“Right. Is my employee in any danger? Is this mystery brother of ours skittish around other dragons?”
“I wouldn’t call him skittish, no. He has no way of knowing she’s a plant since she doesn’t even know.”
“What if she has dragon magic and he senses it?”
“As you said, she’s calm under pressure. She’s unlikely to use magic in ordinary circumstances.”
“You don’t know that. She’s exceptionally good at getting people to open up to her. She could be enthralling them.”
“Kurt, we need him. The only appeal that will work with him is one to his heart. A woman could get past his barriers. That’s what we need and she’s the best one we could find.”
“Right, but you aren’t going to tell me who he is, why you need him, or if he could be a threat to her. That’s not what I thought this was, Etel. I can’t just throw my employee out there like a gazelle into a lion’s den.”
“He would never hurt a woman.”
Something about that statement triggered an alarm in the back of Kurt’s mind. A memory of something he’d heard about the history of his family.
“Because he had a mother, Etel? One that he knew? Tell me it isn’t Ezzu,” Kurt asked.
“Kurt, he’s not a criminal. He mated the wrong woman. That’s all. You could have done the same in his shoes.”
“That’s not all it is, and you know it. If he spots her and thinks she’s a plant...Fuck. She’s my responsibility, Etel.”
“Calm down.”
Kurt disconnected the call and texted Clarence.
Tell Jess to go home. She can keep the bonus, just tell her to get out of there. It’s a setup. She needs to leave now.
Kurt watched his screen for a reply saying that Jess had gotten the message and was going back to Texas.
It was the thunder that took his attention away from his phone and to his mate, kneeling on the ground. The weather had been clear a second earlier. Something was upsetting his storm drakaina. She still had trouble controlling her powers and would sometimes trigger a storm when he did something to piss her off.
“Kurt,” Faith said, breathlessly.
He ran to her side, thoughtlessly putting his phone in his pocket. Her jeans were wet. A quick inhale through his mouth told him that her water had broken. He scooped her up into his arms.
“Kurt,” she whimpered, tears streaming down her face.
“Is it time, baby?” he asked.
She nodded and then nuzzled into his chest. The wind picked up and rain began to fall. He could feel her body tremble and the wetness of her tears soak through his t-shirt along with the drops of rain as he carried her to the front door of their rural home, leaving the roses—and various annual flowers he couldn’t name—behind in their plastic nursery pots.
Even with Faith in his arms, he took the stairs to the second floor two at a time. He had to get her in bed and call the doctor, a local mage who happened to be an obstetrician specializing in shifter births.
Hopefully magic wouldn’t be needed.
She would be ready for the call. Faith had reached her due date. The baby dragon, the first to be birthed by a drakaina, was on his way.
As the storm raged outside, he set Faith on the bed and helped her remove her clothes. He got her cotton nightgown and fluffy pink robe out for her before making the call. His phone buzzed with an incoming text, but he didn’t have time to deal with any of that right now. His first child was on the way.
Chapter 4
Jess had trouble taking her eyes off the impossibly tall man in line. There was something different about him. Sure, he was probably the most attractive man she’d ever seen, but it was more than that. She wasn’t one to believe in auras, but if he had one, it would white hot. The man didn’t just smolder, he looked like he could incinerate the world with the raise of an eyebrow.
Power, that was it. He looked and felt powerful. It was more than just his broad shoulders and trim waist.
Some people said Mr. Drake had a presence like that, but Jess had never met him. Maybe this guy was the reason she was there.
No, she would have been told, right? If she had a target to check out, Drake couldn’t expect her to just magically know who the guy was. It’s not as though the feeling she got from him was anything someone could predict, was it?
That, and she wasn’t a private investigator. She worked for a cybersecurity firm. Unless this guy worked for a client, she had no idea why he would be a target. If he were a target, there was no reason they wouldn’t have given her a file on him.
Then he was there in front of her. His dark eyes fixed on her as though he could see right through her. She gave him a smile—he didn’t return it.
“What can I get for you today?” she asked, ratcheting up the cheerfulness in her voice. She really wanted to know what his smile looked like.
“The reason you’re here and a black coffee. I’ll be waiting at the corner table,” he said.
He put a five-dollar bill on the counter and that was it, he walked away. She tried not to ogle his firm looking backside as he went to the corner table.
Okay, I guess he’s the target I didn’t know I had.
It was a dilemma. She could text Clarence but bringing out her phone to text while she was supposed to be working would all but confirm the man’s suspicions. The fact was, she didn’t know if she was there for him so there was no reason to be nervous about him finding out her true intentions for being where she was. She had no target. She was just working at a bistro.
The early morning rush was dying down, so she told Mark she was going on break. Before he could
