by Willa Hart
I’d thought Kellum was the whole package — and he was — but Danic was too, only in a different way. Every inch of him bulged from muscles on top of muscles. I’d never been much for fiercely possessive guys, but somehow it worked for him. The way he looked at me expressed exactly how much he wanted me, and it did a dangerously good job of ushering my common sense out of the way.
Clearing the thickness in my throat, I put my hands on his shoulders and smiled. “Ditto. But for now, I think we need to put a pin in this.”
His lips turned up in a twisted smile. “Don’t think for a minute I’ll forget that, Party Favor.”
Loosening the hold I had on him with my thighs, he let my body slide slowly down his until my feet were on the ground again. It hadn’t escaped my notice that my belly skimmed across an unusually large bulge on the way down. I couldn’t wait to revisit it very soon, hopefully in a more private setting.
As we walked past the line of gawkers, I wondered about the mating habits of dragons. Were all of them so chill about multiple lovers? I knew Max was monogamous with Aunt Shirley, and though I’d never asked, I would have bet an entire paycheck that he’d also remained faithful to his dragon mate who’d died two hundred years before. But maybe the younger generation of dragons did things differently.
Once again, I wished more than anything Max was around to talk to, even though discussing my sex life with his great-nephews would have been laughably awkward. My only choice was to simply roll with it and see what happened.
Entering Roscoe’s was like walking into controlled chaos. The place was packed to the rafters, with the wait staff scurrying around with plates of drool-worthy comfort food and the sound of people chatting and laughing turned up to eleven. And the smell… I took a deep lungful of the scrumptious aroma and wondered why I’d never eaten there before. Of course, I’d driven past it a thousand times, but chicken and waffles had sounded like such a strange combination. As I stood in the tiny lobby, absorbing it all, I couldn’t for the life of me understand what I’d been thinking.
“Wow,” I muttered, my mouth watering at a plate piled with fried chicken and a massive waffle as a waitress rushed by with it.
Funny how she gave Danic a wide berth as she passed. In fact, I’d noticed most people gave him a wide berth. One more perk of traveling with him. All my boys could be intimidating when they needed to be, but Danic could really clear space without even trying.
“Don’t suppose your special powers can locate which booth he’s in,” Danic said as I let my gaze wander around the restaurant.
I didn’t have a chance to even try before I spotted Niles sitting in a booth alone, head bowed over an e-reader. Danic grabbed my hand and plowed a path through the narrow aisle toward Niles. Whatever he was reading must have been really good because he didn’t even glance our way — and Danic was hard to miss. He slid in next to Niles, surprising the older man as he penned him in. When I sat across from them, Niles’s confusion doubled. I perched my chin in my hands and smiled sweetly.
“Hey, buddy. These seats taken? No? Good.”
Niles laid down his e-reader and frowned at us. “If you’d like to meet with me, the professional thing to do would be to set up an appointment at Drakonis.”
I shrugged. “What can I say? I have a flair for the dramatic.”
“Gotta say, Par’tia Niles,” Danic said, glancing around the place, “never would have pegged you for a chicken and waffles kinda guy.”
“That’s no surprise. You know nothing about me.”
“Oh?” Danic prompted.
The scowl that seemed to be permanently affixed to Niles’s face softened. “I’m from New Orleans, and if there’s one thing I miss about home, it's good old-fashioned soul food.”
“And the food here’s good?” I asked, not really needing to. All of my senses told me it would be.
“Quite,” he said. “Now, how may I help you?”
Straight to the point. I decided to be just as direct.
“Who’s Titus?”
Niles tensed up and narrowed his eyes at me. “I believe I overheard Lazlo asking you the same question, Ms. Fiske.”
If he thought a non-answer like that would dissuade me, he was dead wrong. I stared at him, long and hard, until he shifted in his seat.
“I’m sure I don’t know this Titus person,” he finally added.
