The Alpha’s Dangerous Obsession

4.

“And I still might take you up on it, but honestly, Kaylee, the hurt isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be. And me thinking about babies might have been spurred a little by them, but it’s a valid question. At my age, don’t I have the right to be wondering if it’s time to get pregnant?” I’d be turning thirty-five soon, and that was considered a geriatric pregnancy and came with its own set of complications.

“Yes, you have the right to think about it. As long as you’re not obsessing over that dirtbag.”

“I know that his cheating was his problem, not mine. It wasn’t my fault.” She’d been drilling it into my head since it happened, and somewhere along the way, the reality that it had been Bret’s fault and not mine had sunk in and I’d finally begun to believe it.

“I’m glad to hear it. Now, when are you off again?”

I’d picked up a few shifts. “I’m honestly not sure. Let me check and I’ll text you. Girls’ night?”

“Hell, yes.”

We hung up as I pulled into the driveway of my new cottage. When I moved out of Bret’s, I’d moved back in with Dad in his place behind the auto shop for a little while, but then decided I wanted some time to myself. I’d gone from Dad’s to the dorm room, where I roomed with Kaylee. Not that I regretted that, she’d become a lifelong friend. After the dorm, I’d moved in with Bret, then when that went to hell, back to Dad’s.

For the last six months, I’d lived in my cottage, alone.

And it was wonderful. If I wanted to eat ice cream in bed, naked, I did. If I wanted to dance off the ice cream I’d eaten in bed, I did that, too. I watched TV if I wanted to, cleaned when I wanted to and had my girly face products and lingerie spread out all over the house.

The only thing that sucked was eating. Cooking for one was a major bummer. I avoided it, generally, eating at the hospital or Dad’s whenever I could. Eating out so much meant that I danced more than I used to, but that was okay, too. There was nothing wrong with streaming exercise videos to earn the large fries instead of small.

After a shower, I made the bed and curled up in it, throwing my robe at the end and enjoying the feel of the clean sheets on my naked, damp body.

I considered myself, trying to be as self-aware as I could. I wasn’t ugly, though I also wouldn’t have said I was the hottest person in Bluewater. Sometimes I was funny, and I was loyal for sure. I didn’t steal or anything. Dad had installed a pretty decent moral compass.

My teeth were always clean, and I’d never suffered from acne. In short, I was decent.

So why did men seem repulsed by me? Bret was the only man that had ever shown me any attention, and I’d fallen for him hook, line, and sinker. He’d kept me at home as his steady, boring wife-to-be while he’d snuck around with all the exciting women he’d wanted to.

The only other man I’d ever had any sort of relationship with sprang to mind. Anthony Mason. He’d been my best friend all through my childhood and half of high school. He’d kissed me one time, then disappeared, saying his family had gotten him into some prestigious school in England.

Except that he’d never sent so much as an email. He’d said we would video chat or text, and though I’d sent a few messages, I’d quickly given up when there was no reply.

That hadn’t stopped me from stalking his social media. When he left, social media was just getting a real foothold and we’d both just made accounts on the two biggest platforms. He’d never unfriended me, but I was always very careful about how much I let him see and I never, ever liked, commented, or reacted to any of his posts.

It was petty, but it was life. And he seemed to be living his best life, by the looks of his accounts.

He’d left me as if I’d never mattered to him in the least. No way would I let him know I stalked him occasionally online.

I fell asleep thinking about him, and when my alarm went off the next morning, I woke with a dream slipping away so fast I had no idea what it had been about, but somehow, I knew, just knew it was the recurring dream I had where Anthony kissed me and as soon as our lips touched, he jerked back and looked down at me as if I repulsed him.

As soon as I walked into the primary care clinic, the receptionist, Cam, skittered across the office. “Come on,” she said. “You’re late.” Her layers of bracelets clacked as she moved.

“Sorry, I stopped for coffee. I was out.” I held up my large to-go cup as proof.

“That’s all well and good, but we’re meeting the new doctor. He’s replacing Dr. White for the foreseeable future.”

She grabbed my arm as soon as I stashed my purse and jacket in the back room. “Hurry,” Camilla urged.

We walked into the staff room, the last ones to enter. They’d left the chairs closest to the door open around the big conference table. We sat and looked at the head of the table to find the hospital CEO standing with the new doctor.

“Thanks everyone for taking the time to have this little introductory meeting,” he said.

I looked at the new doctor standing beside him for the first time to discover his gaze was glued to me.

My jaw dropped as I tried not to s**t a brick.

It was Anthony f*****g Mason.

Chapter 2

Anthony

The old tattoo had tingled once yesterday, but I’d expected that. I’d only been back in town for a few days. When the time came for me to come back to Bluewater, my parents had warned me that Skylar hadn’t moved away, as I had always hoped she would. I was prepared to run into her again and do my best to ignore the mating call.

Yeah, right. I should’ve stayed gone. I’d never intended to come back and take over as alpha during Skylar’s lifetime, but my father up and decided he wanted to retire and enjoy the good life, so he said. Then, in the next breath, he told me I couldn’t get any ideas about Skylar, that humans and dragons couldn’t mate.

I should’ve told him no. Told him to wait.

But here I was, getting ready to be introduced to my new team, and my tattoo tingled again. It had been tingling for two or three minutes now. She had to have entered the building, at least.

They’d warned me Skylar was a nurse, but I’d stopped them there. I didn’t want to know. As my tattoo flared to life, scalding my arm for the first time since I was sixteen years old, I stiffened and looked at the door of the small conference room.

And she walked in. She didn’t notice me, either. My dragon roared inside me, urging me to make my presence known, but all I could do was stand there and try not to look shocked by her presence.

I schooled my features into an inscrutable mask, something I’d perfected during my intern years. And finally, after what felt like a dozen lifetimes, she looked up and met my gaze. My breath caught in my throat. My tattoo burned until it throbbed to the beat of my heart, which was beating in double time.

After all these years of my instincts screaming at me to go home and find Skye, there she was, sitting at a conference table in front of me.

I knew I should’ve checked to make sure she didn’t work here. Of course she worked at this hospital. Of all the doctor’s offices and all the hospitals in the world, she worked here. She could’ve gotten a job at a nursing home, pediatrician’s office, telehealth, even.

But no. She worked at the one place I wanted to work now that I’d be in Bluewater indefinitely. As of the next new moon, I couldn’t move away from the cove without moving the entire clan with me.

They’d go if I ordered it. But I’d never do that to them. This was their home, our home, and had been for a couple of centuries now, though the clan had grown exponentially in the last hundred years or so. So much that the townsfolk had decided years ago we were some weird cult.

I had no idea how to remedy that situation. I didn’t even know what to do about my fated freaking mate sitting right in front of me, pretending she didn’t know me.

Starting something up with Skye would mean directly disobeying my alpha. But he wouldn’t be alpha for long. Soon, it would be me. That changed things a lot.