Page 51 of Kidnapped By The Messy Dragon

I peek through my fingers and run my own check. Malachi’s color is back, deep brown a shade darker than my own. He’s standing straight. There’s no smoke on him anywhere. The tea works.

“Let’s not make our new sister feel uncomfortable,” Brandy says, mostly at Dorian.

Dorian opens his mouth again. He has a follow-up question. He huffs a little smoke instead and goes to the kitchen.

“Breakfast for everyone?” Malachi asks.

I take my hands off my face and nod at him. It’s the most dignity I can afford right now.

Brandy takes Jules’s arm, and I fall in beside the women. Behind us, Jalen and Malachi slow down and put their heads together, too low for me to hear.

I hear one word anyway. “National.”

Whatever they’re planning, I’ll get it out of him later.

Dorian gets to work at the stove. Malachi and Jalen pull chairs out for the women, and then Jalen picks me up and sets me in mine. Malachi does the same for Jules, then Brandy.

I’ve stopped fighting this kind of thing. It’s chairs now. Yesterday it was doors.

The brothers stay standing at the island while Dorian cooks behind it.

“I’ve got an idea how to stop the witch,” Jalen says.

“And I’ve found out why she keeps coming to Shadow Wolf Creek,” Malachi says.

I turn my head back and forth between them, and I grip the edge of my chair.

Dorian doesn’t care about any of it. He hums at the stove and tells no one in particular that these pancakes want brown butter. Beside me, Brandy and Jules have moved on to planning their next shopping trip.

I keep my focus on Jalen and Malachi.

“Oh, really?” Jalen says.

Malachi pulls out his phone, scratching at his nose with his free hand. He taps the screen and hands it over.

I lean to see. I lean too far. My chair tips, and Jalen catches me one-handed without even looking and pushes me back into my seat.

Then he slides the phone over to me.

“I’ve seen that amulet before,” he says.

The photo shows an amulet on a heavy chain. The disc is dark hammered metal, about the size of a coffee lid, and the hammer marks run crooked. No machine made this. In the middle sitsa small red gem, flat and dull as dried blood. Lines are carved around it, crossing each other in a pattern I’ve never seen.

I catch myself holding the phone by its edges.

Jalen reaches over and slips it out of my hands.

“It’s in the safe,” Malachi says. Then he smiles at me. “You haven’t seen the safe yet, have you?”

I look at Jalen. He grins, hands his brother the phone back, and pulls me up out of my chair, my hand folded in his.

“Want to see how we dragons live up to our name?” he says.

I nod. He steals a kiss off my lips and pulls me after Malachi.

Dorian calls something after us about pancakes getting cold. No one answers him.

We take the hallway down to the elevator, and Malachi presses the button for the fourth floor.