Or rather, lied. It seemed my ability to sense lies from dragons extended to dragon keepers, too. From the outside, Niles gave no signs of lying — no fidgeting, no averting his gaze, no rapid breathing. Even Danic looked as if he believed him, but my gut told me otherwise.
“That won’t work on me, Niles. Let’s try this again. Romanian, thick accent, light brown hair, evil yellow eyes, looks like he could wrestle with a freight train and win. Ring a bell?”
“Lazlo takes on a lot of clients,” Niles stalled. “Many of them are international. I know Maximus Investigations hasn’t been getting nearly as much business these days, but I’m sure you can imagine how one Romanian might not stand out in a city like L.A.”
“Cut the crap, Niles,” Danic snarled, slamming his fist on the table hard enough the silverware jumped and the folks in the next booth glanced our way for a moment. “We’re not about to let you off that easy, and you can shove your jabs at Max up your ass.”
“That’s amusing, Danic, because you never held back about your uncle before Ms. Fiske came along.
“Hey, you don’t have any right to—”
“Before you begin reading me my rights,” Niles interrupted, his voice rising to match Danic’s in volume, “I should remind you that you’re the ones trapping me here when I was simply trying to have a nice, quiet lunch.”
“And we’ll leave you to it if you’ll tell us what you know about Titus,” I said.
“As I said, Lazlo has many clients. Unlike some people, I don’t put my nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Danic growled and his reptilian eyes flashed red. But Niles was an old hand at dealing with temperamental dragons and simply stared daggers at Danic. A sudden cough snapped our attention to the waiter standing by the booth with a plate of food in his hands.
“Here’s your two-piece,” he said, setting the plate in front of Niles with a smile, as if he hadn’t noticed the tension in the air. Then he turned his smile on me, turning it up several notches on the smile-o-meter. “Can I get you anything?”
He leaned casually against the table, his eyebrows raised slightly as if he was asking for more than just my order. I wasn’t the only one to notice. Danic’s low, threatening growl drew the waiter’s attention, and he coughed to cover his forwardness.
“Um, so what can I get you two?” he tried again, this time squirming under Danic’s hot gaze.
“Seven two-pieces,” Danic snarled. “To go.”
I grabbed a promising bottle of hot sauce I’d never tried before and shook it at him. “And one of these, if you can spare it.”
The waiter nodded curtly but shot me a quick wink as he hustled back to the kitchen.
We returned our angry gazes to Niles, who shifted under our scrutiny. The man was smart. Smart enough to know when he was beat. He sighed heavily, looking longingly at his meal before turning his dark eyes on me.
“Fine. Lazlo took a meeting with an Eastern European dragon named Titus about ten days ago. That’s all I know. You should talk to him about it if you’re determined to know more.”
I sensed the truth in his words, but Danic was still suspicious. “Are you sure?”
“I am,” I said, drawing a surprised look from Niles. “Let’s go.”
I started to scoot out of the booth but paused when Danic didn’t move. He was looking at me funny. “What?”
“Can we, um, wait for a minute? I’m starving.”
Niles nodded as he tucked into his food. “It’s worth the wait.”
I rolled my eyes.
Chapter Seven
“Oh. My. God.” Ryen didn’t even bother
with basic table manners as he shoved an entire drumstick in his mouth and sucked it clean. “How have I never eaten at Roscoe’s?”
We sat around Shirley’s kitchen table devouring our reheated meals.
“And this is the nuked version,” Danic said around a mouthful of waffle. “Imagine what it tastes like fresh.”
“Mmm, hands down the best fried chicken I’ve ever had,” added Ash, then his eyes turned into saucers and he whipped his head around nervously.
“What was that about?” I asked after he sighed with relief.
“Just making sure Shirley didn’t hear me. You know how she feels about her cooking. She wouldn’t appreciate the competition.”
“Coast is clear,” I assured him with a smile. “It’s bridge night with her friends. Although, personally, I like to think she’s actually sneaking off to a fight club instead.”
A couple of the guys nearly snorted chicken out of their noses.
