by Tami Lund
A fat tear splashed onto his hand. “Stop being so damn nice to me.”
He chuckled. “Stop deserving it.”
If only. “That’s why I haven’t told them about the baby. Because I wanted to fix this. I wanted to finally do something right. Only-only I haven’t been able to figure anything out. And then I had Sadie and I had to put the assignment on the back burner, and all I want to do is finish this and go home.” She sniffled. It actually felt good to admit that to him.
Almost absently, she moved Sadie to the other breast.
“You know what I can’t wait for? To be able to get my hands on your breasts. And my mouth. I’m actually a little jealous of Sadie right now.”
Her gaze shot up to his. He grinned like a damn fool, but it was contagious, and her cheek muscles twitched with the desire to mirror his smile. “Stop it,” she said when her face finally gave in.
He patted her leg and stood, dropping a kiss on the top of her head before turning to the counter and the mountain of food he’d placed there. “We’re almost there. Hopefully, we can convince Gabe’s mother to lift the curse, and we can head home as early as tomorrow.”
As early as tomorrow. As much as she wanted to get back to their colony, all that really meant was she’d finally have to tell her family about Sadie. And resist their attempts to convince her to mate with Noah.
One problem at a time, Petra. One at a time.
She lifted Sadie onto her shoulder and adjusted her dress’s bodice. “I’m going to give her a bath.”
“I’m going to stuff my face,” Noah said around a mouthful of food. “Unless you want me to help?”
Had her dad, her uncle, her grandfather been this nice, this helpful, when they had young children? So far, there was little about Noah that wasn’t a check in the positive column, if one were looking for a mate. Which she wasn’t.
Still, if she were, he’d be a damn good catch. And he was the father of her child.
Exactly why you should consider him, her dragon said.
Exactly why I shouldn’t. The only way we could be positive it was going to work is if we’d fallen in love first, then had the baby. We did it backward. And now I’ll never know, which means it will never happen.
Fallen in love first?
Shut up.
“I’m good,” she said before heading down the hall to the bathroom.
***
Dressed in a pair of black leggings and a loose fitting, off-the-shoulder top, Petra greeted Rebecca at the door at 9:45. “Thanks for doing this. Hopefully, we won’t be too long.”
Rebecca dropped her backpack onto the floor next to the couch. “It’s okay. I have a paper to write and five chapters to read before class tomorrow. I was planning to pull an all-nighter anyway.”
Noah grabbed Petra’s hoodie from where she’d left it draped over a chair, pressed his hand to her back, and ushered her out the door.
The block on which Dragon Antiques was located was mostly deserted at this time of night, although music poured from nearby bars and restaurants and there were three street performers a couple hundred feet away, playing foot-tapping Zydeco for the few patrons who crossed their path.
“Down here,” Noah said, indicating the alley that ran along the back of the shops. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and headed down the dimly lit brick-paved road. She considered ducking out from under the protection of his arm, but it kind of felt good, so she let it go.
“We’re being watched,” Noah whispered into her ear.
“Gargoyles,” she whispered back, nodding at the stone figures perched at the top of the wrought iron fence to their left. Interesting. Gargoyles and dragons did not tend to hang in the same circles. Witches often used them as sentries, as protectors, though, and as New Orleans had a large population of the magic wielders, it wasn’t unusual to see the creatures hovering about, watching and waiting.
Except they were heading down an alley toward a dragon-owned antiques store, which was a front for a hopping drug-dealing business.
Petra shivered.
“Cold?” Noah asked.
“Nervous.”
He gave her shoulder a squeeze.
When they reached the back of Delilah’s shop, Petra knocked. Delilah herself pulled the door open. “Punctual,” she commented as she stepped to the side and waved them inside.
The space was a large storeroom with steel shelves to one side and a desk and leather chair set up on the other. The floor was plywood, and a round table with four folding chairs sat in the middle of the room. There weren’t any spell books on the table nor a vial that might contain a love spell.
