Dragon Proposing (Torch Lake Shifters Book 2) Read online

  Rachel nodded and slid off her barstool to follow Jake across the room. As she settled into her new seat, she broached the subject she knew was on both of their minds.

  “You saw the press conference, right?”

  He nodded, but did not comment. Instead, his eyes darkened and he took a long sip of his beer. Tempted to ask him whether he had seen her text, Rachel decided instead to ask him his thoughts on the High Council’s announcement. Whining about whether or not he had answered her text seemed like something a petty girl would do, and she didn’t want to come across as petty. She already felt so small, having just gone from one of the richest wizards in the land to perhaps one of the poorest.

  “You know what the announcement means, right?” she asked.

  He shifted his eyes to her, and chewed his lower lip for a moment before responding.

  “Yes. It means we’re screwed. There’s no chance left for me to run for People’s Governor, or for you to recover your family’s fortune.”

  Rachel lowered her eyes slowly and nodded. So he did understand. He wasn’t some hopeful, disillusioned shifter who thought there was a chance for the High Council to remake the law in less than a month.

  For a few minutes, the two of them sat in silence as they drank their beers. What was there to say, really? Both of them had had their dreams crushed today. Rachel was nearly finished with her ale by the time Jake spoke up.

  “Thank you for all of your help with the protest. I know it’s too late for us, but I guess I’m trying to take some small comfort from the fact that we made a difference for those who still have more than thirty days.”

  Rachel felt her frustration rising, and she nearly snapped at Jake that she didn’t take much comfort in that fact. But at that moment, Joe the bartender showed up, unbidden, placing a fresh lager in front of Jake and another ale in front of Rachel.

  “Um, I didn’t order another drink,” Rachel said, confused.

  Joe raised an eyebrow at her. “No. But you want one, don’t you?”

  “Uh, yeah. I guess I do.”

  “Well then. Cheers.”

  Rachel felt Jake’s eyes on her as Joe ambled away, but she refused to meet his gaze. She stared down at her swirling drink, waiting for Jake to look away or say something, but he never did. Instead, he kept staring at her until she couldn’t hold in her annoyance anymore.

  “What?” she snapped, her voice sharper than she’d intended as she looked up at him with venom in her eyes. His eyes widened slightly in surprise, but he quickly recovered and pasted a neutral expression on his face.

  “Nothing. I was just thinking that I felt sorry for you. It must be hard to go from having everything you want to having to work for a living.”

  Rachel gave him a hard look. She was having a hard time telling whether he was mocking her or not. She should have let the statement go, but she was so angry right now that she couldn’t. She hadn’t come out here to be made fun of. All she’d wanted was to be left alone to drink away her sorrows. Never mind the fact that Jake was a regular at the Winking Wizard and had more claim to this place than she did. It didn’t matter. If he only wanted to be a jerk, he should have just left her alone. She felt her fury growing, and she started guzzling her ale just to keep from saying something she’d regret. Jake said nothing as she finished her beer in a matter of minutes. A few moments later, Joe quietly took away her empty mug and set a fresh ale in front of her. This time, Rachel didn’t make any comments about how she hadn’t ordered a beer. Instead, she started chugging that one, too. Jake, who was slowly nursing his own beer, looked up at her and sighed.

  “I’m sorry if I offended you. I only meant that I get it. I was trying to sympathize, because I know this is hard for you. I know it sucks. I’m on the losing team too, remember?”

  This time, Rachel couldn’t hold back her anger. “You have no idea how I feel, or how hard this is for me. I have it way worse than you.”

  Jake looked at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. “What the hell? You have it worse than me? Why? Because you won’t be able to buy your five hundredth pair of shoes? Forgive me if I’m not over here weeping over all your deep losses.”

  Rachel took several more big gulps of her beer before giving full reign to her anger. She knew better than to yell at Jake, and somewhere deep inside her a small voice was still yelling at her to shut up before she said something she truly regretted. But after two and a half beers and a morning from hell, she was in no mood to listen to logic.

