Rejected by Alpha, Collected by Dragon

Chapter 2. How do you take your tea?

Chloe

It feels like I’ve been crying for hours. My eyes are raw and puffy, and my throat feels like I’d gargled with nails. I sniffle, wiping my nose with the back of my hand and leave a trail of snot from my knuckles to my wrist. Gross! At least there's no one here to witness that.

I look up to find a man standing between me and the entrance to the alley, watching me quietly. I gasp in surprise and fear, as well as a touch of embarrassment. I wait for him to do something, say something, but he just stands there, silently watching me. I can’t see him clearly. He’s backlit from the light that barely reaches this far back in the narrow space between the buildings. He’s tall, though, well over six foot, and wide. He’s wearing a loose jacket that hangs to his knees, but it does nothing to disguise broad shoulders and a thick neck.

I bite my lip uncertainly. Maybe I should say something? Surely, if he had been planning to attack me, he’d have done it by now, right? I shift on my feet and sniffle again.

“You’re a curious little thing, aren’t you?” he has a strange accent, but his voice is soft and rumbly and oddly comforting.

“I don’t… who are you?” I ask, not sure what else to say. “What do you want?”

He steps towards me, and I cringe back, suddenly feeling cornered and vulnerable. As he gets closer, I can make out more details about him. He’s attractive, in a rugged sort of way. Where Alpha Dominick is all polished refinement, the man standing in front of me now looks like he could wrestle alligators and win. His strong jaw is covered with a dark stubble, black hair pulled into a low ponytail, and his black t-shirt and jeans under the jacket show off a muscular physique that at any other time, would have made me drool. His eyes, though, are what holds me under some sort of spell. They’re golden honey colored, and regard at me with an intensity I’d normally associate with considering a piece of art one would be interested in buying. In one hand he carries a phone with a shattered screen and a laptop that looks like someone had taken a bat to it or run it over with their car. Maybe both.

“Would you like to join me for a cup of tea?” he asks.

My mouth works open and closed a few times. No. Definitely not! We do not join strange men for a cup of tea! “Sure,” I whimper, not sure why I’m agreeing to this.

He smiles at me and holds out his free hand. Did he want to hold hands? That would be weird, right? I approach him cautiously, but instead of reaching for me, he turns and leads me out of the alley and across the street to a car that looks to be held together with rust, duct tape, and fervent prayers. He tosses the laptop and phone in the backseat to join a motley collection of other broken things, before holding the door open and smiling at me, indicating I should get in. It seems rude not to accept his offer even though my brain is screaming at me to run away.

I don’t live in the best part of town, but it’s certainly several steps up from the hovel he drives through. I have an urge to lock the door as wolves eye us suspiciously from front stoops as we navigate the filthy streets. He pulls to a stop in front of a building that, although it looks just as hopeless as the rest on the block, at least it’s somewhat better maintained.

He unlocks the front door and turns, waiting patiently for me to make up my mind to risk the threat that seems almost familiar at this point, or to try my luck walking back through the unfamiliar neighborhood potentially hiding dozens of unseen dangers.

I’ve come this far, I shrug, joining him on the front step. He smiles down at me, but it doesn’t quite reach his unusual eyes, and he pushes inside the building.

I follow him up two flights of stairs, straining to hear if there’s any sound or sign of any other living thing in the building, but our footsteps echo eerily in the stair well. He leads me down a short hall where he unlocks a door, holding it open for me to go in first. Inside, the apartment is very tidy and welcoming. Large windows overlook the street. It’s not much of a view, but at least they let in plenty of natural light. There isn’t much in the way of furniture- a well-worn, brown leather couch, a glass-top coffee table, and a small desk with a sleek looking laptop. There’s a flat screen tv on one wall, the rest of the walls are covered in shelves that are jam packed with a random assortment of things. Computers, tablets, phones, crockery, books, statuettes… there seems to be no rhyme or reason to any of it. The only commonality is they’re all, each and every one, broken in some way. Phones with smashed screens, books torn in half, a teddy bear with the stuffing spilling out from a hole in its neck.

I turn to see my host hanging up his coat in a small closet by the front door. I take the opportunity to really look at him, and holy hotness, Batman! His black t-shirt stretches across a broad chest, the sleeves straining to containing massive biceps that look like both my hands together wouldn’t fit around. His waist narrows, and I imagine under the dark material, his abs would be utterly lickable. His dark wash jeans do nothing to disguise tree trunk legs, his powerful thighs pulling the denim tight. It’s the huge bulge in the front of his pants that I can’t seem to look away from, though. Talk about a weapon of mass destruction! I might not have any first-hand knowledge of what a man was packing, but I’ve watched my share of porn. And I have a very good imagination.

Suddenly, I realize he’s watching me staring at his goodies. My eyes snap up to his face and heat flares in my cheeks. Quickly, I turn around to peruse the strange items on the shelf closest to me finding a baby doll missing half its hair, an eye, and a leg particularly interesting.

“What is all this junk?” I ask, trying to distract him from my embarrassing blunder.

“Junk?” his deep voice rumbles through me, sending a rush of heat to my core even though I can clearly tell he’s annoyed at the term. “It’s not junk. This is my collection.”