“Have a seat,” Delilah said, indicating the table and chairs. Petra glanced at Noah, who nodded, so she sat with her back to the steel shelves. The door slammed shut as Noah dropped into the chair next to her.
“Wonderful,” their hostess said. She placed her hands on the back of one the empty chairs. “Now, let’s get down to business. Specifically, my business. Which is going to remain my business and only my business in this city. If you want to set up shop in Denver or wherever the hell you’re from, by all means, feel free. But you aren’t touching my recipe or my town. Do you understand?”
Noah ran his hand through his hair. “Actually, we don’t. At least, I don’t. Do you know what she’s talking about, Petra?”
Oh crap. Actually, I think I do.
Delilah chuckled. “I’ve seen every game in the book, cowboy. And I’ve scared off every dragon who’s ever tried to take me down. So you can drop the confused act.”
“No, that’s not it,” Petra said. “We wanted to talk to you about curses—”
“Bullshit,” Delilah snapped. She lifted her hand and waved, like she was beckoning someone. Petra glanced over her shoulder; Carlos stepped out of the shadows, and she scrambled out of her seat. Another dragon moved into view, sidling until he blocked the door leading out to the alley.
Shit, shit, shit.
Noah stood and moved between her and Carlos. Petra was pretty sure Carlos wasn’t the biggest threat in the room, but Noah’s overprotective, alpha tendencies weren’t allowing him to see that. Plus, Noah didn’t know about the dragon’s blood.
“That’s not why we’re here,” Petra said to Delilah.
“What’s not why we’re here?” Noah asked.
Delilah sighed dramatically. “How many times are we going to go through this? Look, I have a date with a hot gargoyle. I don’t have time to play games any longer.”
A dragon dating a gargoyle? That was a new one.
Delilah picked up an iPad on the desk. She tapped the screen a few times then turned it toward Petra. Noah peered over her shoulder.
The images on the device moved around. It looked like someone was taking video with their phone, or maybe this iPad. How long ago had that video been shot?
Because it was of Rebecca and Sadie. And a man who showed up at Petra’s door. A good-looking young man. A dragon, not that Rebecca knew that.
There were at least two of them, because the video started out at the man’s back. Rebecca opened the door, Sadie in her arm, and greeted them with a smile before she eventually invited them into the house. There was no sound, so Petra had no idea what he’d said to convince her to let both of them in.
The guy shooting video moved off to the side, widening the screen so that the entire living room was in view. Petra watched Rebecca’s cheeks darken with a blush. The young guy continued talking, and her expression morphed into concern while she shook her head and tightened her grasp on Sadie.
Petra blindly reached toward Noah, who grabbed her hand and twined his fingers with hers.
The guy on camera reached for the baby and Rebecca shouted something and tried to run toward the sliding glass door. The guy was on her before she could take more than five steps. He yelled over his shoulder, and the video became jumpy, hard to follow, as the person who was shooting it apparently moved in to help. It looked like the one who was behin
d the camera managed to extract Sadie from Rebecca’s arms while the young dragon covered Rebecca’s mouth and nose with a white cloth. Within a few seconds, Rebecca’s eyes fluttered closed and the dragon caught her as she started to fall to the floor.
And then the screen went black. Noah roared and released Petra’s hand as he charged at the woman. She murmured something, and he literally froze in the act of running.
“Hey,” Petra called out as the other two dragons hurried forward and grabbed Noah’s immobile arms.
Delilah waved her arm, murmured again, and Noah was released from the state of stasis, but the two dragons were prepared and held tightly to his arms as he flailed, attempting to break free of their grasp.
“Don’t bother trying to shift,” Delilah said, as calmly as if they were discussing the weather. “My shop is enchanted and won’t allow it.”
Noah stopped struggling and, breathing heavily, stared at her. “What did you do to my daughter?”
