll clean it up.”
Worst of it was that she’d been in love with the dickhead. Enough to agree to his request of a full-on wedding, complete with a formal white gown, when she’d never been comfortable in dresses. In the aftermath, Adam had watched her rip the bottom of the fucking gown off with her talons. She hadn’t cried a single tear while doing it, and all the while, Adam had known her heart was breaking.
He—all of WindHaven—had been ready to wrap their wings around her, let her vent and rage, but Dahlia had chosen to stride out to the limo that had been meant to take her and her new husband to their exclusive “wedding night” hotel. Yet another thing the asshole had wanted—Dahlia, Adam knew, would’ve far preferred a quiet desert bungalow.
“I need to be alone,” she’d said to Adam when he’d got in her way. “I can’t stand anyone’s sympathy—please keep the clan away from me.”
It had gone against his every instinct to do as she asked, to let this wounded member of his clan fly on her own, but Dahlia so rarely asked for anything—and that day, he’d heard the tremor of tears in her voice and known this proud falcon would hate breaking down in front of him. So he’d given her the gift of space and time despite himself.
Dahlia had returned to the Canyon twenty-four hours later, dry-eyed and back to her no-nonsense self. Except she’d never been the same. It infuriated Adam that a man who’d never deserved her had damaged their fiery, dangerous Dahlia so much that she didn’t trust her own heart any longer.
“You should’ve come—my tiger arrived with a firecracker of a fellow trucker,” she added today, as a passing clanmate grabbed her empty mug and thrust a full one in her hand.
Dahlia serenaded the clanmate with thanks as he walked away.
Adam folded his arms. “Now you’re training people to shove coffee in your face in the mornings?” he said, not worried that it was because Pascal was concerned about Dahlia being functional at the scheduled meeting of the day-shift team.
Dahlia would be ready.
“Won’t happen again,” she’d promised Adam the morning after she got blackout drunk at the local bar three weeks after her aborted wedding.
“I know,” he’d said, able to see the shame in her eyes and wishing he could beat her useless ex to a pulp without crossing the boundary she’d laid down; Dahlia had always been one of the toughest and most confident of them all.
Adam hated that she was still hurting, her breezy surface no barrier to a wing leader’s ability to see through to his people’s hearts, but there was only so far anyone could go with their tough Dahlia; she’d retreat if pushed on the subject.