Treasure Lane Dragons: Complete Series (BBW Paranormal Dragon Shapeshifter Romance) (40 page)

Women screamed and men shouted as more of the all-in-black desperados piled in, wildly swinging their fists and looking like they weren’t entirely sure what they were doing, but doing it anyway.

One of them stopped in the middle of the room, beady brown eyes peeking out from underneath his ski mask, locking gazes with Jade.

“She’s there! Get her!” he screamed, and then all hell broke loose.

The man dove for Jade, and Apollo saw red. His nostrils flared and thick white smoke wafted out of them as he met the man halfway, his knuckles connecting with his chin and flooring the twerp with one hit. Like bees to honey, the whole clan suddenly tried to make it to Jade, who was still standing at the bar, holding her shot glass with a surprised look in her eyes. Before two more could make it to Apollo, Alexander was right by his side, as pissed off as he was.

“Who the fuck are these jokers?” Apollo called, grabbing one of them by the front of his shirt and tossing him against a wall, narrowly missing one of his guests. He wasn’t even sure what pissed him off so thoroughly – the fact that these guys were crashing his party or that they were quite obviously trying to make it to Jade. He was veering towards the latter, though the former alone would have been enough to send him on an honest rampage.

The women were angling past the commotion, squealing as they made for the exit along with some of the men, but at least the Dragons crew and roadies were pitching in, making quick work of the haphazard attackers. Apollo made a note to buy his guys a decent night out as soon as possible – finding a loyal crew was fucking impossible these days.

Some of the uninvited guests were already dusting themselves off and scrambling for the door, meeting far more resistance than they were willing to take. Apollo caught another one trying to sneak past him and slammed him down on a table, his strong hands clutching the guy’s shirt and his face so close to the man that he could see the little red blood vessels in his eyes. The man’s gaze was oddly unfocused, a little lost and confused, and Apollo frowned to himself.

“Who the fuck sent you,” he asked, getting no reply whatsoever other than a fearful gasp. He shook the man again, tearing his black hoodie as Apollo threw him off the table. The hoodie caught on the edge of a chair and ripped, revealing a tee underneath. “Death Wings,” Apollo muttered to himself, recognizing the ink black dragon of the Death Wing logo on the man’s shirt. Apollo let the man scuttle across the floor and grabbed Alexander by the shoulder when he noticed him trying to go after the guy.

“No point. Death Wings. I bet the kids don’t know what they’re doing,” he remarked grimly, pulling a hand through his disheveled blonde hair. Alexander stopped dead in his tracks, watching the last of the men either run or get kicked out by the crew.

“What the hell did they want?”

Apollo turned around slowly, eyeing Jade, who still stood at the bar with her glass clutched in her hand like a weapon, looking like a lamb being sent to slaughter. Even through the confusion and aggravation, he couldn’t help but notice just how damn sexy she looked with her lips slightly apart and a ruby blush tinting her pale cheeks.

“I think I know someone who can tell us.”
 

CHAPTER SIX

Jade

Jade felt like she’d got caught by the principal, smoking behind the football field’s bleachers, but instead of the principal, a pair of scorching hot dragons stood before her. Apollo’s lavish suite had been cleared out, the roadies and crew having left after the commotion. The party was ruined, even though Alexander had sent them off with one of his credit cards and told them to paint the town whichever color they wanted.

Apollo seated her on a bar stool and told her to stay. It was only by sheer force of will that she managed to peel her fingers from the glass she had almost broken by clutching it so hard.

The hell am I going to explain this? I didn’t think they’d find me so fast… or that Cameron and Colt knew I’d run at all. Fuck. This is such a disaster.

Jade’s hands were now wrapped around one knee, and she watched Alexander pace back and forth down the length of the wrecked suite, the late-night glow of Albuquerque lighting him in a golden haze. Apollo was leaning against the bar not far from her, and though she didn’t look at him, she could feel his steely blue gaze as if nailed to her. It made her wriggle uncomfortably, and only partially because she knew she was in trouble.

No matter the situation, being around the Goldplains twins still gave her shudders that ran all the way from the top of her head to the very center of her being.

“So, you wanna tell us what’s going on?” Apollo finally asked, cutting through the exasperated silence that had fallen over the room. Alexander stopped and turned to face her. She gulped, her throat suddenly incredibly dry. It was like her vocal chords had just snapped loose and she was unable to speak, knowing that anything she could have said would likely only have made things worse. Alexander must have noticed her despair. He walked closer to her and stopped right before her, towering over her with his hard body. Some of the sternness left his gaze, and Jade noticed that he too had gold flecks in his eyes, just like his brother.

“Come on, Jade. It’s okay. Whatever it was, I’m sure we can work something out.”

She noticed how he avoided any mention of the Death Wings, though he must have noticed the shirt one of the intruders had been wearing.

That’s nice of him,
she thought.
Giving me the benefit of the doubt. I wish I didn’t have to disappoint him.

Somewhere deep within her, she felt a sob rising, and despite her best effort, she couldn’t swallow it down. It came up like a buoy being held under water, spilling over and exploding out in one heart wrenching sound. Just as quickly, Alexander’s arms were around her, pulling her up on her feet and against him, burying her head in his broad chest and mussing his hand into her hair.

“Shh. It’s alright,” he cooed, and she almost believed him. A few more dry heaves wrestled their way out of her, though any following cries succumbed to the feeling of Alexander’s arms tight around her. Every bit of her that was in contact with him felt warm, an intense heat spreading deep within her and relaxing her, sending her despair running, an all-encompassing calm taking its place.

