Page 41 of Kidnapped By The Messy Dragon

He walks right past it. “What is this business with the Stillwater products?”

“Damn,” I say. “Getting right down to business, huh? You could at least congratulate me. Isn’t she beautiful?”

Soren grins. Then he folds a wing over his heart and bows his head.

“Your mate is lovely, Jalen,” he says. “Her scent is unique. I cannot read a fated pairing the way your kind does, but that one is perfect for you.”

I smile at him. My dragon is proud right along with me.

Soren pulls us back to business. “The Stillwater products, Jalen.”

I rub the back of my head. My nose itches, but Shelly’s tea holds the line.

I quit playing around. Some names you don’t hand a friend with a joke attached.

“It’s Delilah for sure,” I tell him. “She’s running the company.”

His bright eyes narrow, the gold in them going flat and hot. He hasn’t forgotten what her ghouls did to Treasure. Neither have I.

“You and Sable told me once. ‘When you call, we answer.’” That pledge got made over a stolen coin and a bad night, and I’ve never had to spend it before.

“I am a gargoyle of my word,” Soren says.

“Those ghouls tried to kill my mate.” Smoke comes out with the words. I’m thinking about the alley, her cheek, that gun. My heat rises with the memory, and the asphalt goes warm under my bare feet.

His wings snap open, wide enough to black out the streetlight behind him. Then he smiles at me, all fangs.

This is what it means to have people. I’ve got two brothers up the mountain and this grumpy night-watchman ready to go to war off one sentence of mine.

I hold up one hand. “I don’t need the I-told-you-so. I already caught my karma for what I did to you.”

“I do not relish a ghoul harming your mate, Jalen,” Soren says.

“They’ll come here looking for her.” I rub my itchy nose again. “She’s trying to mask the fated scent. I don’t know why.”

Soren crosses his arms, claws wrapping his elbows. “The supernaturals she has had dealings with here.”

“The witch made a deal with Nyra once,” I answer. “It’s how she met her mate Marcus. She tried to collect on it too. Nyra’s pack and Marcus put a stop to that.”

Soren bends down into my space to deliver the look. “Nyra. The wolf shifter you have been terrorizing on your messy podcast.”

I frown at him and say nothing.

Okay, damn it, so they all have a point.

Wings beat the air above us, and Soren and I both look up. Sable glides past overhead, and his shadow crosses the whole parking lot. He banks toward Lena’s Crafts and lowers himself slow, until he’s standing at the entrance door with his wings folding down.

I look at Soren. He sighs through his fangs.

The lights inside the store go out. Lena steps out with her tote bag on her shoulder and locks the door behind her. Then she looks up at the seven feet of gargoyle standing over her, and all she does is frown. She doesn’t flinch, not even a little.

“What are you doing?” she says. “You’re supposed to meet me at home.”

His answer is to grab her and yank her clean off her feet. She yelps. He pulls her into him and presses his forehead to hers.

“Sable, ahh—“ she starts.

Then he moans low, and she goes quiet.