Gods above, his possessiveness over a child he’d only recently learned he had was such a turn-on.
Can we focus? Petra’s dragon demanded, which was almost amusing considering she was the one who was usually the first to be distracted by Noah.
Delilah flapped her hand dismissively. “She’s fine. And she will remain that way, so long as you do what I want.”
“Which is what?” Noah’s voice was practically a guttural growl.
“How do you know about her?” Petra interrupted. “How do you know where I live?”
Delilah snorted. “Seriously? Say, which is it, anyway: Petra or Gigi?”
Petra looked over her shoulder at Carlos, who stood with his arms crossed, a menacing scowl contorting his features.
“Besides the fact that you arranged a date with one of my boys so you could grill him for information about me, the very next day, you showed up in my shop, acting as suspicious as a three-dollar bill, asking questions about my business. You think, after all that, that I wasn’t going to have you followed?”
Noah was wrong. Petra was lousy at this game. If only she hadn’t made that call last year, hadn’t contacted Ruby’s biological father. That had been the catalyst for the current state of her life. If she hadn’t reached out, she’d still be living in the Detroit suburbs, still angry that Gabe was reeve and she wasn’t, still fighting against everything that defined her family.
Okay, sure, her life hadn’t been a bed of roses before, but at least her daughter hadn’t been kidnapped by a dragon who ran a drug business and freaking practiced witchcraft.
But how? Delilah was right when she’d made her comment earlier—most dragons weren’t proficient at any magic other than their ability to shift forms. When they needed to protect something, they used brute strength and fire.
No wonder she was the flipping drug kingpin in this town.
“What do we need to do?” Noah demanded.
“Get the hell out of my town,” Delilah said.
Chapter 8
As they hurried down the alley behind Delilah’s shop, Noah kept an eye on the gargoyles perched on the wrought iron fence next to them. He caught the movement as the one on the end shifted from stone to flesh and then disappeared into the shadows while he and Petra turned the corner for Royal Street. No doubt tailing them.
Making sure they followed instructions.
“Hurry up,” he said to Petra, not that he needed to. She was practically jogging, unceremoniously shoving people out of her way as she propelled herself forward. “We need to get back to your house so I can make a call.”
“What?” She stumbled and slowed her gate. Slightly.
“We’re being followed, and I have no idea how good gargoyles’ senses are.”
Petra whipped her head around to glance over her shoulder. “How do you know?” she asked, facing forward again.
“I caught it when he shifted and jumped off his perch on the fence back there.”
“Witches,” Petra muttered. “She must hang out with witches. No other way she could freeze you like that. Not to mention cursing the entire colony. And did you catch that comment about dating a gargoyle? Dragons don’t go out with gargoyles—but witches do. Well, actually, I don’t know if they actually date, but I know witches use them as sentries.”
“We’ll look into that angle, just as soon as we get our daughter back. Well, as soon as we get her safely back home to Detroit. I’m not fucking with Sadie’s life. No way.”
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
But, as they hurried down the street, he did.
His mom, healthy and vibrant, beautiful, smiling. And then, practically overnight, sickly and pale. So weak she couldn’t climb the stairs to the bedroom she shared with his dad, so his parents moved downstairs and gave their much larger room to Noah’s older brother.
And then she was gone. The healer had warned them the end was near, so they’d taken turns sitting by her side, he and his siblings. His dad, it seemed, was always there, hovering in the background like a protective, well, dragon.
She’d died on Noah’s watch. That’s how he’d seen it, anyway. He’d dozed off because frankly, sitting at your dying mother’s bedside was boring as hell, and he’d woken with a start when she squeezed his hand.