She knew that feeling. She’d felt something like that during their first concert together, like a smooth vibe that took over and made everything better. Only, it was so much better now that she was pushed against him, vaguely aware of his hard lines and firm body.

“We’ll fix it,” Apollo said simply with complete conviction in his voice, even without knowing what she’d dragged herself and them into. Jade pulled away reluctantly, and Alexander let her go, seemingly with mirrored difficulty. Mulling over her words in her head, she was caught by how ridiculous they sounded. How could she look at these men and just assume they were dragons? Worse yet, why had she pulled them down with her, creating an enemy out of their rivals without them having any say in it. Guilt lingered somewhere in the periphery of her mind, but it was kept at bay by the soft, happy glow that still shone within her from Alexander’s touch.

“I used to be a bassist for Death Wing,” she started, catching the look the brothers shared amongst one another. There was understanding there, and something dark and secret she couldn’t make out. “And I left them a few weeks ago, to try and audition for you guys. I guess they must not appreciate me being a turncoat,” Jade explained, the story sounding lame even to her. Almost on cue, Apollo scoffed and grinned mildly, as if reading her mind.

“Sure. Cameron and Colt Blackscale would send countless cronies piling into one of our after parties just to express how pissed off they are at losing a bassist. You’re good, definitely, but I don’t think they’d risk a criminal charge just to make a statement.”

“You sure?” Alexander asked with a smirk, sharing another look with his twin that made Jade wonder just how little they actually needed to use words.

“Pretty sure,” Apollo confirmed with a chuckle. “So, spill it, green-eyes. Tell us the story.”

Jade licked her lips, trying to wish away the mounting worry she felt underneath the safety that Alexander had instilled in her. She noticed both of them watching her as her tongue darted out and across her lips.

“Okay. So, um, this is going to sound a bit ridiculous, but bear with me,” she started, painfully aware of how close Alexander still was and how inviting his forearms looked. What she wouldn’t give to have them around her waist, pulling her to him, his hands going over her ass and squeezing it hard while Apollo dipped her head back and kissed her deeply on the mouth…

Snap out of it!

“Nothing like a bit of ridiculous after a long show,” Apollo said encouragingly, grabbing a beer from behind the bar. He slid it to her across the polished wood, and she accepted it with her heart singing thanks to his forward-thinking mind. Apollo uncorked another for himself and came around to sit nearer to her.

“I played with Death Wing for almost a year, and for the longest time, I thought something had to be a bit off with them. Just the way they played and how their concerts always went… and how I felt when playing a show with them. It just wasn’t right. There was something dark about them.” She tried to ignore the fact that
while her words made perfect sense to her own ears, they were likely to sound like gibberish to everyone else’s.  “And then one night, after a show in Phoenix, I couldn’t sleep because I’d watched a kid, not older than sixteen, repeatedly slam his head against the railing in front of the stage until security carted him off. And Cameron and Colt just laughed at it.”

Her face contorted in disgust as she told the story, and to her relief, she saw similar looks on Apollo and Alexander’s faces.

“So I went back to the stage to clear my stuff out for the next day, and that’s when I saw them. Cameron and Colt, um… changing.” The pit of her stomach iced over as she uttered those last words and glanced swiftly from Apollo to Alexander. The only sign of surprise in them was the way Alexander cocked his brow a bit, giving him a look of sophisticated calm.

“What do you mean by ‘change’?” Apollo asked, his voice betraying nothing but iron control, no emotion at all lingering behind the words.

“I mean, shift into two… dragons. Huge-ass dragons with black scales, wings and tails right out of
Jurassic Park.
And probably brains the size of T. rex’s,” Jade blurted out.

Instead of snorts of derision, she was met with a round of laughter from the Goldplains twins. Alexander visibly relaxed, and Apollo kicked back his beer, grinning.

“What’s so damn funny?” Jade asked, bristling a bit. Okay, so she knew it sounded ridiculous, but
come on
.

“Trust me, dragons have far larger brains,” Alexander said.

“I wouldn’t be so sure. We
are
dealing with the Blackscales, after all,” Apollo bit back, garnering another set of snorted laughter from the two men.

“So,” Alexander said, turning his laser-focused attention back on her, though a sliver of a smile hung to his lips. It made him even more ridiculously fuckable than before, which Jade thought was a great injustice to her in general. Being cooped up with these absolutely
beautiful
men while making a fool of herself? Torture in its purest form. “You think we’re dragons too, don’t you?” he asked, sending her off-kilter with the way his blue eyes locked on her greens, and his gaze almost implored her to say yes.

“Well, aren’t you?” she asked, taken aback by Alexander’s straightforwardness. She watched Alexander share a look with Apollo, before giving her a wicked grin.

“What if we were?”

“Then I’d say that it’s fucking amazing how you’ve managed to keep it hidden from the public for so long,” she said, relaxing a little and taking a swig from her beer.

“You’d be surprised at what pure bricks of gold can do for anonymity,” Apollo commented wryly, giving her one of those devastating winks of his.

“So it’s true then? You’re dragons?” she asked, trying to keep the stutter of excitement out of her words. Alexander and Apollo shared a long look between themselves, and the anticipation was killing her. Finally, Alexander gave her a short nod, and she let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding in.

“The next question is, why do you care?” Alexander asked, cutting through the niceties and making her cheeks burn again.