Page 22 of Destined By Dragonblood
Perhaps something had happened?—
My pulse picked up, rousing my dragon, and I strode up the sidewalk on instinct, intending to…I didn’t know. I couldn’t exactly reveal my nakedness, knock on the door, and check in with her. An attempted peek through one of the front windows’ blinds didn’t offer any indication of what went on inside her condo, so I went to the other side of the stoop, my muscles tensing.
Feet crunching on wilted, frozen flowers, I craned my neck but couldn’t see anything. I growled, a combination of human and beast, releasing steam into the air.
The front door locks clicked, and I turned to face the door as it pulled inward.
A man in gray sweatpants and a coat stepped out first, and another low growl, much more menacing, rumbled in my chest.
His dark head swung my way.
Vanni DiLoreto.
Like a punch to my gut, he stole the oxygen from my lungs and loosened my hold on my inner beast, who purred at the sight of his heavy-lidded eyes and the square jaw beneath his short facial hair. Just as bad, my cock swelled to rock hard in less than two fluttered heartbeats, bucking up to tap against my clenched stomach.
Alpha.
The fuck he was.
I gritted my teeth, swallowing the curses I wanted to rain down on my beast for taking advantage of me being off-kilter.
Vanni’s starburst green eyes scanned where I stood, his brow furrowed. Not seeing who had made the instinctive noise that had escaped my mouth, he turned his focus around the rest of the front yard and walkway, to the street and condos beyond.
Who the hell was Vanni to Ashley, and why was he at her place so early in the morning?
Regardless of my lust for the man, a burning sensation roused to life in my chest. Like a swarm of hornets, his presence stung, causing a scowl to pull my eyebrows inward.
Want.
My beast hungered for Vanni and Ashley with the same intensity, but I kept my human half in check even as my groin throbbed for release.
Ashley was already destined to be mine. This human male was nothing to either of us, or at least, he wouldn’t be once I claimed Ashley and we found our beta.
Muscle ticking in my jaw, I watched as Vanni coaxed Ashley out into the cold, hurrying her to the Mercedes. I refused to consider how well they fit together. Their shared beauty, even while wrapped up in winter gear, was a perfect concoction that would inebriate any unsuspecting victim.
Imagine sipping from the chalice of their combined sweetness.
I would do no such thing, but temptation welled inside me at the beast’s unexpected, poetic words.
Neither human spoke, but with how Vanni kept watch like a sentinel, I wondered over his actions, attempting to shut down the beast and the deep yearning to taste and touch them both. My inner dragon went quiet, but my cock continued to strain upward.
Had Ashley realized someone—something—had been following her, and she reached out to a man she trusted to protect her?
Sudden fear I might have caused her distress lanced pain through my heart, and as they pulled away from the curb in Vanni’s car, I stared, unmoving in the cold, dead flower bed beneath Ashley’s dark window.
I had waited too long in my pursuit, enough that she must have sensed her alpha’s presence. But if so, she would have been drawn to me, not scared enough to call on…a friend?
Her lover? Her…Master?
I groaned at the thought of their bodies entangled but cut the tone from leaking past my lips a second later.
Something wasn’t right with my reaction. I should have been raging with jealousy. Anger. A protective instinct to rip Vanni to shreds for touching what belonged to me.
Every part of me yearned to be closer to him.
Unsettled in mind and body alike, I strode into the center of the street, made sure the beast half-inside me was properly bound, and shifted into dragon form. One leap took me into the sky. I scanned Jersey beneath us until spotting the Mercedes. Vanni drove Ashley across the river toward where I’d expected. A short while later, he opened her car door in front of Elijah’s building and escorted her to the entrance.
Once she passed inside to safety, he left, and I followed since I wouldn’t lay eyes on Ashley again until after work and the man intrigued the hell out of me.
