“I can do anything but that, my Princess.” Then he basically bowed and strode off—strutting as if he was a peacock, which was ridiculous for such a big bear shifter.
Once the bear was gone, Avery turned to her friend and giggled. “Now he calls you princess?”
Zia shook her head, her short, dark curls bouncing around her face. “He announced to everyone that he is my hammer and does as I order. Something is seriously wrong with that bear. I have no idea why he keeps saying these things. I’m human and it’s not like we’re mated. But he says,” she whispered, glancing around once, “that he would follow my commands even over the Alpha. I don’t think that’s a good thing.” She kept her voice low so only the two of them could hear.
“Shifter hierarchies are really weird.” But she was also pretty sure that Logan was obsessed with or in love with Zia. He looked at her as if she’d hung the moon and she’d heard him refer to himself as her hammer more than once. The bear really was kind of ridiculous.
If adorable.
Avery wondered what it would be like to have someone be completely devoted to her, but then…shelved the thought. It would never happen.
Fairy tales were just that. Fairy tales.
Chapter 6
Three weeks after The Fall
Listening to her iPod, Avery stared up at the stars, unable to shake the…blah feeling ruminating inside her. Today had been long and uneventful, but in the quiet when she’d gotten home an impending sense of doom had settled around her shoulders like a familiar ache.
Just…sitting there, pushing in on her.
Suddenly Mikael’s face was in front of her as he looked down at her on the chaise longue. He had a blanket rolled up under his arms.
She nearly jumped, but pulled her earbuds out. “Hey, you scared me.”
“My apologies,” he said in that formal way of his. He had the faintest hint of an accent that could maybe be linked to modern Russia. Or…what would have been considered Russia before three weeks ago.
She wasn’t actually sure how he’d learned English but he and his brothers seemed to know it and a few other languages. From what she’d gleaned they were old—ancient, really. As in, they’d gone into Hibernation so long ago she couldn’t even wrap her mind around it. They didn’t know much about modern history—as in the last thousand years—at all.
“What is wrong?” he continued.
She didn’t move from her position as he sat on the chaise next to her. It was one of those oversized ones that could fit two people. “Nothing. Just tired.”
“I can scent your lie and your sadness.” He nudged her hip with his big hand—a hand she’d had fantasies about.
Well, not his right one in particular, but both giant callused hands. And his mouth. And…other things. He and his brothers hadn’t been living with her and her brothers long, but her crush had developed pretty damn quickly. It was impossible not to like him. He was just so…adorable. To be fair, all of them were, but Mikael was different. Sweet. Always doing little things for her without telling her.
Like, she’d noticed that he sometimes folded her laundry when she left it in the dryer too long. Or he made sure she had a fresh cup of coffee every morning doctored exactly the way she liked it before they all headed to work. And all his kindness didn’t take away from the fact that the male was a walking, talking weapon. She absolutely understood that he was dangerous.
Just not to her.
She scooted over and he stretched out next to her, all long, thick, muscular legs and a spicy, woodsy scent she wanted to bathe in. He tossed the blanket over them, because he was always thoughtful like that.
“I’m just…feeling overwhelmed, I guess. Working on this new housing for King has been keeping me busy, but it’s hard to shut my brain off. Hard to process how many people around the world died so suddenly. Some days I’ll force myself to not think about it, but others…it’s just a lot sometimes.”
“That makes sense. We all need time to process things. And the loss to the world was abrupt and violent. If you are not used to violence, it will be harder to adjust.”
“Did you…see a lot of violence? Before you went to sleep?” She knew he must have, but asked anyway.
“I did.” He leaned his head toward hers so that his was sort of right over hers as he curled his body against her ever so subtly, giving her some of his wonderful warmth.
She breathed deeply, taking him in, glad he was here right now. Her brothers and Mikael’s brothers were out for the night. She hadn’t felt like going anywhere or seeing anyone. “Want to expand on that?” There was so much she didn’t know about him and she was curious.
He was silent for so long she didn’t think he was going to respond. That was okay. The fact that he was here was good enough for her. “I saw a lot of war. Death. Caused it too. I don’t wish to talk about it though.”
“I understand.” Maybe not the war stuff, but she understood not wanting to talk.
“I’m sorry for your pain,” he said quietly.
She tugged the soft navy blue blanket she’d had for years up higher and curled into him. “You’re warm,” she murmured. And he made her feel waaaaay too many things.
“I am a dragon.”
She laughed lightly, her breath curling out in little wisps of white smoke. “So you’re always hot?”
“Yes.”
She nearly sighed. Yes, yes he was. The hottest male she knew. The fact that he didn’t seem to realize it made him that much more attractive.
“What were you listening to on your music machine?”
She snorted. “It’s an iPod. Or you can call it an mp3 player.” Though music machine made her giggle and she vowed to call it that from now on. “And I was listening to The Cranberries. They’re sort of my go-to for anything when I’m…in a mood. Any mood at all.” Happy or sad, didn’t matter.
“Can I hear them?”
“Yeah.” She handed him one of the earbuds. “Dolores O’Riordan was the singer. Her voice is…simply beautiful.” Hauntingly.
“Was the lead singer?” he asked as he slipped it into his ear.
“She died a couple years ago. The world lost an incredible artist that day. I like to think she’s living in a multiverse though, still singing her heart out.”
He paused for a moment. “What is a multiverse?”
“I don’t even know if it’s real. It’s just a theory about how there are other universes that exist parallel to ours and different versions of ourselves are out there living their lives just like we are. I figure if dragons and other supernatural beings exist and our whole world has been changed so dramatically, multiverses exist too.”
“Then I hope she is in one too.”
Avery smiled slightly and pressed play, looking up at him now instead of the blanket of stars scattered across the sky. She wanted to watch his expression, hoped he enjoyed O’Riordan’s voice as much as she did.
Mikael wasn’t wildly expressive—at least he wasn’t normally—but she could see the shift in him, the way his smoky gray eyes lit up as he listened to her lilting, distinctive voice. Eventually she laid her head on his chest as they both listened to the full album.