by Megan Derr
"Did you bother to figure out what this was all about?"
"Nah."
His dad sighed. "Okay. Sorry about your date. Text me when you get your phone back so I know you're back where you should be and relatively safe. Don't get kidnapped again. And congrats on being fourth place for ransom amount."
Whitney groaned. "Fourth place, that's so not fair! I should have been worth more than Stacey. Why did I get the stupid kidnappers?"
That earned him another sigh. "This family needs to have a sit down about rethinking our priorities. Get off the damn phone and go reassure your dragon that all is truly well. And you two stop doing crap like this."
"Yes, Dad. Love ya, bye." Whitney hung up, and drove as far over the speed limit as he could get away with. He returned to where he'd been grabbed, and there was his Porsche 911, just two years old, bright teal and absolutely beautiful. As feared, though, his suit was completely ruined. Fuckers.
He threw it in the luggage compartment to deal with later, dropped the bag that contained not five, but ten thousand dollars cash on top, and slammed the hood shut. Sliding behind the wheel, he brought the car roaring to life and sped off toward home, which was currently the frat house.
Halfway home he finally had to put his phone on silent because it was blowing up with smartass texts from his siblings and cousins roasting him for being kidnapped and lamenting the kidnappers hadn't been able to keep him. Jerks. Just see what happened when they got kidnapped.
It was relatively empty when he got there, an unusual occurrence, but a small mercy for which he was grateful. Waiting on the porch was Rain. Sanger Rainsford, the latest in a long line of black dragons and heir to his family's clan. In the shifter world, dragons were practically royalty, and much like Whitney's family, Rain's was old and prestigious.
When their great-grandmothers had forged an alliance, and Whitney's family had forever changed their hunting ways from extermination to more like that of an informal police force, using dragon blood freely given by the Rainsford family, it had been the biggest scandal in the paranormal world. But more and more families, hunter and paranormal, were following suit.
"I can't believe you got kidnapped," Rain said as Whitney climbed the porch, then reached out and reeled him in, pulled him right up against that long, lithe body. Rain nuzzled his cheek, a cute human translation of the way he'd scent-mark in dragon form. "Dumbass."
"You know, when you fell off a boat I was actually worried about you—to tears worried about you. Jerk."
"Yes, well, one of us is frequently hunted for our scales, blood, teeth, heart, and various other parts. And one of us is the well-established problem child of his family."
Whitney looped his arms around Rain's neck and kissed him softly. "My dad said he'd take me back if they paid him to do so. Can you believe it?"
Rain laughed. "Did the kidnappers take him up on the offer?"
"I hate all of you."
"Liar," Rain said. "So did you want to go grab a bite at the diner? I know it's not the fancy evening you were hoping for…"
"Sure, but first—" Whitney dug out the key he'd thankfully left in his car, so it wasn't lost during the kidnapping— "Before anything else goes wrong, I got an apartment over on Southside. Want to move in with me?"
Rain's face lit up in that wholly unique way of his, the look of a dragon who'd been offered a shiny to add to his hoard and was already prepared to kill anybody who tried to take it from him. Whitney did not understand, even the tiniest bit, why his dumbass ancestors had preferred to hunt dragons when belonging to one was a thousand times more fun.
And man, if the paranormal world had thought it was a scandal when their grandmothers became best friends, just wait until Whitney put a ring on it and made them all one big family.
That was for later, though. For now, he was going to take Rain to dinner and then to the new apartment, where they'd have lots and lots of fun making it all theirs.
FIN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Megan is a long time resident of queer romance, and keeps herself busy reading, writing, and publishing it. She is often accused of fluff and nonsense. When she’s not involved in writing, she likes to cook, harass her wife and cats, or watch movies. She loves to hear from readers, and can be found all over the internet.
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@meganaderr
