In spite of the smallness of the table, or the fact the chairs didn’t match, the setup was oddly intimate, and his heart clenched uncomfortably as April appeared around the corner with a pot in her hand.

  Her eyes met his, and his inner basilisk growled possessively.

  In the same moment, April’s foot bumped into something, and she squeaked as her body pitched forward, pot still in hand.

  In a blur, he was there next to her, one hand catching the pot before its contents spilled all over her clean floor, the other catching April around the side. For a moment, his fingers where he touched her hip burned for more contact. And when she looked up at him, agape, her cheeks were red with either embarrassment or something else.

  Before he pulled her in closer than they already were, Gunnar moved back and set the pot on the table, even as all his nerves clenched with the desire to take her in both his hands and never let go.

  “Wow, you’re fast, you know that?” she said awkwardly as she brushed her hands off and kept her gaze on the floor as she went back into the kitchen to bring in bread and a jar of water. “Thanks for catching me. I’m still a little frazzled after… well, everything.”

  Gunnar nodded. And when she came to sit down, he got her chair for her like he’d seen humans do in old-timey movies before taking a seat himself.

  For a minute, they ate in silence and Gunnar tried his best to not stare as April’s pretty gray-blue eyes seemed to want to look everywhere but at him.

  He’d never had dinner alone with an attractive woman like this.

  Dinner as a basilisk usually meant waking from hibernation in the middle of the desert, devouring whatever was around (preferably bovine), and going back to sleep again.

  And small talk had never been his strongest suit.

  “So is this place yours?” he asked, blurting out the first question that came to mind.

  “I wish. Half of the problems I have are because I’m technically renting, so I can’t do whatever I want without approval.”

  “So it’s your uncle’s?” he guessed on a grim hunch.

  She nodded bashfully as she took a bite of spaghetti.

  Don’t stare, dammit, Gunnar.

  “He owns a lot of properties in and around town. Most of the human establishments at least,” she added, and Gunnar wanted to use his tongue to wipe a stray bit of sauce lingering at the corner of her mouth.

  “Human?” he asked, throat feeling dry.

  “Yeah. There are businesses owned and run by both the Clawsons and the O’Dells on opposite ends. As you can imagine, neither side likes to go to the other’s. Then there are the human businesses, which are kind of like neutral territory, though if one group runs into the other, it can lead to trouble. Uncle Marv is behind most of those.”

  “Sounds pointless.” Though, aside from his anger at these bears and wolves making trouble for humans caught in the middle of their idiotic conflict, Gunnar’s rage toward April’s uncle grew even hotter, imagining some rich, well-to-do pillar of the community who’d let his own niece live in such a ramshackle home.

  He’d fix April’s place from top to bottom just to spite him.

  “I guess it is. It’s just how things have been here for so long. I can’t imagine them being different,” she said with a sigh.

  “Tell me more about you,” he said, changing the subject toward something he was much more curious about.

  “M-me?” she stuttered, dropping her fork on her plate, and Gunnar did his best to hide his grin at her cute surprise.

  “Yes, you. Unless there’s someone else here I don’t know about.”

  She giggled nervously. “No, just me.”

  “Are you from around here?”

  She let out a long breath, gaze looking past him toward nothing in particular. “No, not originally. I was born in Oklahoma. My parents lived in a little place outside Tulsa. But they divorced when I was six, and between their addictions and refusal to get help, it wasn’t safe for me there. So they sent me to live with Uncle Marvin, my dad’s brother, out here in Texas. It was supposed to only be a temporary situation, but…” She trailed off.

  Gunnar’s chest flooded with uncomfortable emotion as he watched April’s gaze go unfocused, then back down to her food as she shrugged. “The rest is history. No point complaining, as my aunt always says.”

  His fist tightened as he listened. Then when he relaxed it, the fork he’d been holding was bent in half, and he hid it in his lap before she could see.

  He didn’t know who to hate most in this situation.

  Everyone but April, he supposed.

  “I’m sorry they weren’t there for you. For what it’s worth, you deserved better.”

  “I just tell myself other people have it worse and that I’m just doing my best, and I feel better.” She wiped something from her eye with a napkin, then grinned again. “So what do you do for a living, Gunnar?” she asked, her voice full of curiosity once more.

  “I’m a basilisk.”

  “What do basilisks do? And can you really turn into those huge things I saw on the internet?”

  “They do basilisk stuff. Protect the land. Keep intruders off our territory.” He kept the part about finding a mate and making her his to himself, though. “To answer your other question…” He paused, just for effect. “You’ll just have to see for yourself.”

  She’d practically been leaning over the table in eagerness, and in response, she jabbed her fork in his direction. “No fair! You can’t leave me hanging like that. After all, I’ve seen bears and wolves shift. I even saw the double dragons change when they visited town a few years ago. But I’ve never seen something the size of a mountain covered with spikes and rocks. You have to admit that sounds pretty cool.”

  He felt his cheeks go warm just hearing her excitement.

  As the basilisk in this situation, no, he didn’t know what it felt like to see a monster like that because he was the monster.

