“Found you,” he said, grabbing me by the shoulders.
“Nik!” I cried, jerking in surprise. “What are you doing here? I—”
That was as far as I got before he picked me up—literally lifted me off the floor—and kissed me.
Chapter 5
If we’d been in a movie, this was where the music would have swelled, and the colors would have turned all warm and soft as I melted against him. But my life had never been a movie—at least not that kind of movie—and the first thing I actually did was panic.
I couldn’t help it! I’d spent the last eight weeks living with a comatose dragon and a deceased doctor of Shamanism whose physical body was merely a manifestation of a city spirit’s will. Actual human contact wasn’t something I was used to. I went stiff as a frozen fish, causing Nik to lean back in alarm, which wasn’t my intention at all. I was just surprised. Once I got over myself though, the kiss was really nice.
I’d thought about Nik a lot over the last two months. Mostly I’d worried he’d be mad at me, or worse, forgotten me entirely and moved on with his life. That was what my other friends had done when I’d vanished to become a Cleaner, but Nik hadn’t forgotten. I’d been out in public for less than an hour in a part of town I normally never went to, and he’d still managed to find me. Found me and kissed me like I was someone special. Someone he couldn’t wait to touch. Which was good, because I couldn’t wait to touch him either.
After that, I got into the swing of things pretty quick. I threw my arms around Nik’s neck and pulled myself into him, freeing his arms to snake around my waist. He breathed a breath of relief against my lips, and then he was burying his head in the crook of my neck, kissing everything he could reach. I did the same, sliding my fingers up to feel the familiar cool softness of his short-cropped dark hair then down to feel the strength of his steel-reinforced shoulders. Every time I breathed, my lungs filled with the scent of him, that Nik smell of warm leather and his favorite lemony cleaning solution I hadn’t realized I could recognize anywhere until just now. It was all like that: his hands, his body, the scrape of his stubble against my ear. It felt crazy that I could miss an intimacy I’d only known once so intensely, but I did. God, I’d missed him, but this was a really good start. Maybe he wasn’t pissed at me after all!
As if he could hear my thoughts, Nik broke our embrace, setting me back on the floor with a look of such fury, it made me tremble. Definitely pissed.
“We need to talk.”
I winced hard. Nothing good ever followed “we need to talk,” but I couldn’t say I didn’t deserve it given how I’d left him. Fortunately for me, I had a really good explanation. I just needed time to get it out.
“I’d love to talk,” I said, turning to my dad, who was stalking over from our table as fast as his body—freshly gorged, but still weak—could go. “Give us a moment,” I told him in Korean.
Naturally, my father did nothing of the sort. He marched right over, glaring murder at Nik, who returned the look plus some.
“What is he doing here?” Nik snapped.
I winced again. Hoo boy, here we went. “It’s a long story.”
“‘Long story?’” Nik’s glare shot back to me. “Opal, he’s your abuser. He’s the one we were fighting to get you away from! Why are you eating dinner with him?”
“I can explain,” I said, careful to keep my voice calm. Even without taking my eyes off of Nik, I could feel the busy restaurant going still around us. I’d stare, too, given the scene we were creating, but this was bad for more than just my ego. We were supposed to be keeping a low profile. Dragons might not frequent Loveland, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have spies here. Going out to eat was one thing, but we’d be in serious trouble very shortly if Nik kept shouting my name. He was normally super sensitive about that sort of thing, but he must have been angrier than I’d realized, because he didn’t look like he was backing down anytime soon. I was about to suggest we move to the street so we could at least do this without a seated audience when my father stepped into the gap Nik had just opened between us, using his superior height to sneer down his nose into Nik’s face.
“She doesn’t need to explain anything to you,” Yong said in a voice so dismissive and disdainful even I was surprised. “My daughter is not a criminal’s concern, so go. You’re causing a disturbance.”
“Dad!” I hissed, trying to shove him out of the way. Even in his current condition, though, my father was a dragon. No matter how hard I pushed, I couldn’t budge him, which was rapidly becoming a serious problem since Nik was leaning in to match him.
“You do not want to start this with me,” he warned, glaring at my father without a trace of fear. To be fair, my dad wasn’t projecting his usual level of alpha-predator menace. Even if he had been, I didn’t think Nik would have noticed. I’d never seen him look this scary, and his new outfit definitely wasn’t helping.
His usual dark jeans, plain T-shirt, and armored black-leather jacket were gone, replaced by a head-to-toe suit of matte-black combat armor, the serious sort you normally saw on riot police. He was loaded for bear, too, with two pistols strapped under his arms and what appeared to be a giant single-barrel, pump-action shotgun slung across his back. Add in the black combat boots with knives tucked into both tops and dude looked like he was ready to enforce a fascist agenda. It wasn’t