“No, think about it,” I insisted. “How is it possible I’ve never met any of these friends she plays ‘bridge’ with? I bet she’s one hell of a cage fighter. Can you imagine?”
“She is pretty feisty,” Ryen said. “I could totally see that, but I don’t think Uncle Max would go for it. He loves her way too much to see her duking it out with a bunch of other little old ladies.”
We all chuckled at the image, but I quickly grew serious. I didn’t want to set them off, but I had questions about their boss that only they could answer.
“Speaking of Max,” I began cautiously. “What do we think Lazlo’s intentions are here?”
Kellum frowned. Actually, they all frowned, but Kellum was the first to speak. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s face it, Lazlo has a lot to gain from Max being away. He’s the default leader of the weir right now. I’ve watched enough police procedurals to know that counts as motive.”
“Motive for what, exactly?” Ash asked as he chewed.
I shrugged and said nothing.
Kellum sighed. “Favor, Lazlo may very well know exactly where Max is right now. For all we know, Max gave him specific instructions.”
I gave him a doubtful look, which he acknowledged.
“Okay, probably not, but he didn’t do anything to Max. I can promise you that.”
“Yeah,” Ryen agreed. “He wouldn’t do something like that. No way, no how.”
“Probably couldn’t,” Hale added. “Max didn’t become casique because he’s weak.”
“Look,” I said, raising an eyebrow at them, “I know he’s your boss and all, but he’s never had a problem with taking what rightfully belonged to Max in the past.”
“Favor,” Danic said softly, enveloping my hand in his, “we never belonged to Max.”
I huffed in exasperation. “I didn’t mean that literally. It just seems to me that Lazlo is enjoying his role as temporary casique a little too much, and if this were a TV show, he’d be the prime suspect. Is it possible your loyalty to him is clouding your judgment?”
Kellum leveled a penetrating look at me. “Is it possible your loyalty to Max is clouding your judgment?”
I balked, but before I could formulate a retort, Hale jumped in.
“Lazlo Aurelia is far from perfect, Favor. He’d be the first to admit it. But he’s not Max’s enemy. While Max may still harbor resentment toward Lazlo for hiring us, they go way back. Farther than you can imagine. Hell, they sit on the elder council together.”
It was Ryen’s turn to jump on the dogpile. “If you haven’t noticed, Party Favor, we dragons have a pretty rigid hierarchy. Being a member of the elder council isn’t some shiny thing to chase after, like in human politics. It’s a hard-won honor that very few are even capable of earning.”
“Never forget that we’re dragons,” Danic added. “Humans might stab each other in the back any chance they can get, but we don’t.”
“Oh really? What about this Titus asshole?”
They shot each other pointed glances, conceding my point, but Ash disagreed.
“He’s different. He’s gone rogue or something.”
“Okay,” I said, “but who’s to say Lazlo hasn’t gone rogue too?”
They sighed in unison, as if there was no point arguing with me. They were quick studies.
“How about this,” Kellum piped up, leaning forward. “We can go talk to him again in the morning. You can bring your most burning concerns and we can get everything out in the open.”
“That’s a good idea. We can clear up all this mess,” said Ryen.
“And clear his name,” chirped Ash and Hale.
“Fine, but make it after my accounting class, around eleven. And don’t keep looking at me like I’m crazy. We need to be extremely careful who we trust right now, like Max told me. Without him here, everything feels a little…off-kilter.”
“To us, too,” Ryen said softly.
“You’re not alone in this,” Hale said.
Ash added, “We’re here for you.”
“Damn straight,” Danic growled. “We would never let anything happen to you.”
I sniffed back the tears pricking against the back of my eyes. They really were my boys. Of course, they were far from ‘boys’, and my body reacted to their closeness. Not only their physical proximity but also how protective they were of me. No one had ever protected me growing up, and now to have five grown men — plus Max and Shirley — watching over me filled me with such gratitude I didn’t know what to do with it all.
