city of dragons 02 - fire storm by val st crowe Read Free Book Online

you’re projecting our issues onto the situation.”
    “ Our issues?”
    “You think that vampires don’t have any control, and you’re sure—”
    “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Penny, can you not let it be for a day ?” He ripped his sunglasses off and jammed his keys into the ignition.
    I shrank into the seat of the car. I didn’t like being yelled at.
    He noticed. He let go of the keys and sank back into his seat. “Sorry,” he whispered.
    I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t going to say anything. I knew better than to talk back after making a man angry. I should have kept my mouth shut in the first place.
    “Hey,” he said in a gentle voice. “Look at me.”
    God damn it, what was I thinking? I could flipping talk back if I wanted. It was Lachlan’s stupid fault that he was angry, not mine. I whipped my head around to meet his gaze, and I glowered at him. “You’re worried that you would lose control. You’re worried that you’d hurt me, and that’s what all of this is about.”
    His lips parted.
    “Admit it,” I said.
    “Okay,” he said softly. “I admit it. Because it could happen. It’s not crazy to think it could happen. Your friend Felicity? How would you feel if she was letting Jensen bite her?”
    I stiffened. “It’s not the same thing. She’s helpless, and I’m—”
    “Penny, it’s the same.”
    I sighed. Maybe he was right. “We don’t even have to do that, you know.”
    He put his sunglasses back on. He turned the key in the ignition.
    I buckled my seatbelt.
    He pulled the car out of the parking lot and drove. He didn’t speak again until we hit a red light. “We’ll have to come back and watch that place. If we catch the vampires in the act, that will be enough to prove that they do drink dragon blood. We have Timothy to put Fletcher at the scene. Maybe it will be enough.”
    I rested my head against the head rest. “We can’t be sure that’s what happened to him.”
    “No, you’re right. We need to be thorough,” said Lachlan. “We need to ask around, figure out if he had any enemies or anything like that. Where else do dragons like Fletcher tend to hang out?”
    “Well, they might go to bars up and down the strip here,” I said. “Or parties that their parents throw.”
    “Okay, well, we’ll see if we can get the parents to give us any information on that. Maybe Timothy knows,” he said.
    “Okay,” I said.
    We were quiet.
    He drove. We went through two more lights. Both green. Then we got stopped at the third light.
    “Penny,” he said, his voice lilting and intimate. “I’m sorry I yelled.”
    I turned to look at him. “I don’t like being yelled at.”
    “I was out of line,” he agreed. “It’s not you I’m angry with, anyway. It’s myself.”
    “Because you want to drink my blood?”
    “Yes. I thought I explained this the other night.”
    I remembered what he’d said about being a protector. I licked my lips. “I don’t think you need to protect me, though. I mean, I’m capable of looking after myself, and—”
    “I’m not trying to say that you’re weak. I understand that you’re strong and capable and badass. It’s one of the things I find so very attractive about you, so don’t make it about that.”
    “I wasn’t.”
    “If there’s going to be a thing between us, I want it to be about mutual respect and enjoying each other’s company and… I don’t want it to be about my preying on you for blood.”
    “It’s not like that,” I said.
    “Maybe to you it isn’t.” The light changed.
    He took off again.
    I studied him in profile. Did he really feel like that? Like a predator?
    That made me feel a little bit itchy under my skin. I twisted my hands together in my lap.
    We were quiet for the rest of the drive.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
    I blinked. “Melinda Irwin?” I said in disbelief.
    Melinda Irwin was standing in my lobby. She was flanked by two other women I didn’t recognize, but there she was, all