Dragon's Second Chance Romance - Riley Storm Page 0,42

him, taking him completely by surprise.

Why would I be angry at Trent for finding happiness? That doesn’t make sense.

Unless it wasn’t anger but jealousy.

That was it, Pietro knew, as he explored his inner thoughts in the blink of an eye. He was jealous of his friend. Jealous that Trent had found his mate.

Jealous that he had the means to protect her, whereas Pietro was failing in that so far.

He jerked, unable to restrain himself as he traced that line of thought back to an implication he had been unprepared for.

Could it be? Could I have found—

“You okay?” Claire asked, her eyes golden-brown in the interior light. She looked up at him with concern, perhaps attributing his twitch to the head wound he’d suffered courtesy of his own front door.

“Fine,” he said a bit more abruptly than planned. Shaking his head in apology he spoke again, his tone softer. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Claire said, but her eyes didn’t seem to accept his answer, telling a different story than her single-word agreement.

“We’ll meet you there shortly,” he said to Trent, giving answer to the offer for the two of them to join the storm dragon and his mate at their house.

“Don’t take too long,” Trent said, the pair heading for the door, the dragon shifter alert and cautious, looking around as he led the way out.

Once they were gone, Pietro turned, eager to get going as well, but he was stopped by the look Claire was giving him.

“What’s wrong?” he slowly asked, glancing around, trying to identify the problem.

“Why did you just agree that we would go to their place without asking?”

Pietro frowned. What the hell? Why wouldn’t they go there? It made sense.

“I…we can’t stay here Claire. You know that. Why wouldn’t we go to their place? What am I missing here? It makes perfect sense.”

“Why not go up the mountain?” she asked, already looking ready to dig in and staunchly defend her argument. “To where the rest of your clan lives. You don’t think that would be safer?”

His jaw dropped open in surprise at the vehemence of her reply. Claire obviously felt very strongly about this. Which was fair, he supposed, since it was her life that had just been threatened.

“We can’t,” he pointed out. “It goes against the terms of your bail. Like you yourself said. It’s outside of Five Peaks.”

Claire shook her head in frustration. “Are you saying that my life isn’t more important than some bail terms?”

Pietro almost told her that it was her idea not to break the bail terms in the first place, but something told him that would not go over well. Claire was in shock right now, her system filled with adrenaline, and she likely wanted nothing more than to feel as absolutely safe as possible.

To get as far away from the problem as possible.

For an instant, he almost relented. He almost caved and said okay, that he would drive them up the mountain. But he didn’t. Pietro knew that once things calmed, once Claire was thinking properly again, she would regret it. Would regret violating her bail.

He didn’t want her to feel that way. Besides, he was confident that Trent’s place would be safe. The life the two of them were creating was more than sufficient to hold the vampires at bay.

And with the women safe inside, he and Trent could begin the hunt for the vampires. The Hunters would become the hunted, and they could stop them from becoming a scourge on Five Peaks.

“The vampires won’t be around for much longer,” he said, projecting as much confidence as he could into the words. “My kin and I are going to hunt them down and deal with them.”

“I just want to go somewhere I’m safe,” Claire said, hugging her arms around herself.

“You’ll be safe at Trent’s. We’ll be safe there,” he said. “There’s no need to go anywhere else.”

“The mountain would be safer,” Claire said in frustration. “You know that too. I know you know that!”

“You’ll be breaking your bail provisions by going up there,” he said tautly. “You’ll go to jail for even longer if I take you there. We need to stay in town. Trent’s place is the safest option.”

He carefully did not add that her parents’ house would probably be even safer, but she’d have to have a hard talk with them if she was to be welcome back. The threshold on a family home would be completely impenetrable to even the strongest vampire. But he doubted Claire wanted to