Page 10 of Kenna's Dragon

And, as it also turns out, twenty-year-old Kenna was a lot more interested in boys and partying than going to class. I’d always had a wild streak as a teenager, but moving far from home for university and getting a taste of true freedom was just fuel for the fire.

I dropped out during my junior year, spent the next few years bopping around part-time jobs and casual relationships and being generally unbothered by any kind of adult responsibility.

My parents were disappointed. My perfect older sister Jenny was horrified. I, however, was having way too much fun to care.

Until a couple of years ago.

I don’t really know when the exhaustion started to set in, but by the time I was twenty-four or twenty-five, the whole routine started to feel stale and empty. Men, late nights, shitty dead-end jobs. A lot of my friends had graduated, moved on, started getting married, and I was just… stuck.

It took me another year and some change to finish up the degree—shifting to design with a communications minor—and at least as long to shake the rest of my flighty, partying ways.

Well, I’ve almost shaken them. Because what’s life without causing a little trouble now and again?

Late in the afternoon, most of my coworkers are winding down for the day and chatting back and forth over the tops of our cubicles about our upcoming weekend plans.

“What about you, Kenna?” Susie asks. Out of the bunch, she’s the softest spoken, and also happens to be dating one of the Bureau’s accountants—a tall, handsome orc.

“I’ve got plans to go out tonight,” I say, keeping the details deliberately vague.

While things aren’t as weird as they were on Monday, I’m still not sure how appropriate it is to tell my coworkers I’m going out tonight with a wolf shifter I met on a dating app.

“Fun!” Jax chimes in, poking their head over the other cubicle wall. “Hot date?”

Well, so much for that.

“Adate,” I say with a laugh. “Hotness level TBD.”

The joke earns me a good-natured chuckle from them both, and after a few more minutes of conversation people start packing up to head home for the weekend.

I’m staying late, both to finish up a couple of projects, and because I’m heading straight from work to my date. I packed my clothes for tonight in a backpack and brought it to work with me. Since I’m meeting my date at seven, it wouldn’t have made sense to take the bus forty-five minutes home, only to get ready in hardly any time at all and catch a ride back downtown.

A little after six, I head into the bathroom to change and fix up my makeup.

Standing there and looking at myself in the mirror, I wonder for about the hundredth time since I accepted this date whether I should cancel.

There’s no reason I should cancel. Absolutely none. This guy seems great. A real adult with a real job who’s taken the initiative and made all the plans for tonight. Cute, too, if his pictures are accurate.

This is a good thing. Just like this job. Just like the steps I’ve taken to move my life forward these past couple of years.

I’m not going to cancel, and I’m not going to let the small but persistent whisper of doubt in the back of my mind stop me from enjoying it.

Finishing up in the bathroom and stowing my backpack under my desk with plans to leave it there until Monday, I take one last deep breath, power down my computer, and grab my purse before heading toward the elevator.

The office is nearly empty this time of night, only a couple of lights still shining from the other departments on the fifth floor. It makes me slightly uneasy, but luckily it only takes a few seconds for the elevator to arrive.

Unluckily, it’s already occupied.

I don’t know who looks more surprised, me or Blair, but I do know that I don’t imagine his sharply indrawn breath or the way his golden eyes flare wide when he sees me standing there.

He looks… disheveled. Suit coat unbuttoned, tie slightly loosened, hair a bit mussed like he’s run his hand through it a time or five.

My legs wobble forward without me consciously telling them to. Some dim part of my brain reasons that getting on the elevator with Blair is bad, yes, but it would be even worse to stand here like a statue and let the doors close in my face.

Or to turn and run in the other direction.

Standing as far away from him as I can in the confined space, I glance at the buttons and see he’s headed for the lobby, too.

As we begin our descent, the awkward tension in the air is thick enough that if I reached out, I might just be able to touch it. It makes me antsy, jumpy, so goddamn uncomfortable that I do the unthinkable.

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