I glance over my shoulder at him. “You collect broken things?”

He nods, adding the laptop and phone he’d been carrying earlier to a shelf already sagging slightly under the weight of its contents.

“Do you fix them?” I ask.

His eyes slide over to me and I have to resist the urge to squirm under his scrutiny. “No, why would I do that?”

“To… fix them?” my brain feels like mush under his stare and I look away again.

“But then they wouldn’t be broken,” he points out, “and then I wouldn’t want them.”

“Is that why you brought me here?” I ask softly. I want to pick something up to give my hands something to do, but instead I just play with the hem of my shirt. “Because you think I’m broken?”

“Aren’t you?” I can hear the laughter in his voice and it makes my temper flare.

I whirl around to face him, startled to find he’d come across the room silently. He now stands an arm’s length away, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “No,” my voice is slightly breathless at his nearness, but my temper is still winning the war between my brain and my mouth. “I might be a little chipped at the moment, but I’m not broken. I won’t let him break me,” I end on a whimper.

His fingers caress my jaw gently and he closes the distance between us. “Pity,” I can feel the movement of his lips on mine as he speaks. My eyes flutter closed and my lips part on a sigh as I wait to feel him press against me fully. Instead, I feel the not unpleasant scrape of his stubble on my cheek and his warm breath on my ear. “Do you take sugar in your tea?” he whispers huskily.

I sway on my feet and nearly moan until his words sink in.

Wait, what? Those were not the sweet whispered nothings I wanted!

My eyes fly open again. He’s standing a few feet away, his hands tucked in his pockets, a smirk firmly entrenched on his mouth. “Sugar. For your tea,” I can definitely hear the laughter in his voice now. “I hope chamomile is acceptable.”

I blink at him, frozen in place. “Chamomile is fine,” my voice sounds foreign to me, thick and raspy. “No sugar.”

He nods and moves away to go to the kitchen. Unsure what I’m supposed to do, I follow. He glances at a small, ancient looking wooden table with three chairs set around it, and I take the hint and sit down. One of the legs on the chair is shorter than the others and it rocks slightly. I want to fidget, to keep rocking the chair, but I force myself to stay still as I watch him fill an electric kettle with water. He takes two chipped mugs out of a cabinet and places a teabag in each.

“I’m surprised you use a kettle,” I say, trying to distract myself from the mesmerizing way he moves. He doesn’t say anything, but he quirks an eyebrow at me in question. “I thought as a dragon, you’d just breathe fire to heat the water.”

He huffs a breath out through his nose, but I can’t tell if it’s out of annoyance or amusement. “So, you know what I am,” he says quietly, filling the mugs with the steaming water and bringing them to the table.

“I guessed in the alley,” I nod. “Seeing your… treasure hoard kind of sealed it. I thought a dragon’s treasure was supposed to be worth something, though.”

“You don’t think there’s value in broken things?” the corner of his mouth twitches, but his eyes are intense.

“I don’t think you’d make much trying to sell a smashed laptop,” I point out.

He steeps his teabag thoughtfully. “I’m not trying to sell them, though.”

“Yeah, but still,” I shrug. I don’t want to insult him, but I’d always assumed dragon treasure was like, gold and precious gems. Not a chipped coffee mug with a generic orange cat that reads ‘I hate Tuesdays.’ Wasn’t that supposed to be Mondays?

“Broken things have better stories,” he says softly.

I’m not sure my mate rejecting me at first look makes a very good story. All the romance books I’ve ever read were love at first sight, not rejection and leave. “Do dragons have mates?” I ask suddenly.

“No.”

I wait for him to elaborate, but he just keeps steeping the teabag in his mug. “What about chosen mates?” I press.

“No.”

“Do you get lonely?” I huff out, annoyed at the one-word responses.

“No.”

I bite my tongue hoping that would stop me from saying something stupid. “You’re such a good conversationalist, though,” sarcasm drips off every word. I guess biting my tongue didn’t work. “How do you not have dragon females falling over themselves to share your hoard?”

His eyes meet mine and I suck in a breath at the warning I see there. “Dragons do not share,” he growls. Once again, his voice sends heat racing through me and I press my thighs together, knowing his sense of smell is probably just as good, if not better, than mine, and he could no doubt smell my arousal. “Dragons are solitary creatures,” he says as he removes his teabag from the water and sets it on a small plate before reaching for mine. “We only come together to breed, and we live for a very long time, so we don’t breed very often.”

“Oh,” I whisper, feeling unusually disappointed. I sip my tea, trying to ignore the strange way he’s watching me.

“It’s been a long time,” he says at length.

“A long time since when?” I ask, not looking up.

“Since I invited someone to my…”

“Lair?” I suggest with a smirk.

“Home,” he grins. “I’m Duncan.”

I look up into his eyes. They’re still intense, but he seems to have softened slightly. “Chloe,” I smile back at him.

“Would you like to watch a movie with me?”

His question throws me off-balance. I sigh, knowing I should go. I’d taken off in the middle of my shift at the coffee house and really should go back. Suddenly, I stop. I’d left because our Alpha rejected me as his mate in front of everyone there. Brenda would expect me to take the rest of the day off! “Yeah,” I nod. “Whatcha got?”