wanted to spend time with you now.”
Yes, Kee could hear Dian clearly, he just didn’t want to listen to anything else his mate had to say. The story of my fucking life, he thought as he stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him. Everyone’s always got something more important to do than put me first. Why should I have expected my mate to be any bloody different.
Thankfully, Cam’s house was in easy walking distance to the bar. Kee was determined to lose himself in his work, and maybe, just maybe, the pain in his heart would stop.
Chapter Seventeen
Dian ate the sandwiches. Kee had made them for him after all. The kitchen was now tidy, with Kee’s share of the sandwiches wrapped in plastic wrap and put back in the refrigerator. Dian was sitting on the couch, picking at his fingernails when Eagle and Cam came bursting in. He wasn’t thinking straight. All he could feel was Kee’s pain and it was breaking him.
“Things didn’t go so well, then, huh?” Eagle plonked himself on the new coffee table in front of the couch while Cam sat beside Dian.
“What do you think?”
“Well,” Cam arched an eyebrow at him, “considering Kee is at the bar wearing a smile so plastic it hurts to look at it, and you’re sitting here looking like someone’s killed your kitten, I’m guessing Kee didn’t take too kindly to being told he had to stay in town. I did warn you.”
“Would you let Fergus and Ivan go anywhere near the council offices?” Dian snapped. “I bet you wouldn’t. I’d bet you everything I have that Ivan’s never been out of Arrowtown and Fergus hasn’t left here since you two met.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, so you’re just lucky I didn’t take the bet.” Cam put his feet up on the coffee table and leaned back with his hands behind his head. “I hadn’t known Fergus very long at all when I went to save his mother from his ex-fold. I didn’t take him, obviously, because that’s not what men like you, and how I used to be, did. So, like a responsible and protective mate, I left him a note, told him I loved him, and that I’d be back with his mother. He was not impressed.”
“He must’ve forgiven you. You’ve got Ivan now.” Dian scowled.
“He came and saved me actually.” Cam sighed. “So much for me being all protective and looking after him. That’s when he learned his father was a dragon shifter and he freaking flew to find me, fire pouring from his mouth, while I was being held at gun point holding his mom in my arms. So, you see, my mate and I both left town to do something really important, and while we haven’t left since, I wouldn’t dream of leaving him behind now if I did have to go anywhere.”
“Do I seriously need to list the huge number of ways this situation is different?” Dian wanted to hit someone, and Cam was ranking as number one on his list. “If my mate changed into a freaking dragon, maybe I wouldn’t be so worried about him. But your mate is the one with scales and wings, and more importantly, he has ID. My mate has none of those things. Not only that, but he sparkles.”
“What do you mean, Kee sparkles?” Eagle asked, sounding confused. “He looks perfectly normal to me.”
“I can’t say I’ve noticed anything different about him since you claimed him either,” Cam said. “He smells different, but that’s because your scents have merged, but that’s normal with mated couples.”
Dian wondered how his friends could be so clueless. They’d both been trained observers. “From the moment I knew Kee was half pixie, I could see it in him. The twinkle in his eyes, his cheeky grin, the sharp line of his jaw and the way his ears have a teeny tiny point on them. Doesn’t that scream ‘pixie’ to you? And that’s without his bopping around, the dance in his step and the way he can’t stop smiling.”
“Huh,” Cam grunted. “He ain’t smiling now. He’s just lucky the customers are used to me and can ignore the grumps.”
“D, I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about.” Eagle slapped Dian on the knee. “Kee looks no different now than he did the day we met him. He strikes me as someone who always looks perky, and he smiles all the time because he’s just that type of person. You’re being