Page 15 of Smoke and Mirrors
“I didn’t want to interrupt your time together,” he shifted uncomfortably in his lace-up motorcycle boots. “But I was wondering if I could have a word with Mel for a few minutes.”
“No.” The word spat through my lips like a rotten piece of food. “I’m done talking to you.”
“Mel…steluta.” His voice strained with the plea as he stepped toward me. Hearing that name he used to call me was just another twist of the knife in my gut.
“Don’t call me that,” I hissed, stepping back and hiding halfway behind Hunter. The look of pain on Raz’s face just about killed me too.
“Mel, please.” Desperation laced his words. “This is a misunderstanding. Ally was never my girlfriend. She wanted that but I never did. Not with her.”
“So you used her,” I spat from behind Hunter’s arm. “She had feelings for you and you still slept with her. You lead her on. Youknewkissing me would hurt her!”
“I…” He snapped his mouth shut and shook his head, scratching his nails through his dark hair buzzed close to his scalp. He couldn’t even deny it and that just made my heart hurt more.
“I’m not doing that anymore,” he protested. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, especially not you.”
“I’m not hurt. I’m just fine.” The lie tasted bitter on my tongue. “I have Connor. And Hunter. I don’t need a man who uses girls and discards them when he’s bored.”
“That’snotwhat I am!”
He roared the denial with enough anger to make people stop and look at us. Mothers pulled their young children close as they hurried away. Thankfully no one was close enough to catch the smoke whisping out of the corners of his mouth, nor the glow of fire just behind his teeth.
“Okay, this isn’t getting us anywhere.” Hunter stepped between us with a raised hand. “Both of you need to cool off if you want to have a productive conversation about this.”
“I don’t want to haveanymore conversations with him.” My fingers dug into Hunter’s forearm, though I couldn’t seem to tear my gaze away from Raz.
“Razvan, dude,” Hunter addressed him with a kind but firm tone. “If she doesn’t want to talk to you, you need to respect that.”
“You said you trusted me,” he ignored Hunter, our gazes locked. “Why are you taking the word of some girl, who almost attacked you, overme?”
“I guess I was wrong to trust you,” I answered as coldly as I could muster.
His handsome face morphed from shock to a frightening scowl of rage. Hunter pushed me further back behind him, his whole body rigid as he stared down the furious dragon shifter.
“I’m not like all the men your trashy mother brought home, Melody,” Razvan leaned forward as he spat the words, until his chest met Hunter’s hand, braced out to keep a distance between us. “If you weren’t such a damned stubborn child, you’d be able to see that.”
“Back the hell up,” Hunter growled, his teeth bared and looking longer than normal. “I’m warning you.”
Raz blinked, jerking his eyes away from me and meeting Hunter’s as if seeing him there for the first time. His twisted scowl remained. A low, rumbling canine growl escaped Hunter’s chest. For a terrifying moment, I wondered if those two would actually get into it.
Raz broke eye contact first, and stepped back with his hands raised.
“We’re cool, wolf. I got no beef to hash out with you.” Not even sparing me a glance, the tattooed dragon shifter turned and disappeared into the fading light.
Transfixed on watching the back of his black leather jacket become smaller as he walked off, I waited. I didn’t dare take my eyes away, just in case.
But there was no hesitation, not even a glance over his shoulder as he walked away from me for probably the last time. When he was out of sight I kept watching, my hope crumbling away with every passing second he didn’t come back.
“Hey.” Hunter tilted my chin up to face him, his golden eyes concerned and his teeth now human sized. “You okay?”
“Yeah, fine,” I mumbled distractedly. A lie and he knew it.
He pulled me against him and rubbed a warm, soothing hand down my back. “He shouldn’t have said that,” he murmured with a kiss to my forehead. “It was uncalled for.”
“It was true, though.” I continued our walk out of the carnival grounds and back toward the campsite. “He was absolutely right.”
“That doesn’t mean he has to throw it in your face like that,” Hunter replied with a soft growl. “He did that to hurt you and that’s not cool, Mel.”
Razvan was the one I opened up the most to about my past. I told him details I never even told Connor, like my alcoholic mom’s endless string of boyfriends who were not only drunks themselves, but abusive to me and my siblings. And the fact that I didn’t drink was because I learned alcoholism was often passed down from parent to child. I saw my older sister follow in my mother’s footsteps and refused to let that be me.
