Treasure Lane Dragons: Complete Series (BBW Paranormal Dragon Shapeshifter Romance) (20 page)

“Drinks on me!”

The bar erupted with screams so loud that Ruby thought the roof might just collapse on the little shack of a building. It was a shame it didn’t. It would have saved her from the horror of being Cable Bloodhowl’s fiancée.

She looked at the ring again and her heart dropped.

How am I going to get myself out of this mess?

CHAPTER THREE

Ruby

All night, Ruby had felt like someone was watching her. Naturally, everyone’s eyes had been on her after Cable’s grand announcement, but it wasn’t just that. There was more to it. Like someone was tracking her every move, studying her, filing away everything they saw to be used later. It was a bit eerie, though she’d dealt with creepier things lately. Like kissing Cable. Ew.

She shuddered at the memory, and the platinum band around her finger felt like it was sucking the life force right out of her. She glanced down at it and, with a sigh, ordered a tequila shot. Might as well get wasted, there wasn’t anything left to lose that night anyway.

“Another, please,” a deep voice said next to her, causing her to spin around to face the owner of such a damn sexy voice.

And there he stood, the most damnably hot man she’d seen in a long, long time. He was tall and built like a wall, but still had a certain catlike grace to his movements. Wide shoulders and a tapered waist that led into narrow hips, and she had to physically stop herself from allowing her eyes to trek any lower. Though they wanted to.

Damn,
she thought, wetting her lips and turning away to eye her drink again.

It hadn’t been fast enough though. He’d noticed her looking at him. Her heart beat harder in her chest, and she could feel a blush coming to her cheeks as he seemed to take her in from head to toe, his mesmerizing green eyes considering her like she was the tastiest treat and he a man long unfed. When Cable wore a look close to it, it made her cringe with disgust, but when this guy gave her that bedroom look… Well, let’s just say she immediately wondered where the closest quiet corner was.

Joe the barkeeper handed the mystery man his drink, and he picked it off the bar.

“Drinking to your engagement?” he asked, a chuckle in his voice.

Well, there it was. All her girlish excitement flung straight out the window. Ruby barely suppressed a groan and threw him a look that could freeze hell over, but he seemed positively untouched by it. If anything, his amusement deepened, and that devilish smirk of his curved a bit at the corner of his mouth. He wore a black tank and a worn leather jacket with dark jeans that clung to his muscled legs, and boots that roped up all the way.

The only standout oddities about him were the thick gold cuffs he wore on his wrists and the several slim gold chains around his neck. She could spy the colored corners and edges of a few tattoos, but he looked a lot cleaner cut than most of the ruffians at The Rusty Nail
.
Definitely handsome. Definitely a heartthrob. Definitely off-limits. Wasn’t that just life for you? He didn’t exactly help his case by stepping on that festering boil on her soul called her engagement, either.

“Sure,” she offered noncommittally, raising her shot glass to him.

“Salut,” he said, and his soft, deep timber voice rumbled through her, making her core pulse.

She’d given up hope of seeing anyone that really caught her interest near Cable, but here he was, in all his gruff, slightly unwashed but incredibly sexy glory – a bad boy right to her taste. They both kicked back the drinks and put the glasses back on the counter, where Joe snatched them up before anyone else got the bright idea of smashing his wares.

“Again,” the mystery man said, throwing some bills on the counter.

“No, man, I don’t think you should be drinking with me. And in any case, I don’t need you to buy for me,” Ruby said, glancing at him from under lowered lashes.

His reddish-brown hair fell slightly on his forehead, and it looked so soft that she just wanted to run her fingers through it. Probably not a good idea. Unless she wanted to get his ass kicked by Cable & Co.

“Let me decide what I want to do, hmm, sugar?” he said, and the way he purred the last word made the hairs on the back of her arm stand up in excitement.

Where was he when she was looking for her adventure, huh? Ruby could bet he wouldn’t want to wed her to prove a point!

You really need to improve your taste in men, Ruby. Like, take this guy. He’d likely piss dad off
and
he wouldn’t sell you to the Mexicans if you got on his nerves. Best of both worlds.

She grinned at the thought. Though, as things stood, she thought she had learned her lesson. Better to toe the line a little than actually cross it and end up in a mess like this. And all for what? To rebel a little? She was a grown-ass woman for heaven’s sake! With a degree in medicine to boot! She didn’t need to be running around, making a fool of herself in skirts far too tight and with men far too idiotic to tolerate for more than an evening. But, as ever, all of those realizations came to her a tad bit too late.

“I’m not your sugar,” she retorted absently, receiving the shot from Joe.

He paused long enough that she had to look at him to see if he’d heard. He wasn’t paying attention at all; instead he had turned around and was leaning against the counter with his elbows, scanning the room. Ruby narrowed her eyes a little. He wasn’t just casually observing – like a bored man at a dreary bar. No, there was purpose to him. His gaze was calculating, strict, even though that twinkle of amusement in them could have fooled most onlookers.

A mystery man…

“Did you hear me?” she asked, cocking a well-groomed brow at him.

He met her gaze, and that despicable smirk was back on his lips.

“I did. I don’t agree.”

“Don’t agree with what?”

“I think you
are
my sugar, sugar. But we can argue about that later. In private. How does that sound?”

He spun around and grabbed his drink, clinking it against hers.

“I think you sound suicidal!” Ruby said, but she couldn’t keep the laughter from her voice. Hey, every court needed a daring jester, right?