  “I’ll show you sometime,” he said, taking a big bite of spaghetti before he made even more silly promises to this sexy little woman.

  “Promise?” She practically had stars in her eyes at that point.

  He nodded.

  She almost knocked over her glass of water in her excitement, and Gunnar continued to answer her questions about where he’d been, what things he’d done while being a human, and a million other questions until dinner was finished.

  Normally, he hated talking about himself.

  But if it took the sadness out of her eyes, if it distracted her—even for a moment—from thoughts and worries about her own past, he’d talk all damn day if he needed to, whether he actually had much to say or not.

  By the time they were done and he’d helped her wash the dishes (managing to only break one of her plates in the process), it was already late, and the crickets outside had turned the quiet forest surrounding her place into a symphony of chirps and whistles.

  “I’m sorry I don’t have a guest room. My place isn’t quite fancy like that. But I do have a pull-out bed.” She started to unpack the pillows on the sofa, but when she tried to pry out the slightly rusted bed nestled inside, it didn’t budge.

  She deserved a mansion with a thousand guest rooms, all for her, in his opinion.

  “I got it.” At that, he nudged her gently aside and pulled it out with one hand.

  When he looked over, she was yawning, stretching one arm up and making his mouth water with the sight of her curves. “You need sleep. Get to bed,” he demanded before she fell asleep where she stood.

  She’d had a damn long day. She deserved rest.

  April folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Okay, Mr. Bossy Basilisk.” But even as she made her way toward the hall that led toward her room most likely, she couldn’t hide the rosy hue on her cheeks.

  Then she paused at the doorway, looking vulnerable and nervous. “Thanks again. I can’t even express how grateful I am, Gunnar.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said with a wave of his hand, avoiding eye contact.

  His beast was already too connected to her. Too hungry for her. Any closer, and she’d see what he really was.

  A possessive, obsessed, insatiable monster that had no business with someone as perfect and beautiful as she was.

  “Good night,” she said, lingering a second longer and watching him set up the bed before disappearing down the hall.

  Toward her bed.

  It took every ounce of his sizable self-control to not picture her undressing. To not think about her soft hips and full lips and expressive eyes he wanted to make roll back in pleasure more than anything else in the world right now. To not imagine what her voice would sound like caught up in the throes of pleasure as he made her come over and over.

  Fuck, he thought. This isn’t going to end well.

  Too awake to possibly sleep right now, he went out the front door and sat on the porch instead, focusing on the chaos in Clawson’s Creek and what he and the others were going to do about it.

  He didn’t know what was going on in this crazy town, but he hoped Reno and his friends got to the bottom of it fast, before any more danger came for April.

  Though, not too fast, he supposed.

  His basilisk was too interested in her to leave just yet.

  8

  The next morning, April awoke suddenly with a gasp.

  All night, she’d been running from furred creatures as flames had tried to stop her in her path at every turn. Then, just before she’d awoken, she’d stared up at something colossal with glowing red eyes that made her feel oddly at peace despite everything chasing her.

  Her thoughts filtered back to the day before.

  Did that all really happen? she wondered as she got up and started to get ready for work upon seeing she only had a half hour before she needed to be at the coffee shop before the morning customers arrived.

  She remembered the meeting. Bill’s face getting crushed. The fire.

  Then Gunnar following her home.

  She pulled on a pair of leggings, followed by her blue work shirt that read “Claire’s Cafe” on the pocket, just as the smell of bacon and eggs hit her senses, and her stomach growled.

  By the time she was striding into the kitchen, pulling her frizzy, undone hair into a bun, she still wasn’t sure if there actually had been a giant, sexy beast of a man that had followed her home or if it was just a figment of her imagination.

  Then she saw Gunnar in the kitchen, preparing breakfast.

  Nope, not a dream, she thought as her mouth watered, not from the food.

  He’d changed from his work shirt into a white T-shirt with a logo on the back that hugged the muscles of his shoulders tightly, granting her a better view of the tattoos that went all up his forearms and biceps and even poked out from beneath the collar of his shirt.

  Do they go everywhere? she thought for the twentieth time.

  He’d also changed into black jeans that showed off an impressive ass and thick, muscled legs that went down to the black work boots he’d worn yesterday.

  A girl could really lose herself looking at such—

  “What are you staring at?” Gunnar’s voice cut the silence that had been punctuated only by the sizzling of bacon a second before, startling April and making her wonder how in the heck he’d known she was there.

  When he looked over his shoulder at her, he was grinning. And as she came toward the table, he set a plate of food out for her, followed by one for himself.

  If this was all a dream, she definitely didn’t want to wake up.

  But the eggs were real and delicious. As was the bacon.

  Eating just made her hungrier for something else, though.

  “So you have work today?” Gunnar asked, peering at the name tag attached to her shirt.

  “Yeah, I work at a coffee shop weekday mornings.”

  Gunnar gave her a suspicious glance. “Let me guess, one owned by your uncle?”

  She gulped on the glass of milk she’d been drinking and held back a cough, trying to not choke on it.