  “Please. You can sit over there on your high horse and act like my situation doesn’t matter because it’s only money I’m losing. But you know what? It’s more than just money. It’s an inheritance. It’s my family’s priceless heirlooms. Their legacy. It’s all I have left of them. And when my thirty days is up, it’s gone forever. I can never get it back. Ever. You on the other hand…all you want is to run for People’s Governor. I get that it’s upsetting for your career to be held up because of a stupid law, but at least you’ll get another chance. It sucks for now, but in five years elections will come around again. By then the marriage requirement laws will be gone, and you’ll have your chance at becoming People’s Governor. This ruling isn’t the end of everything for you. It’s just a delay. For me, on the other hand, it’s the end. Laws cannot be applied retroactively, so once I lose my family’s fortune, it’s gone forever. I don’t get any second chances.”

  Jake’s eyes darkened again. “You think it’s that simple, huh? That I can just run for office again and it’ll be the same as if I was doing so right now? That shows how little you know. This election is huge. It’s a once in a lifetime chance to become People’s Governor while Torch Lake is still young. This town is still in its infancy, and how things play out over the next few years will have a huge, permanent impact on the city and its people. There will be another chance to be People’s Governor, yes, but there is only this one chance to be the first People’s Governor. There’s only this one chance to set the tone for how the city is going to be governed. There’s only this one chance to get the city started off right. If I don’t run, William Graves is going to get the position by default, and he’s going to botch things up big time. He has no government experience, and he doesn’t give a shit about the people here. He only wants fame and glory for himself, and he’s going to ruin a lot of people’s lives by doing a piss-poor job as People’s Governor.”

  Rachel guzzled more of her beer. Jake’s words had done nothing to quench her anger. In fact, they’d only stoked it. She slammed her glass down, and happily reached out for the next beer, which Joe had quietly brought over to her. “You’ll have to excuse me if I still don’t feel all that sorry for you. So things might get off to a bad start. So what? You’ll still have another chance. It’s not forever. My situation is forever, Jake. I never get my inheritance back.”

  Jake glared at her and tipped his own beer mug back, guzzling it down and slamming the empty mug onto the table with a bang. “I don’t have another chance. That’s what you’re not getting. There’s only one chance to be the first People’s Governor. And the first People’s Governor will have an unalterable influence on this town. So you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t see how your concerns over lost money give you more right to be upset than my worries over actual people’s actual lives.”

  Rachel stared at him, aghast. “This is my actual life. But I guess since I grew up rich my feelings don’t matter.”

  Jake rolled his eyes at her. “This may come as a shock to you, but there are a lot worse things to be than poor. I’m going to go grab a smoke.”

  He stood and stormed toward the front door of the bar, leaving a shocked Rachel behind, fuming. She drank the rest of her beer quickly, and was about to tell Joe that she didn’t want another one when she realized that the bartender had not brought her another one.

  Impressive, Rachel thought. How did he know I didn’t want any more? That guy is good.

  She stood and wobbled up to the bar, surprised b
y how unsteady she felt on her feet as the four beers she’d had hit her. The effect hadn’t been as noticeable when she was sitting down, but now she realized that she’d had quite a bit of alcohol in the last ten minutes.

  “I’m ready to pay out,” she called to Joe, who glanced up at her with a friendly smile as she approached, as though he hadn’t just seen her arguing vehemently with one of his regular customers.

  “Twenty bucks.”

  Rachel fished out a twenty and a five from her purse and laid them down on the counter.

  “Have a nice day,” she said politely as she turned to leave. But Joe’s voice stopped her.

  “I don’t make a habit of intruding on my customers’ conversations, but I just have to say that you’re wrong about one thing. There’s always a way.”

  Rachel looked up at him with a frown, ready to fight. But the bartender merely smiled at her and shrugged.

