Page 31 of Kidnapped By The Messy Dragon

Malachi closes the folder and sits back in his chair. “We came here with nothing,” he says. “We built this land with our own hands. Decades of it. And this damn witch has been picking at it like it’s hers to take.”

Brandy comes around the desk to Zuri and takes a soft look at her bruised cheek. “Are you two leaving for the medical center?”

I nod. “Yes. Just dropping this off first.”

Malachi looks up from the folder at Zuri and grins. “I can’t let you go back to Millbrook,” he says. “What’s in this folder could have gotten you killed.”

Zuri pulls in a sharp little breath. I cross to her side and take her hand, and her fingers are cold in mine. I fold them into my heat and hold on.

She searches my face. I hold still so she can find whatever she needs in it. Then she turns back to Malachi, and I brace, because this is where she fights us. I’ve been waiting since the alley for her to ask to go home.

“I’m more worried about the danger than the staying,” she says. “Are you sure I’ll be safe here?”

“Yes,” I say. My dragon is eager to kill anything that dares try to take her from us.

Malachi closes his mouth around whatever speech he had ready.

He taps the folder. “Let her try to come after you in Shadow Wolf Creek. A dragon will be the least of Delilah’s worries.”

Her grip goes firm in mine while he talks. She’s holding my hand in front of my Alpha, on purpose, and I grin so hard my ears move.

“Alright then,” she says to Malachi. “I’m not about to complain about living in luxury.” Then she plucks at the front of her shirt and turns to Brandy. “Do you have a cheaper shirt I can wear, though? It feels almost criminal to get a stain on this one. It was two hundred dollars.”

Brandy chuckles and fans the worry away with one hand. “Money grows on trees here, honey. You’ll get used to it.”

Zuri’s jaw sets. She doesn’t answer. Under her quiet, her caramel picks up a sharp edge, and I file that away for later.

“Thank you for this,” Malachi says, laying one hand flat on the folder. “You just gave me something to work with. Go get yourselves looked over. And Jalen, figure out what the hell that is before you get me and Dorian sick.”

I roll my eyes and keep hold of Zuri’s hand.

“See you at dinner!” Brandy calls after us as I pull Zuri out of the room.

I hate driving when I’ve got two perfectly good wings. But my mate can’t fly, so I borrowed one of Malachi’s SUVs and we take the mountain road down toward town.

Zuri’s eyes are glued to the window the whole way. It’s not much to look at, road, trees, and more mountain, but she’s got her hands on the glass about it.

I smile and take the curves slow. I check on her more than I check my mirrors.

I push down on the gas once the road straightens out. No one comes up this mountain unless it’s a delivery, so traffic isn’t a thing I worry about.

“Enjoying the view?” I ask her.

She doesn’t answer. Her forehead is about to touch the glass.

I’ve got a view of my own on this side of the SUV. She’s the best thing I’ve had to look at in my whole measly life, sitting in my passenger seat in a shirt she’s scared of.

My dragon agrees.

I put my focus back on the road, since she’s too busy with her window to talk to me. She’ll have to make her peace with luxury in a hurry. I’ve got plans to spoil her rotten, and that shirt doesn’t even make the list.

We make it down the mountain and roll past the shopping center. She points at the craft store first, out of everything on the strip.

I make the right face at it. What is it with women and craft stores? First it was Brandy, now my mate.

Then Stanley’s Diner comes up on her side, and she giggles at the sign. I take my opening. “You know something about that diner? Andy can’t keep employees. Every time he trains someone new, a shifter scoops them up and mates them.”

“And gargoyles,” she says.