Bloodrunner Dragon (Harper's Mountains Book 1) by T. S. Joyce Read Free Book Online Page B

onto the porch toward a chuckling Aaron.
    Wyatt blew out a breath before he turned to Weston. He’d been the only one who had come and found Wyatt after he’d left. Maybe the others had tried, he didn’t know, but Weston was the best tracker Wyatt had ever known. And for years, the Novak Raven had it in his head that he was gonna bring Wyatt back to Saratoga. They hadn’t parted well on their last encounter.
    Weston had a camouflage baseball cap covering his jet black hair, and his eyes were darkened from their normal green to the bottomless black of his inner raven. He wasn’t smiling like the others. Instead, he stood there with his arms crossed over his chest and his face angled, exposing his neck. Wyatt hated that. It was his formal way of respecting Wyatt’s dominant bear, but he wished it was an easier greeting, like the others had given him. He understood, though. This tension was on him.
    “I’m here because Harper asked me to be.” Weston offered his hand for a shake, then yanked Wyatt forward. “Hurt her again, and I’ll fucking kill you.”
    “Noted,” Wyatt gritted out, pulling his hand from Weston’s and putting space between them.
    “Wes,” Harper warned. “He’s made his apologies to me. We’re okay.”
    “Yeah, well, you were always the forgiving one, Harper. Don’t mean the rest of us are the same.”
    “Let’s get drunk and kill shit,” Aaron said.
    Ryder’s hand shot in the air. “Yes, I want to do that.”
    “By ‘kill shit’ do you mean stake vampires?” Harper asked.
    “Uh, yeah,” Aaron said with a shrug and a baffled expression, like Harper should understand their man-language by now.
    Wyatt swallowed his laugh, but mostly for Weston’s benefit since he was still glaring at him.
    “Harper, tell me you didn’t get a mom-wagon for your rental car,” Ryder demanded, his face all puckered up at her ride.
    “Don’t judge me, bird. It was all they had.”
    Ryder sure looked judgmental. “You traded your diesel truck for that shit?”
    “You drive a truck now?” Wyatt asked. She’d driven one of those little pastel-colored slug-bugs when she was in high school, solar-powered flower bobble-head included.
    “There’s about a million things you don’t know about me now, James,” she said through a cocky grin. When they were kids, she had used his last name when she was flirting with him. Oooh, he wanted to suck that bottom lip until she said his first name again.
    Weston shoved him hard, and Wyatt had to catch his balance. “Why are you starin’ at her like she’s a steak. She ain’t yours anymore. Cut that shit out, or I’m leaving.”
    “Weeees,” Ryder drawled, eyes rolled heavenward. “Chill out, man. Our Queen Sky Lizard has that same dopey look in her eyes.”
    “I really hate when you call me a sky lizard,” Harper muttered.
    “I saw a bar on the way in.” With a grin Aaron said, “I can drive us.”
    “Yeah, let’s see how many idiots can pile on the back of your bike,” Wyatt said. “I’ll drive.”
    “Are you designated driver tonight?” Ryder asked, waggling his eyebrows.
    “Might as well be. My liver could use the break.”
    “Bender James, back at it again,” Ryder crowed as he sauntered toward Wyatt’s black F-150 parked on the side of the house.
    “Bender James?” Wyatt asked, confused as everyone followed Ryder.
    “You partied hard when we were teenagers,” Harper explained as she walked past him. “At least your nickname isn’t Sky Lizard.”
    Well, there was that. Shaking his head at the strange turn his life had taken in the last couple of days, Wyatt pulled his keys from his back pocket and jogged to catch up with the others.
    And as he pulled out of the yard, Ryder opened the window and whooped. And then he yelled into the beyond, “The band is back together!”
    “Temporarily,” Weston muttered under his breath in the back.
    But when Wyatt looked over at Harper, he was stunned by the moment. There was an easy