Strung along - The Dragon shifter's human mate

Window shopping

Jordan

Lazily gazing at the widows of the shops I pass, my mind is still on the girl I met several nights ago. My fires make it impossible to forget her face, and I get angry whenever I think about the disastrous attempt to follow her. She drives like she’s in one of those action movies. ’Need for speed’ Maryland. That can’t be healthy for any part of her car. I’m pretty sure it would break Silas’ heart to see it or even just hear it. Because she’s audible from miles away. How is it, then, that I haven’t found her yet?!

I had my family look into ‘Stiltzer,’ and they pulled up a lot of stuff that could be called concerning, at the very least. Starting with dubious hiring practices and continuing with access-locked files on many known shifters, some of which went missing within the last two years. Khai has spent the whole of last night trying to decode them. Their disappearances have never been linked to anything shady. Most of them weren’t exactly ‘known’ for their strong ties or being upstanding citizens. And them going missing never seemed to portray a pattern before. No location that their disappearances had in common or a time frame one could connect.

Those aren’t the only files I made my brother go through. My fingers close around the picture of HER in my jacket pocket. I printed it out after we found her employee record at the strip club. P.L. Lawson. It didn’t have a full name on file and didn’t list an address. When Khai called to inquire about that (because it’s strange, people), they said they didn’t know how that happened, and only Ruby could answer that question, but she wasn’t in.

‘How is she getting paid if you don’t have an address to send her her check?’

‘She picks it up every Friday at 09:30 sharp. Never seen a girl so punctual.’

Suck’s that it’s Sunday. I have to wait almost a week to go and try to meet her at the club. Because even the medical school had only the address of a post office box on file. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?! It’s like she’s practically a ghost. But that’s not even the strangest thing. Why the f*ck is there a sealed felony record under the abbreviated name in the employee records? Something I will have to ask her in person because my brother does many shady things, but after what happened with Luca a few years back and how we almost got found out due to him hacking into government systems, he refuses to go anywhere near them without a safety net. Which will take him some time to code.

Whenever I close my eyes, I still see that specific greenish blue of hers, the golden ring around the pupil glowing. Her car was a sh*t pile of rusting metal, and her clothes were clean (meticulous even) but not new by any means. She works the night shift at a shady strip club miles from her home (50 to be exact if I go by her shouting at her car) and is a student. All this means I can count out all the more expensive neighborhoods. Another reason why I chose this mall to finally get the present I promised Khai. We definitely can't turn up at Greer's dinner empty-handed.

My brother is a sucker for sentimental things. So I had a print shop pull his favorite picture of his little family on canvas. Could I have done this online? Sure. But this is an excuse to scour yet another place I could run into my mate again. Pretty sure that’s what she is.

OK. I KNOW that’s what she is. So why do I have such a hard time getting my hopes up regarding this relationship? I have never been in one that lasted longer than three months. But I’m not Luca. No one ever burned me like my youngest brother was. Still, the thought of giving all that time and energy to someone seems suffocating. It makes me feel claustrophobic. Giving up part of who I am and supposedly doing so willingly? Creepy scary.

Seeing Greer in all his domestic bliss makes me jealous of my brother and feels like a bad omen of what’s to come for me all at once. I used to have something I now know was similar to an anxiety attack whenever someone tried to get more serious. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, my thoughts spinning in circles, especially the intrusive ones were louder than ever. I can’t… lose my niche. That’s what they kept telling me. 'Giving in' means giving up. Losing what sets me apart from my siblings and the people in my family. And as shitty as that sounds, we all want that thing that makes us special. Not only in our own eyes but also in the eyes of our loved ones.

Silas is the brooding one, Greer is the nice one. Luca is the smart one, but a little intense, and Khai is… Khai. I’m the flirty one, the wanna-be-rockstar that bangs groupies in dark back allies and is great at handling paparazzi. For days now, I haven’t been able to shake this feeling of a big change coming, and I wouldn’t admit it outright, but I’m a little scared that I might lose a big part of myself to it. And that the blonde has everything to do with it… My mate.

I still want to find her, though. Even if just to HAVE her. My ‘collectors’ mind likes the idea of that. 'Snarky, hot blonde with blueish-green eyes? Yes, we will add that to our collection.' Maybe even give her a special display case and never let anyone touch her but me because she’s too precious, and if anything ever happened to her, I would literally——

Whoa! This has been happening since the blood moon. Whenever I think about her, it starts this spiral of possessive thoughts that are usually the opposite of what I want and am looking for in a girl. I don’t want to know your name, and if you don’t mind not taking all your clothes off so you’ll be gone faster, even better.

But with her… the fact that I don’t know anything useful about her drives me nuts.

I go through the motions, following the crowd around the mall and when a small group of she-wolves stops me, I take a picture and talk to them for a moment.

Practiced. All of it in a weird way rehearsed, and starting to get on my f**king nerves. Conversations with Valentina, Silas’ mate, pop into my head. Whenever I talk to her or my brother, I have the urge to … I don’t know. Give good advice…? Even if I never follow it myself. She’s to be helped and protected. Like Jade, like my little sister. The same little sister who hasn't listened to my advice in years and got angry at me when I sucker punched her mate, who I rightfully thought had kidnapped her. As a sibling, I still want the best for them… and would never tell them that all I care about is what others think of me.

That I have to. That being shallow, loving my hair, and, in general, being vain is part of the image I have to uphold. Because somehow, we all play a role in our family. And I'm the one no one really worries about, but they also don’t take me too seriously a lot of the time.

They would never undermine my talent, and my parents have supported me every step of the way. My siblings even made weird fan shirts for my first real gig… but there is still this nagging part in the back of my head that arrived when the first girl tried to suck me off after a performance.

When the first camera got shoved in my face, a paparazzi asked: “So who are you here with tonight, Jordan?” That feeling that it’s never just about me. It’s always about what I can give, what I can bring to the table. That’s how a family unit works. They love you unconditionally but… in the conditional way that they want you to strive, or their life will be ruined, and they will not be able to sleep at night.

My mind is a cluster f*ck as the girls take their pictures. I smile through it all and say ‘bye’ absentmindedly. Before I trudge on, my shopping bag in hand. And that’s when I see a familiar head of hair duck into a store to my right. The closer I get, the more familiar the tall redhead standing close to the door looks.

Smirking at Benedict, I walk through the aisles until I find Noemi. He doesn’t have to, but the guardsman still follows her when she leaves the palace. After what happened last year, it makes sense that everyone was super cautious for a long time, but with the trial over, we all have relaxed. Benedict just really likes my sister-in-law. They’re more friends than anything else now. And if we can scare off strangers who ask stupid questions about her eye color, even better.

When I find her in an aisle in the back, Noemi is holding Wren, balancing her on one hip, and pulling clothes out with her free hand. Clothes that look way too small for my almost one-year-old niece. Oh. MY.GODDESS!

“You’re pregnant again!”