“Could very well be.” They kicked back the tequila, and Ruby made a bit of a face as the bitter liquid went down.

When she looked up, he was suddenly so much closer. Ruby gasped as he leant in, smelling like a woodsy fire and black coffee. It filled her lungs, and for a crazy moment, she didn’t want it to stop.

“Get out of here while I distract them. I’ll find you,” he whispered, already receiving scalding looks from the people around them.

“Who are you?” Ruby asked, trying to find her breath again.

“Cillian. But you can call me whatever you want, sugar,” he said, grinning like a fiend.

She loved it. Next thing she knew, Cillian’s hand was on her cheek, pushing her chin up a little, and then his lips were on hers. She murmured in surprise, but the small noise quickly turned into a moan as her eyes fluttered closed and she dipped forward to meet him. His lips were so soft, like they were meant to be against hers, and the kiss they shared was flawless – no awkward bumping or teeth gnashing together. Just perfection. Like they’d been doing it forever.

Her body heated up immediately, every nerve and fiber in her screaming to get closer to him. He was wrenched away from her just as her tongue slipped into his mouth. She saw him thrown across the floor of the bar and sliding several feet until he slammed into a crowd of onlookers.

“What the FUCK do you think you’re doing!?” Cable roared, red in the face and heaving with blinding rage.

“Cable, no!” Ruby managed to yelp, jumping out of her seat.

The kiss still lingered on her lips, and her eyes met Cillian’s, who was up on his feet like a flash of lightning. He hooked brass knuckles around his fists, inclining his head towards the back exit ever so slightly before turning his attention back to Cable. He grinned like a man possessed, the bikers around him roaring for Cable to cut his head off. There was no way he was going to get out of there in one piece.

“Shut up, woman,” Cable grunted, bringing up his fists. “If prettyboy here wants to throw down, we can throw down. I’m going to rip every limb straight off your body,” Cable snarled, and Ruby watched with quiet horror as Cable lunged towards his leaner, faster opponent.

Cillian sidestepped Cable easily, and the big biker pounded into the wall, a drowning snarl of anger following him.

Okay, so he can handle himself,
Ruby thought, her heart constricting with worry.

On the one hand, she would have loved to stay and watch Cable get his ass handed to him, but she needed to get out, now. Trying to attract as little attention as she could in the packed room, Ruby slunk past the bar and disappeared into a passageway lined with bathrooms. Just as she was stepping into the ladies room, she heard a sickening crunch and then a cacophony of surprised gasps.

“Is that all you got, pup? Sheesh, I thought I was hanging with REAL men here!” Ruby heard Cillian’s voice bellowing over the tin, and then a moment later, a loud crack echoed all the way to the corridor – the distinct sound of a table being crushed by two bodies crashing into it.

“Fucking hell,” Ruby muttered, locking the door behind her.

She kicked off her shoes and picked them up, stepping into a stall. Even getting on the toilet bowl was a precarious trick in her tight skirt. Without a second thought, she ripped up the side of her skirt and reached for the window above. Then, it was a simple matter of opening the old, rusted shut window, heaving herself up on the sill, shimmying through the opening that was just barely big enough for her ass to fit through and then tumbling gracelessly down into the trash under the window in the alleyway.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said to herself, eyes searching around frantically to see if anyone had seen her.

The hooting and distant sounds of punches told her that everyone had something better to focus on than the boss’s girl making a break for it. Seeing as all directions were equally bad, she picked one and broke off in a run, hoping to put as much distance between herself and the bar as she possibly could before anyone noticed her missing.

Welcome to your funeral, Ruby.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ruby

It felt like she had been walking for hours. Her silver shoes dangled from her fingers and her red skirt clung wearily to her thighs, the high rip making her look more like a battered streetwalker than the sexy minx she had been going for. Soon, it would be sunrise, and she wasn’t exactly sure where she was walking to. Or whether or not she’d been walking for very long at all. Her first instinct had been to go home, hug her mother, receive the cussing of a lifetime from her father and deal with the jokes and jabs of her countless older brothers.

But the more she thought about it, the less she wanted to do it. This whole mess she had concocted for herself had begun with her wanting to step out of their massive shadow – the Accardo name being not so much an umbrella as an armored tank around her, keeping her from anything fun life had to offer.

So no, going home wasn’t an immediate option. But what else was there? She was determined not to use her credit cards (paid by for her father), and she only had maybe fifty bucks of cash in the deposit box she had stashed her stuff in. Her only real assets were her name, which was problematic as she knew, her medicine degree (though it’s worth was questionable, seeing as she had missed her last half year of interning because of her sudden need to find herself) and… well that was about it, really.

Ruby’s mouth was pressed into a hard line – a nervous tick she’d picked up from her father – as she trudged through the streets. An adventure she had certainly got, but whether it was the one she had wanted was yet to be seen. A part of her felt like a petulant child, wanting something so badly, and then when she received it, finding that it wasn’t what she desired at all. But what was it then? What was it that Ruby Accardo needed from life to make it worthwhile, to make it both exciting and meaningful at the same time?

Her train of thought was cut short by the sound of a bike revving its engine somewhere behind her. Out of instinct, she jumped further from the curb, whipping her head around to see who it was. She was certain it had to be Cable or one of his guys, finally having tracked her down. But unlike the heavy chromed, low choppers Cable’s crew rode, this one was a flashy, fast superbike. A Fireblade, she guessed.