  “Yes.”

  Gunnar rolled his eyes at that. “That’s why I’m coming along.”

  “What? No. You can’t. You’ll scare off the customers.” She could picture it now, Gunnar growling angrily as patrons came in, a terrifying sight to behold in a tiny cafe.

  On second thought, maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.

  “That depends. Do you have customers that need scaring off?” He raised an eyebrow at her, his one red eye seeming as if it could stare into her soul.

  “Not… usually.” Anything was possible when the town was in an uproar like this.

  “My point exactly.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, then shut it.

  For once, it was refreshing to be around someone that was firmly on her side. Not the Clawsons’ or O’Dells’ or her uncle’s. It soothed her soul a little and made her attraction for him even more desperate.

  “Your car’s working if you want to drive.” He interrupted her thoughts and pushed her plate toward her, reminding her to eat.

  “The cafe is a lot closer, and I enjoy the walk.” That and she enjoyed walking next to Gunnar. Enjoyed getting to know more about him.

  Not that he wasn’t incredibly nice to look at too.

  “Then we walk. And on the way, I’ll tell you about the other things around your place that need fixing and what I’m going to do about it while I’m here.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” she said back with a giggle, both excited and afraid to find out.

  “April, thank goodness you’re here. The coffee machine is acting up again,” April’s co-worker, Raven, expressed loudly the second she and Gunnar strode into the cafe.

  After the short walk with Gunnar, she didn’t know if she should be amazed by all the things he’d discovered needed replaced or fixed on her property or worried that her house could burst into flames at any moment.

  But as she quickly strode in and came behind the counter, she didn’t have time to overthink things.

  Raven, who had dyed-black hair and was in her late forties, had been a part-time worker for a long time, so all the major problems that plagued Claire’s Cafe tended to fall on April’s shoulders.

  “Dang it. I told Marvin last month he needed to order a new one,” April said to herself as she started to fiddle with knobs and dials, trying to bring their coffeemaker back into working shape before the morning started.

  Raven nodded, standing aside, then looked up behind April as her dark eyes went wide with surprise, interest, or both. “And who is this?”

  She looked over her shoulder and saw Gunnar coming around the counter as he appraised the coffeemaker with the same cold glare she’d seen him use on her car and front door.

  “Let me take a look,” he said in that surly don’t question me tone, and April backed away, knowing better than to try and fight him on being helpful.

  “You new in town?” Raven asked, eyes glinting with curiosity as her gaze raked over Gunnar’s muscles.

  My basilisk, her thoughts yelled suddenly.

  Her basilisk? That was a crazier idea than any she’d ever had in her entire life. Like keeping an untamed pet crocodile. Or base jumping without a parachute.

  “Gunnar’s in town for a few days. He’s my…” She trailed off, uncertain what to say exactly.

  Gunnar growled something to himself, and for a moment, April could have sworn she heard him say the word “mate.” But then she looked over at him, and he quickly responded, “Personal bodyguard.”

  He went silent at that, and Raven took the moment while his focus was on the machine to lean in and whisper conspiratorially in April’s ear. “I’d let him guard me personally too, if you know what I mean. I hope you and he are—”

  Suddenly, there was a loud hiss, and hot steam spewed from the machine, enveloping Gunnar’s hand that had been tinkering with it as well as his whole upper body in white mist.

  In an instant, April grabbed a towel and rushed to the sink, running cold water over it and then running toward Gunnar as he pulled back and the steam began to dissipate.

  “I’m so sorry, Gunnar! It does that sometimes. I should have said something.” She took his hand and wrapped the cold towel around it, pressing her fingers lightly to try and cool his skin.

  After all, she’d been burned dozens of times by the machine. And Gunnar had left his hand lingering in the steam way longer than she normally would have.

  Gunnar just stared down at April, not pulling his hand away but not saying anything either.

  For several moments, she held the ice-cold towel on his hand, ignoring the warmth that rose within her core at just the nearness of his body. At the odd intimacy of the touch as Gunnar let her care for him.

  It was like she could fit two of her hands just in one of his. Such big, strong hands…

  But he didn’t wince. Or make any noise at all, which was odd for someone whose hand likely just got burned.

  When she looked up at him, he was smirking at her in amusement.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked, annoyed as his grin widened slightly. “I was just trying to help. I’ve been burned lots of times by this thing, you know.”

  “Look for yourself.” He motioned toward his hand.

  Gingerly, she pulled back the towel, expecting there to at least be some redness. But instead, it was just Gunnar’s palm, which extended out to big, rough fingers.

  Everything looked perfectly normal and unharmed.

  Leaving her with just the shivering feeling coursing up her own fingertips wherever her skin touched his and the vague sense he was toying with her.

  The audacity.

  “Your coffeemaker works now,” he said with a low, cocky voice that sent another shiver down her neck.

  Her face flushed, and her heart raced as she took the towel and stormed back toward the sink with a huff. “When were you going to tell me you were completely fine the whole time?” In honesty, she was glad he hadn’t been burned.