Free Bloodrunner Dragon (Harper's Mountains Book 1) by T. S. Joyce Page A

always other . She’d started wearing a brown contact over her dragon eye so people would stop staring and so she didn’t have to smell their fear anymore.
    And then Derek had come along, and she’d thought maybe he was the one she was supposed to find. She didn’t feel as passionately about him as Wyatt, but he had been there for her, up until the day she saw him in the local coffee shop sucking on some skank’s earlobe right there for everyone to see. She, Harper Keller, dragon-shifter, lawyer, powerhouse…hadn’t been good enough. She, Harper Keller, vessel for The Unrest, displaced shifter, confused soul…had come in second to the trail of Derek’s mistresses that drifted out of the woodwork after that.
    She’d closed down her practice, let go of the relationships with the humans she’d been grasping at, and went back to the mountains where she almost belonged.
    Everything had been perfect before Wyatt had left. Everything. It was home, little league baseball games on the weekends, school, family, crews, and safety. She could fly everywhere and never worry about being judged. But when she’d given up on Saratoga and gone back to the mountains, the air she flew felt different. Colder. Empty. The joy was gone because Wyatt’s bear wasn’t strolling the evergreen woods below her anymore.
    And now she was here, and all those feelings were flooding back. All those memories. Shifting in the woods with the boys, Wyatt always let her Change first so he could watch her dragon emerge. Birthday parties with all the crews, treehouse rendezvous, Friday nights helping her surrogate mother, Riley, make furniture in her shop, and Wyatt bringing them dinner when they got so caught up in the work they forgot to eat. Homecoming dates and Ryder and Wyatt stealing a bottle of peach schnapps from one of the Gray Backs. The first time Wyatt held her hand, the first kiss. And the second kiss because he’d told her, “I can do better.” And the first time they slept together…
    Harper blew out a shaking breath and wrapped her arms around her stomach. Now he was different, and somehow even more enamoring to her than when they were kids.
    With every hour she spent here, Wyatt felt more and more like her fire-starter, just waiting to ignite her.
    “You shouldn’t be out here alone,” Wyatt murmured from the corner of the house.
    Harper startled slightly, but offered him a smile. “There are three grown-ass shifters sleeping on the floor of your little house, and one of them is snoring like a freight train. I couldn’t sleep. You?”
    Wyatt shook his head and leaned against the logs of the cabin wall. He wore a pair of black, low-slung sweats, but no shirt. The blue moonlight illuminated his taut torso in alluring shadows and highlights, and his abs flexed with each shallow breath he took. With a sigh, he padded over to her and sat next to her on the top porch stair. “I needed to Change.”
    “And think. By yourself.”
    Wyatt smiled and rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands in front of him. “Yeah. I had a lot of thinking to do.”
    “You’re used to being alone.”
    “That I am. I forgot how it was, you know? I forgot how everyone talks about everything, and calls everyone out on their shit. I got used to just me beating myself up.” The corners of his eyes tightened as he stared at the full moon above the tree line. “Weston’s right, you know.”
    “Wyatt—”
    “No, just let me say this. I made so many mistakes with you. With myself. With everything. Growing up, my dad was always telling me how to be a good alpha and a good man, but somewhere along the way, I got so caught up in my own head I messed up. I veered off this easy path I had laid out for my future and went hiking in the damn brambles. And you…you paid for my mistakes.” Wyatt arced that bright blue gaze to her, held her trapped there as he whispered, “I’m sorry, Harper. For all of it, I’m so sorry.” He pulled a glossy, folded