Dragon's Second Chance Romance - Riley Storm Page 0,30

of her was still a little girl in a tutu seeking her parents’ pride and approval.

A pride that she’d had until this morning, when it had been stripped from her as easily as the deputy had put the handcuffs on.

“Oh, Claire,” her mother said softly.

“We’re sorry,” her father said.

She frowned. “What are you sorry for?”

It didn’t have the feel of a ‘sorry for not coming to see you in jail’ sort of apology. This was something else.

“For failing you,” her father said somberly. “For not raising you properly. We tried to give you a good upbringing, to keep you away from this sort of life, but obviously we didn’t do a good enough job.”

Claire’s mouth dropped open. “Unbelievable,” she said, astonished. “You’re just trying to turn this into something about you?”

“Claire, that’s not what—”

She cut her father off. “Why can’t you just be supportive of me as I try to fix my life? I’m trying to make atonement for the mistake I made. All I want from you is support. Acknowledgment that I am smart enough to know I screwed up and am trying to fix it. But no, you can’t even give me that!”

“We have been supportive Claire,” her mother said. “We gave you a good upbringing. We helped pay for college. Gave you money when you were trying to find your way up in Kennewick Falls. Don’t say we haven’t been supportive.”

Claire shook her head. “You also hounded me relentlessly for good grades. Rarely, if ever, let me go out with friends until I was sixteen. You wanted to make sure I was doing all the right extracurriculars. You wanted me to be the perfect child, but you ignored who I really was!”

“We didn’t push you into the life of crime,” her father said. “Why, we even gave you this whole guest apartment to stay in any time you came to visit. Even if it was for an extended period, like the past few weeks.”

“Yeah,” Claire said, looking around. “You know what. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I have been relying on you too much. Asking too much of you. I’m going to go stay somewhere else then. I wouldn’t want to burden you with the reminders of your ‘failure.’”

Her father winced at the dripping sarcasm, but he didn’t say anything either. Claire’s mother looked thoroughly unhappy about the way the situation was breaking down, but she didn’t protest either.

“Perfect,” Claire muttered. “I’ll pack my stuff.”

Just where the hell am I supposed to go now?

Chapter Seventeen

Pietro

Pietro was trying hard to convince himself that the wandering path he’d taken through Five Peaks since exiting the Owens’ residence wasn’t random. That he was, in fact, keeping an eye out for any signs of places the vampires might have taken up as a lair. He was hunting, he told himself as he walked, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched over.

The passersby were few, and several gave him odd looks when they realized the stains on his skin and clothing weren’t mud but rather the ruddy-brown of dried blood instead. Given that it was too early for Halloween, he didn’t blame any of them. Not that he was inclined to stop and explain.

Claire is safe, he reminded himself. So why are you moping?

He walked out into the street, and a horn blared as he didn’t check for traffic, the car jerking partially into the oncoming lane to move around him. There was no denying it, he was moping. Sulking, perhaps. It made no sense either. The request to leave Claire’s place so she could have a discussion with her parents was perfectly reasonable.

So, why did he feel like he should have stayed?

“Because you wanted to stay,” he told himself. “And you didn’t get what you wanted. Suck it up.”

It was true. There was no fooling himself. He’d hoped to stay. To perhaps be introduced to her parents. Instead, she’d dismissed him, leaving him as a stranger, and that hurt Pietro. It shouldn’t because he wasn’t anyone to her. Not in a sense that justified his staying for what was likely to be an extremely awkward conversation.

Yet he found himself wishing he was.

His footsteps were slowly carrying him toward the place that he rented in town, but there was no rush. Nothing awaited him once he arrived. It would just be him.

The phone in his pocket went off, the noise breaking into his mind as he fumbled rapidly for the device. Nobody would be calling him at this time of night if it weren’t