  “I’m not telling you how to live your life,” he said. “I’m just saying that I overheard you telling Jake that you’re out of options, but that’s just not true. There’s always an option, if you look hard enough. If you really want something, you’ll find a way to make it happen.”

  Rachel sighed. She was tempted to tell him that in this case, no, there wasn’t an option. Short of miraculously finding a boyfriend who turned into a husband in a matter of weeks, Rachel truly was out of options. But Rachel didn’t feel like arguing with the bartender. He was only trying to be helpful, she knew. Trying to explain things to him would take more energy than it was worth. So she smiled back at Joe and thanked him, then made her way out of the Winking Wizard.

  Jake was standing not far from the front door, puffing on a cigarette. He looked like the epitome of cool, in his relaxed fit jeans and snug black t-shirt, with smoke curling slowly up from his hand. Rachel wondered if he smoked often. She didn’t like the habit in a man, but she had to admit it gave Jake a certain cache.

  She wasn’t going to ask him about his smoking frequency right now, though. In fact, she would probably never ask him, because she doubted she was going to talk to him much after this. He might be the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes on, but he was also the most arrogant. He thought he was so special because he wanted to be People’s Governor to help people, but Rachel wasn’t impressed. Anyone willing to write her off as a spoiled brat simply because she came from a family with money wasn’t as open-minded as Jake claimed to be.

  Without another glance at Jake, Rachel turned and started walking toward the road. She was once again too drunk to drive—which seemed to be a common theme for her visits to the Winking Wizard. She’d figured this would be the case, which was why she’d taken a cab out here and planned to take a cab home. But there was no way she was going to stand around with Jake to wait for a cab. She’d call a taxi while walking as far away from the bar, and Jake, as she could.

  Rachel stormed down the road, feeling lower than she ever had in her life. She’d always been an optimist, but for the first time in her life, she truly had nothing to be optimistic about. She even thought that maybe things would have been better if it had been her that lost her life in the Dark War instead of her brother. At least he could have inherited the family fortune without being married.

  As if the sky itself agreed that Rachel’s plight was hopeless, the dark clouds that had rolled in opened up to let loose a torrent of rain. Rachel cursed and picked up her pace. Couldn’t anything in her life go her way?

  Apparently not. This was just the way her life was now, and she was going to have to accept it.

  Chapter Seven

  Jake was going to throw his phone across the room if it buzzed with one more incoming message. Right now, it felt like everyone wanted a piece of him. Colleagues were texting to make sure he was okay, but Jake knew they were only fishing for gossip. He was sure that after he’d left work today, everyone would have been whispering nonstop about how the great Jake Palmer wasn’t going to be able to run for People’s Governor after all. Everyone except the biggest fools realized that that’s what the High Council’s announcement meant. Some of Jake’s colleagues probably took delight in Jake’s plight, and some of them probably felt genuinely sad for him. All Jake knew was that he didn’t feel like talking to any of them. He only wanted to be left alone. Of course, being left alone was not an option. Not when his friends were also texting him nonstop, asking him to come out to the Winking Wizard for a pint.

  Jake didn’t want any more pints. He’d had enough earlier, when he’d tried to go be alone at his favorite bar and unexpectedly run into Rachel. At first, he’d been happy to see her there. Surprised, but happy. He knew that wasn’t her type of place, but he figured she was there for the same reason he was—seeking some alone time and solace after the announcement that had just crushed both of their dreams. He thought that if anyone could understand the way he felt, it would be her. So he hadn’t minded sharing his table and “alone time” with her.

  But then, she’d turned crazy, and started acting like his plight was no big deal. Like it didn’t matter that William Graves was going to be People’s Governor now, because in five years there would be another election. She didn’t understand that a lot of damage could be done in five years, and that the first People’s Governor would have more influence on Torch Lake than the next ten People’s Governors after him. But then, of course she didn’t understand. She’d never truly had to worry in her life until now. She’d been able to deal with all of her problems by throwing money at them.

