He leaned back in his chair, his expression closed. “You did roll me last night, didn’t you?”
Crap. She put her palm to her chest. “Do I look like a Sidhe?” She allowed a brief puff of smoke to exit her nostrils, enough that he caught it but not enough to get in trouble with the very human wait staff.
His lips slowly curved up in a smile. “A dragon. I can’t remember the last time I met one of you.” His genuine delight dotted the gloomy mist around him with a happy silver and gold glitter. Some of the darkness around him receded, a figure of a man with glowing red eyes shoved out of the picture. “I’m going to make a wild guess and say your temperament is fiery?” She tried to focus on him while Tristan spoke, but the image faded too quickly for her to latch on to it.
“Good guess.” She studied the figures around him, noting faces, expressions, anything that might help protect the Dunnes.
He thanked the waitress for refilling his coffee cup and waited until she’d gone. “You seem different than the woman I saw on the video feed.”
“That was business.” She ran one finger down the back of his hand and batted her lashes. “This is pleasure.”
He relaxed a bit more but she could sense the tension still in him. “Nice to know you find my company a pleasure.”
She took a deep breath and prepared to lure her little fishy in. “Want to go some place private? Somewhere we can…talk?” She licked her lips, smiling when his gaze glued itself to her mouth.
“I’d love to, but unfortunately I have other plans.” He took hold of her hand. “However, if you would be willing to join me for dinner, I’d be more than willing to discuss…talking…further.” He pressed a kiss to her knuckles, an open invitation clear in his eyes.
Akane suppressed a shiver. She didn’t like his lips on her skin, the way his finger caressed her palm before letting her go. “It’s a date.”
She waved as he took his leave. What the fuck was wrong with her? She’d wanted to gag at the feel of Tristan’s mouth on her, his breath so close it stirred the fine hairs of her arm. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed Etienne leaving the restaurant. She’d wait about fifteen minutes before following him out. They couldn’t be seen together, not now that she’d hooked their fish.
Besides, there was still pie left on her plate.
Shane followed his father into the tack room and grabbed one of the leather harnesses that needed repairing. His father could move from one edge of his property to another in the blink of an eye, but Sean Dunne loved horses and rode them simply for the joy of it.
“Why haven’t you Claimed her yet?”
Shane studied the harness and gathered what he’d need to repair it. “She’s skittish.”
“Then you need to break her in.”
He shot his father a look before turning the harness in his hands. “She needs a gentle touch.”
“She needs to be ridden.”
Shane choked on thin air. “I am not discussing this with you.”
Sean Dunne frowned. “Why not?” The man could have easily been a model; at four-hundred-and-twenty-five years of age his Seeming still had the looks of a twenty-seven year old human, a gift from his bonding his Sidhe mate. His true appearance was even more stunning. When Sean Dunne allowed his inner leprechaun to show, those sapphire eyes glowed with power. His skin would show the brown whorls of his earthy heritage and his dark hair would grow, landing at shoulder length. The strength of the earth itself flowed in Shane’s father, and there was no one he admired more.
But he still wasn’t discussing his sex life with the man. “Leave it be, Da.”
“No. Not until you tell me why.”
“Because you’re my father.”
Sean snorted in disgust. “Please. Like I don’t know what that thing between your legs is begging you to do.”
“Da!” Leave it to an earth sprite to get…earthy. Shane pointed the tool he was using at his father and scowled. “Don’t make me call Ma.”
Sean grinned, completely unrepentant. “You need her. She needs you. Get her ass tipsy and topple her, boy.”
Shane was horrified. This was getting worse and worse. “Is that the advice you gave Leo?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
His father shot him a knowing look. “Because he’s not you.” Sean dropped the tack back on the scarred work table and took Shane’s face between his hands. “Leo is like your mother. Gentle, with a core of strength none can deny. Moira is more like me, willing to fight with all her strength for what’s right but able to turn around and admit when she’s wrong. And you?”
Shane took a deep breath at the look on his father’s face. “What about me?”
“You’re the best of us both.” His father leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “But don’t tell your sister I said that. I don’t think I could handle the puppy eyes.”
Shane closed his eyes and swallowed. “Thanks, Da.”
Sean released him and Shane opened his eyes. “She needs you, Shane. She needs us.”
“I know.” Shane leaned against the table. “Her life before us was cold.” He allowed the vision that had driven him to create Akane dance behind his eyes. “No room to fly, no place to be free.”
Sean scowled, the part that made him such an incredible father ready to defend his son’s mate against all comers. “Her mother didn’t abuse her, did she?”
Shane shook his head. “No, not really. She tried her best, but can anyone truly understand the needs of a young dragon but another dragon?” He’d slipped back into his mother’s native language, speaking to his father in the Sidhe tongue as they often did when trading secrets. “Her father died to keep the Seer safe, sacrificing himself so she could escape with an infant Akane.” Shane swallowed. He could only imagine the Seer’s devastation as she’d fled, knowing her mate’s fate, and her own. “She knew, Da. She knew when she met him what would happen and loved him anyway.”
“There’s strength in that.”
“Aye. And she’s done her best for Akane since, but even the Seer can’t see into her heart.”
“Can you?”
He sighed. “I’m trying.”
“Perhaps you see her better than most.”
Shane was pleased that he didn’t jump. He was equally pleased that his father did. It served him right after the discomfort of their previous discussion.
Only Robin Goodfellow could sneak up on a leprechaun on his own land. The bond between a leprechaun and the land he laid claim to was incredibly strong. Sean could sense every single person on it, hear whispers a mile away, open holes in the ground barely a pin wide that went all the way to the core of the earth. It took a minor deity to sneak up on him on a bad day.
Robin did it without even trying.
“Good day, Robin.”
The redheaded menace stepped into the tack room wearing the gaudiest western shirt Shane had ever seen. If he stepped into any straight bar in Nebraska every redneck for miles would try and kick his ass for that shirt alone. Add in the super tight jeans, the shiny alligator boots and the black cowboy hat with the purple-checked bandana for a band, and you had one fey-looking fae. “And good day to you, Shane Dunne.” Robin leaned against the door jamb, his arms crossed, one toe digging into the scratched wooden floor. “Akane giving you fits?”
Shane eyed the Hob’s outfit. “Is this your way of telling me I should giddy-up?”
Robin grinned and pulled something out of thin air. The silver and gold object glittered in the light, the intricate lines and swirls etched in it as familiar as Shane’s own skin. “I think you understand her quite well.”