Free Sassy Ever After: Dragon Sass (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Selena Kitt

“Come inside, Kai.”
    God, he wanted to. He wanted to be inside her more than he’d ever wanted anything in a thousand years.
    She took his hand and led him into the house.
     

CHAPTER FIVE—Jules
     
    “It doesn’t hurt?” Jules checked the cut on Kai’s lip, lifting the ice she’d wrapped with a damp washcloth. It had taken the swelling down quite a bit.
    “It’s fine,” he assured her. “I’ve had a lot worse, trust me.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said again, for the millionth time.
    “Stop.” Kai took her hand, the one holding the washcloth. He put the ice on the kitchen table and then took her other hand. “You did the right thing. Finally. And good for you.”
    “I feel awful.” She swallowed hard, not meeting his eyes.
    She knew she’d hurt Stuart—it had hurt her to say those things to him. They’d been friends since fifth grade and had been through a lot together, including but not limited to junior and senior prom and the inevitable loss of her virginity in that Firebird. The back seat had been far too small—but the seats had gone all the way back.
    Her parents had done everything they could to make Stuart into the man Jules knew he could be—if he could just kick his addiction. Addiction s —plural. It had been the death of her parents that had finally pushed the couple apart. Not that she’d given up on him entirely—but she couldn’t date him anymore. She’d drawn a line in the sand then—until he got his act together, they couldn’t be together.
    But it hadn’t been enough.
    She hadn’t been enough.
    The junk was more important to him, always.
    He refused rehab. He refused to quit. But he never stopped coming back, turning to her when he needed something, someone. And she had let him. Until now.
    Until Kai.
    “None of this is your fault.” Kai’s hands swallowed hers, squeezing gently.
    How did he always know? Sometimes it felt like he was reading her mind—or, more accurately, feeling her heart. She’d never met a man who could see through her, into her, the way he could. It was unnerving—and made her feel both vulnerable and safe at the same time. It was as if he held her heart cradled in his hands, and it beat only because of him, because of his steady, careful attention.
    “I just wanted to help him.” She gave Kai a little smile, meeting his eyes. His gaze was steady, but his eyes searched hers.
    “We will,” he told her. She loved the way he did that—the world simply did what Kai wanted, when he wanted it. “I know a good place. We’ll have an intervention. We’ll get him to go into treatment. I promise you.”
    No one had ever been successful in getting Stuart into rehab—he was so vehemently against it, he’d do anything to stay away.
    Even…
    Jules shivered. Thinking of what had happened the day her parents had died felt like a dream, even though she now finally knew the truth. Maybe she was numb to it still and it would sink in eventually.
    But Stuart had been willing to go to any lengths—to die, to even sacrifice the lives of others, to keep from going to rehab. He’d even been willing to steal her necklace! Her throat felt naked without it and she reminded herself to ask Kai for it later. Even if it hadn’t turned out to be worth anything, according to the jeweler Barb had do the appraisal. It wasn’t a ruby after all—it was a stone the man hadn’t even recognized.
    Jules had been disappointed, but in a way, she was relieved, because she hadn’t really wanted to sell it. Jules had always believed, the way her mother talked about it, that it was an invaluable stone, and that’s what she’d told Stuart. He didn’t know she’d recently had it appraised and found it worth nothing.
    Still! He knew how much it meant to her! How could he do something like that?
    Because he wanted a fix, that’s why. Stuart would do anything for a fix—and anything to stay out of rehab.
    But when Kai said he’d get Stuart to go—somehow she believed