Coward.
“Shut the fuck up,” he muttered to his inner animal as he pulled a U-Turn and headed back to Kane’s Mountains.
He didn’t want to run from the small sanctuary he’d found. Where else would he find an alpha big and bad enough to put him down when his animal dragged him into insanity? Nowhere. He needed the D-Team to keep him in check, and he would need Kane to protect the world from him when the time came.
Besides, Kiera was probably gone by now. He’d seen it in her eyes. She was a leaver just like him. That woman had one foot out of these mountains already. All he had to do was wait it out in the safety of his trailer until Kane gave him the okay to come out again.
The dragon knew the real story behind Beast’s fall from power. He wouldn’t make him face Kiera. He wouldn’t. Beast was crew, and Kiera was sick.
She was ashes in the wind.
Chapter Three
Kiera huffed an angry breath and turned away from her El Camino for the third time. Why was leaving the Smoky Mountains this hard?
She marched back into her motel room and let the door click closed behind her. Her reflection in the mirror made her sad. She looked as sick as she felt. Tired and weak. She hadn’t slept well in years. Not since her lioness was taken. Now she had a constant feeling of restlessness. Like there was something she was supposed to be doing, something she couldn’t remember.
Biting her bottom lip, she pulled the duffle bag strap over her head and settled it onto the made bed. The comforter was impeccable except for the indentation the bag made—the only proof of her being here. She liked to travel light, like a ghost.
Usually she ripped her gaze away from her reflection, but she needed to own this. She needed to remind herself of why she’d come here in the first place. There was a full-length mirror hanging from the bathroom door, and she gave it her profile, frowning at her loose sweater and baggy jeans. With a steadying breath, she lifted her shirt and cupped the swell of her belly. There was an instant fluttering there, like butterfly wings against her insides.
She would make the worst mother.
What could she provide this baby? She was a roaming cocktail waitress who paid for hotels and rental properties with tips from rich guys who liked to stare at her ass in tight clothes. And right now, she couldn’t even do that job because she was four months pregnant, and unless clients had prego-fetishes, she wasn’t the body type anymore.
This baby wouldn’t be a fake human like her, no. This baby would be a lion shifter like its father. Fucking Justin. All she’d wanted was a meaningless claiming mark so she could get her animal back, but he’d negotiated terms. He’d drawn it out, demanded sex for the bite, and she’d given in time and time again, because he always acted like he would give her the bite during each coupling. He’d planned this, hadn’t used protection no matter how much she’d asked him too, and now in hindsight she could see everything so clear. This had been his plan. He thought the bite was going to work too, and if he got her pregnant, he thought she would step into his pride and pledge everlasting fealty like his other lionesses. He would’ve been the alpha to bring a rogue to her knees. Well, screw his plans. Now she was on the run, hoping with a bone-deep desperation that he didn’t find her. She would be damned if she let this baby be raised in his awful pride.
She couldn’t protect it alone, so the best thing she could do for the child she carried would be to give it to the dragons. Just the thought of parting with this little life inside of her made her eyes burn with emotion though. Even sick and weak, she wished the pregnancy would stretch on and on so she could keep this little piece of happiness. Even though she was going through hell, she wasn’t alone. She had someone to think of more than herself and that got her through the dark days.
Kiera sniffed hard and settled her shirt back over her stomach, then lay on the bed like a starfish and stared at the ceiling fan. When the fluttering intensified into a rolling sensation, she rested her hand there to see if she could feel the movement from the outside yet. She’d never wanted her lioness back as badly as when she’d taken those four at-home pregnancy tests. A huge part of her wished she had that strength back to raise the cub herself. But what kind of a life could she give a shifter when there was no chance of ever being a shifter again herself? Every time the baby Changed, it would break her heart.
But…
She loved the idea that this baby meant there was a little bit of lion in her right now. She liked imagining she wasn’t too broken to raise it outside of a pride. Sometimes she even pretended she could keep it. She already loved it so much she’d quit drinking, quit all the bad habits she’d been partaking in. Her old life had been wild and out of control, but now, her thoughts were consumed by doing what was best for the baby. If not for this tiny, fragile life inside of her, she would’ve never come to the mountains of the dark dragon.
Oh, she remembered Kane. Kane as a boy had been kind, protective even. Kane as a dragon was a monster. In Apex, she’d lived with the fear that they would not only succeed in taking her animal, but that Kane would burn the facility to the ground with her in it. Death by fire terrified her, yet here she was, facing the dragon again.
Kiera rolled onto her side and cradled her belly. She would do anything to give the baby a good home, but not with a pride. If it was a girl, she would be one of many mates to a dominant male. If it was a boy, he would be raised to breed many and connect with none. He would be raised a brawler. He would likely die young in fights to keep a pride. She needed the dragons to take the baby and protect it from Justin and all of his powerful allies because Kiera couldn’t. She was rogue without the ability to call on her animal to keep her child safe. Justin would find her, find her child, and he would kill her without a single thought if it meant he could keep his offspring. Cubs meant power and virility. Cubs kept Justin king over his domain. And Kiera would do anything to keep her child from being a number in his awful Tarian Pride.