And then she was gone. The last rattling breath left her body, her hand went limp, and her eyes didn’t close. His dad had grasped his shoulders, lifted him out of the chair, and pushed him out the door. Even though Noah was the last to see her alive, he hadn’t gotten to say good-bye. He’d stood outside the door for long minutes, listening to his father’s heart-wrenching sobs until he couldn’t take it anymore, and he’d run upstairs to his older brother, who had been with a girl at the time, doing things Noah hadn’t been old enough to understand, and was pissed at being interrupted. Noah had screamed, “Mom’s dead,” and then he ran, down the stairs, through the living room, and out the front door.
He’d landed on his grandfather’s doorstep and basically never left. His dad hadn’t wanted him around anyway, and his siblings were all too wrapped up in their own grief to care about his.
A hand on his arm pulled him out of the nightmare. Petra was guiding him to the left, toward her house. Good, almost there. Time to get out of the past and focus on the present. On ensuring his daughter didn’t see the same fate as his mother.
Because a crazy dragon who was able to perform witchcraft and had arranged to kidnap his daughter was as bad as cancer.
Rebecca was laid out on the couch, eyes closed, appearing to be asleep, when they walked into the guesthouse. Petra rushed to feel for a pulse, then expelled a deep breath. Apparently, the human girl was still alive.
“They obviously drugged her,” Noah said. “She’ll have a hell of a headache when she wakes up, but otherwise she’ll be fine. Go pack the essentials,” he added, pointing at the hall.
She glared at him, and if the situation weren’t so dire, she probably would have refused, but she was as worried about their daughter as he was, which he knew by the way she practically ran toward her bedroom.
When he stepped into the space a few minutes later, she had two suitcases open on the bed and was tossing items into them in a fairly systematic way.
“Do you have a car?” he asked. When she shook her head, he said, “What about Rebecca? Or Pacey?”
“They both do,” Petra said.
“Assuming her keys are in her purse, it’ll be easier to take Rebecca’s since she’s passed out than to ask Pacey and have to come up with a justification she’ll believe.”
“We’re going to steal Rebecca’s car?”
He shook his head. “Borrow. I’ll leave a note, explaining that her car will be at the airport. Wait—what’s the nearest airport to Thibodaux, without coming back to New Orleans?”
“Baton Rouge.” Petra paused with a stack of diapers in her hand. “Why is she sending us to Thibodaux?”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s southwest of here. An
d not near a major highway. Why didn’t she send us someplace north, off I-10 or 55? It would be easier for us to get the hell out of town that way.”
Yeah, Noah wasn’t great with geography. And he’d never been to Louisiana before. As far as he knew, New Orleans was as far south as one could get without hitting the Gulf of Mexico.
“And she’s sending us to a haunted plantation. Is this all some kind of joke to her?”
If it was, the woman was more fucked up than Noah thought, and he was certain she was loony as hell.
His phone vibrated and he dug it out of his pocket. “Who’s that?” Petra asked as he pressed the button to accept the call.
“Hey, Gabe.”
“Why is Gabe calling?” Petra wanted to know, but Noah focused on the person on the line instead of answering her.
“We’re at the New Orleans airport. What’s the situation?” Gabe said.
“We’re back at Petra’s place. And things are ten times more fucked up than they were when I called.”
“You called Gabe?” She made it sound like he’d contacted the devil for help.
“All right, tell me the address and we’ll head your way,” Gabe said.
Glancing at the clock hanging above the television, Noah rattled off Petra’s address.
While Petra continued to glare at him, Gabe said, “According to GPS, that’ll take about thirty minutes by car.”
“Just fly—it’ll be quicker. We need to leave within the hour,” Noah responded.
“For where?” Gabe asked.
Because Petra looked as though she was ready to start beating him over the head with the nearest lamp, Noah quickly said, “I’ll explain when you get here,” and then ended the call.
“When did you call him?” she demanded. “And why?”
“Earlier today, after Delilah told us to meet her at the shop. I didn’t trust that woman. And I was right not to.”
“I told you I wanted to do this ourselves.”
“Yeah, well, we obviously need help. And if I hadn’t called when I did, they wouldn’t be almost here by now.”