Blackwing Dragon (Harper's Mountains 5) by T. S. Joyce

just awful on your mom.”
    “It was, and she wanted a redo when she recovered from what my dad did. She found Rick, and they were married, had three boys. Rick was an asshole, left my mom and all his kids, didn’t even look back, didn’t pay her child support. I remember I couldn’t wait until the day I turned fifteen because then I could legally get a job and help my mom out. I worked at this pizza place on the night shift for a year before…”
    “Before what?”
    Kane cocked his head again, staring as if he didn’t understand her. Carefully, Rowan leaned forward and reached for his sunglasses. Kane caught her wrist fast, and in a grip so hard it ground her bones. He shook his head in a slow warning.
    “Why won’t you let me see you?”
    Kane’s lips ticked up in a feral twist, and his voice came out too low, too rough. “Because I’m comfortable in the shadows.”
    Chills blasted up her forearms. Maybe it was the story of his father that had her instincts blaring, or maybe it was all the riddles, or perhaps, it was the dead monotone he’d used when he’d admitted to liking the dark. Dark Kane. The nickname made a tiny bit more sense now.
    “Psst,” someone said behind her.
    Rowan turned to find one of the slurring guys a couple tables away staring at her with a big dumb grin. His two friends were snickering from the other side of the booth. Rowan narrowed her eyes at him and then turned back around to Kane. Drunk idiots with nothing to say. Just wanted to interrupt her.
    Kane’s jaw clenched once, but he took a long, final draw of his drink and then asked Marny for the check when she bustled by.
    “Sure thing,” Marny said. “I’ll go grab it.”
    “Thanks,” Kane murmured low, but then his gaze seemed to train directly over her shoulder again.
    “Pssst. Hot girl. Do you like it in the front hole or the back hole?”
    Seriously? These guys were ridiculous. Rowan stared at a tomato slice on her plate and clenched her purse in her lap. The food in her stomach transformed to cement, and her mouth turned dry as cotton.
    “You okay?” Kane asked.
    “Yeah, I’m fine. I just don’t like attention like that.”
    “Pssst!” Something hit her in the back of the head, and an immediate rumble vibrated through her chest.
    Rowan closed her eyes. Easy Dragon . They’re just some drunk pricks looking for attention.
    “Hey,” Kane called out blandly. “Don’t do that again.”
    “Ooooooh,” the guy said. “Angry boyfriend. She must only like it in the front hole.” More snickering sounded.
    Marny returned with the check, but Kane asked her to hold up while Rowan dug the total plus tip out of her wallet.
    “Thanks, Marny, you were really good at your job tonight,” Rowan said, trying and failing to meet her gaze. She could feel the guys behind her staring. Heat flashed up her neck. She was a freaking dragon shifter—one of the biggest monsters in the world. Those men were nothing, no threat to her, so why was a trill of terror zinging through her body right now?
    Because attention gets us hunted.
    The memory of fire flashed through her mind. Teeth and blue scales and a pitch black grizzly charging right toward her. Rowan winced and shook her head hard.
    “Come on,” Kane gritted out, standing easily, like his leg didn’t hurt anymore. Maybe the dinner had done his body well.
    He offered his hand, the first voluntary touch. Rowan looked up at his face to make sure he wouldn’t yank his hand away and make fun of her, but his mouth was set in a grim line and his body was humming with tension. This wasn’t a joke. Not to Kane, and not to her.
    “Don’t leave,” the guy behind them whined. “We were just playing. Stay. We’ll behave, I promise.”
    Rowan slid her fingertips up his offered palm until the insides of their thumbs touched. He gripped her hand gently. His skin felt like hers—hot as fire. An electric current sparked between their hands, but it didn’t hurt. It settled her dragon.