“We should get going,” Kellum finally said. “We’ve got some work to catch up on at the office, but we’ll talk to Lazlo tomorrow, okay?”
I expected them to leave their dirty dishes on the table, but one by one, they stood and went about tidying up the kitchen until it gleamed. With five studly dudes bustling about, I hardly had to lift a finger and it took almost no time at all. I finally dropped into a chair and watched the homey scene, feeling content and whole in a way I only did when we were all together. I wished they could spend the night, but that might have turned awkward pretty fast.
As they were getting ready to head out, Danic paused and turned to me. “Hey, I have a question. At Roscoe’s, that waiter… He was hitting on you.”
“Was he?” I teased.
“And I noticed several dudes staring at you too.”
I chuckled. “Are you surprised? We put on quite a show” — the words froze on my tongue before I could think of a way out of explaining we’d been making out in the parking lot — “with Niles.”
Heat flamed in my cheeks as the guys smirked. Maybe they sensed it.
“No, it wasn’t that. They were clearly lusting after you.”
“Is that shocking to you?” I pretended to be insulted, but Danic didn’t rise to the bait.
“It’s just strange that so many men were leering at you when you were dressed professionally. Does that happen often?”
“I wish!” When they all turned insulted glares on me, I stammered out a better answer. “No, I only mean that it’s not really a common occurrence. Guess I looked super cute today.”
“You look super cute every day, if you ask me,” Ryen said with a wink. “Too bad we have to leave.”
I walked them to the door, and each kissed my cheek — all in the same spot and far too chastely for my taste — as they left. Their kisses fueled the fire of my yearning for them all, every cell in my body on fire with lust and affection for these strange and wonderful men, until I was left standing in the doorway reeling.
They waited until I closed and locked the door before climbing into their vehicles and heading out. Which…how cool was that?
“Damn,” I muttered breathlessly.
My previous frustration about Lazlo had been replaced by a completely different kind of frustration. And since the guys had left me to my own devices, there was only one way to ease that frustration. Recalling my make out session with Danic in vivid detail, I hurried to my room for a little…stress relief. Throwing open the door,
I was halfway across the room before the realization that something wasn’t quite right filtered through the haze of my horniness.
Zoe sat in the middle of my bed, arms wrapped around her knees as she rocked back and forth. Wide green eyes stared at nothing, and her normally dusky skin had turned a sickly ashen gray.
“Zoe? What are you doing here?”
I hurried to the bed, terrified she’d had some kind of relapse from the roofie, or maybe she was having a flashback of what had happened to her at the club. Luckily, I’d stepped in before anything too terrible had gone down, but simply being drugged and ending up in the hospital could have been enough to freak her out and cause psychological repercussions.
“Zoe, talk to me. What’s wrong?”
Nothing seemed to be physically wrong with her, other than that dazed expression and, of course, the rocking. Her lips were dry and moved almost imperceptibly, as if she was trying to speak. I leaned in close, but I couldn’t quite catch whatever she whispered over and over under her breath. When I tried to wrap my arm around her shoulders, she flinched away from me, scurrying as far from me as possible.
“It’s okay, Zoe, it’s me. It’s Favor. Do you want me to take you back to the hospital?”
Her eyes rolled in her head, like a sick animal, but she finally focused on me. Sort of. She was still suffering from shock, but at least she was looking in my direction.
“Dream, only a dream,” she mumbled, a little louder than before. “Dream, only a dream. Dream.”
“What’s a dream? Come on, Zoe, tell me what’s going on.”
“I-I…” she said, then stopped abruptly. “I dreamed… Had to be a dream. Not real, right? But…I pinched myself and I didn’t wake up. See?”
She held out her arms to me and I gasped. Purple and red marks ran up and down her trembling forearms. What the hell? I grabbed one of her arms and began rubbing it gently, switching to the other arm. This time she didn’t jerk away from me, but she seemed far too limp. Still in shock, but I still had no idea why.
Oh shit.
“Zoe? How long have you been here?”
