Page 30 of Kidnapped By The Messy Dragon

Jalen kept himself on the other side of the door the whole time I got ready. When I come out, he takes his turn.

The water starts behind the bathroom door. I make up the bed while I wait.

Then I snoop. His desk sits under a mess of newspapers, and notebooks are stacked knee-high against the wall beside it. In the far corner, a microphone hangs tilted on its boom arm with headphones hooked over it.

So this is the podcast.

I cross to the sliding door on the far wall, and behind the glass a whole balcony hangs over the valley. Shadow Wolf Creekis laid out below me. Rooftops line Main Street, the morning sun is catching the tree line, and mountains stand on every side of it all.

“Wow,” I say to the empty room. “This is something.”

On my way back from the glass, my hip bumps the desk, and the computer screen blinks awake. There’s no lock screen or password. It opens straight to his editing software, a row of sound waves paused mid-run. He was working on something.

I look at the bathroom door. The water is still going.

I lean in and click the preview button.

“CREEK BABIES.” His voice booms out of the speakers. “The mess does not rest, so let’s get into it. Lamar. The man has been burning hash browns at Stanley’s for years, and in all that time he has never once shot his shot at an available woman. Waitresses with mates. Tourists with husbands. A bride, creek babies, at her own rehearsal dinner. But this week, Lamar graduated. Y’all seen that shiny roll of tin in the diner parking lot? Looking like a soda can that lost a fight? That was Lamar’s truck on Monday, right up until our newest neighbor caught him leaning into his mate’s window with his church smile on. Sable is a gargoyle, babies. Patience is the whole job description, and Lamar found the bottom of it. I asked Sable for a comment and he gave me one: ‘A possession for a possession.’ Gargoyles don’t do follow-ups. This is Messy Jay reminding you—where there’s smoke, I’m probably the fire.”

I burst out laughing. I have to grab the back of his desk chair to do it. It’s the funniest shit I’ve heard all week, and with the week I’ve had, I needed it.

The bathroom door opens, and Jalen steps out with a towel wrapped around his waist and water still shining on his shoulders. He stops in the doorway, one hand tight on the towel knot. He glances at the screen, then at me, then back at the screen.

I straighten up and get my laughing under control.

“I think I’m going to like it here,” I tell him.

Jalen grins.

13

JALEN

Zuri’s hand stays in mine the whole way up the stairs to Malachi’s office. In my other hand I’m carrying the folder and the soap, and my plan for the morning is simple: hand off both, then get my mate out into the sunshine.

At the top I stop us outside the tall doors and listen. Brandy’s voice is in there with his. I sniff the air first. There’s no arousal riding under their scents, which means it’s safe to walk in.

I knock and swing the door open, looking back at Zuri as I step inside. She follows me in.

“Whoa,” she says.

“Yeah.” I lean toward her ear. “Malachi is a bit over the top.”

The walls are carved floor to ceiling. The paintings have their own little lights. The desk in the center is one solid slab, and Malachi will tell you about the tree it came from if you give him half a chance.

He and Brandy are behind it, Brandy sitting in his lap with his arm wrapped around her waist. My brother rests his chin on her shoulder and smiles at my mate.

“Good morning, sister,” he says. “I trust you had a good first night.”

Zuri shrugs. “I slept well.”

He smiles at that.

I cross the room and set the folder and the soap on his desk. “Now we know why Delilah sent ghouls after her.”

Brandy stands up out of his lap. Malachi pulls the folder to him, opens it, and starts turning pages.

Halfway through his reading, a sneeze doubles me over my own elbow. Smoke drifts off my lips, and I could spit about it. I made it through the whole morning without one, and I want to know what changed. My dragon is irritated right along with me, but underneath, his heat is climbing and dropping with no pattern I can read. That’s new.