  Even as this thought crossed Jake’s mind, he felt ashamed. He knew he had gone too far in his criticism of her. After all, it wasn’t her fault that she’d been born into money, and, even though he thought she was a jerk for implying that he wasn’t losing as much as her, he had been a jerk, too. He shouldn’t have been so insensitive to the fact that she was losing a lot here, too.

  “Even if what she’s losing is just a bunch of stupid money,” Jake said aloud to his empty living room. As if on cue, his phone buzzed again, and Jake groaned. Couldn’t people take a hint? If he hadn’t answered their last ten texts, what made them think he was going to answer their eleventh text?

  Jake stood up and went to his kitchen, opening the fridge without really knowing what he was looking for. He was hungry, but the only thing in there was beer, milk, and some questionable-looking leftovers from last week. He wasn’t much of a cook, and he tended to eat dinner at the Winking Wizard most nights. When he wasn’t grabbing a burger at the bar, he was ordering pizza or some other form of takeout. Not the healthiest options, but Jake, for all his many talents, had never gotten around to learning his way around the kitchen.

  With a sigh, he slammed the fridge door shut and stormed back to his couch. He wasn’t in the mood for pizza, and the pizza place was the only delivery available. He’d have to go out and pick up any other form of takeout, but he didn’t feel like going out and seeing people now. He knew someone was bound to see him and recognize him as the guy who’d led the protest last weekend. Everyone wanted to know what he thought of the High Council’s announcement today.

  He thought it was bullshit. What else should he think? He was sick of them following old laws and procedures to the letter, when those laws and procedures were so outdated. But Wizards were even worse than shifters at resisting change, another reason Jake had wanted the People’s Governor position so badly. Torch Lake needed someone with a vision for the future, not a lazy wizard like William Graves who was content being stuck in the past.

  Jake’s stomach growled, so he stood again and went to grab his wallet and keys. Time to brave the outside world long enough to get some Thai food. His favorite place was only two blocks away. How much trouble could anyone cause him in two blocks?

  He managed to get all the way into the restaurant without being bothered. Two wolf shifters were just leaving when he arrived, and their eyes lit up when they saw him. One of them looked like he was about to ask Jake a question, but a sharp death glare from Jake
stopped the question before the wolf could ask it. The two wolf shifters hurried out of the restaurant, whispering to each other in hushed tones. No doubt they were going to run off and tell the grapevine that Jake was in a foul mood. Jake scowled. So let them. Maybe a few more people would leave him alone, then.

  The front counter of the restaurant was empty, but Jake could see Neal, the owner of the store, chopping up some basil leaves in the kitchen.

  “Hiya, Jake! Good to see you. The usual?”

  Jake nodded and then sank into one of the sticky, plastic chairs in the small dining room. He felt grateful that he had a “usual.” With any luck, no one else would come into the restaurant while he waited, and he could get out of here and get home with minimal social interaction.

  About ten minutes later, Neal came up to the front counter carrying a takeout box stuffed into a small paper bag.

  “Alright, Jake. Got your Pad Thai Chicken right here. Anything else for you today?”

  Jake shook his head no, already reaching into his wallet for a twenty dollar bill. He would get his change and run home, then eat his meal with a cold beer from his fridge. Tonight wasn’t a complete failure after all. Now if only the restaurant owner would let him out of here without too much conversation.

  That was wishing for too much, of course.

  Neal had barely reached for the twenty Jake was holding out when he started yakking about the one thing Jake really didn’t want to yak about.

  “That High Council of ours has some nerve, eh?”

  Jake groaned inwardly. “Hmmph. They have to follow protocol, I suppose.”

  Neal threw back his head and laughed. “Protocol my ass. The world as we know it nearly ended during the Dark War three years ago. And just last month one of our highest commanders was caught leading an underground dark magic ring. Ain’t no time for protocol, I say. It’s time for action. They should find a way to abolish the law instantly. They are the High Council, after all. Who’s going to stop them?”