“If the Wood stays clear…” Her head cocked, Graham suspected she was listening to a call no one else in the room could hear. “… then I’ve got some traveling to do, but if you’re staying, I’ll base here with you.” She glanced past Allie to flash an exceedingly smug smile at Graham. “With you two.”
“So it’s like that, is it?” Michael’s brows rose, and his expression had enough of a warning in it that Graham had to fight to keep his hands from curling into fists.
“No,” Allie told him, stepping back, bumping her shoulder into Graham’s. “No one’s made any choices yet. We’re taking it slow this time.”
“Shouldn’t be a this time,” Roland pointed out.
“Shouldn’t be a half-Human Dragon Prince in the bathroom,” Charlie reminded him. “Cope.”
Roland snorted. “Then speaking to that—it’s a little early to make plans for after, don’t you think? If his mother is as terrifying as reports indicate, we might not survive.”
“Joe.”
When Joe looked over at her, Allie gestured that he should smack Roland on the back of the head.
The leprechaun sank back into the sofa cushions. “I couldn’t.”
“I’ve got it.” Stretching out a long arm, Michael did the honors.
Roland dove over Joe to get to him.
Graham could just barely remember his brothers Frank and Evan, the closest to him in age, wrestling like that, using the physical to defuse tensions rising over… over… He couldn’t remember what, exactly, but this was the clearest memory of the time before the fire he’d had in years.
He wanted to blame it all on Kalynchuk, wanted to say it had everything to do with the way his life had been manipulated to create the man the sorcerer required, but he suspected he’d been a willing participant in dividing his life into the years before and after the fire. What thirteen year old wouldn’t have wanted to stop hurting so badly?
“Hey! If the little guy is going to eat the bigger one, I should get to eat the leprechaun!”
Jack’s voice drew Graham out of the smoke-filled corners in his head, and Michael’s roar of laughter banished the flame.
Still laughing, he bucked up against Roland’s hold. “You wish you were going to be eating me, don’t you, littler guy?”
“Bite me,” Roland snorted, catching Michael’s flailing hand and pinning it beside the other. “Say uncle.”
Dimples flashed. “Auntie!”
“Close enough.”
Jack frowned as the two disengaged and dragged themselves up onto facing sofas, breathing heavily. “So no one’s being eaten?”
“Not tonight. Or rather this morning,” Charlie amended glancing at her watch. “I am totally bagged and I have a gig tomorrow night, so at the risk of doing Allie’s job and sounding like the grown-up, it’s time for bed.”
“Well?”
Standing at one of the windows facing the street, Allie leaned back against Charlie’s warmth as her cousin wrapped her arms around her and rested her chin on Allie’s shoulder. “Well, what?” she asked just as quietly, aware of Michael and Roland and Joe asleep on the sofa beds behind them. Jack had the other bedroom—everyone seemed fine with giving a teenage Dragon Prince his space—and David had stayed in the loft.
“Well, you and Graham for starters?”
“We’re… okay.” Given all the new baggage, in some ways, it had been more like a first time than their first time had been. “No choices until all this is over.”
“Sure you don’t want to get him locked down before the aunties toss in their twenty-four cents’ worth? They’re going to want you all the way into second circle before Mommy dearest shows up.”
“I want him to be sure this time. The aunties are going to have enough to worry about without interfering in my love life.”
Charlie snorted, warm air blowing strands of hair along Allie’s neck. “Yeah, like that’s ever stopped them. And, also… well, David?”
“I can’t get close to him until he gets some control back.”
“You could call him.”
Allie shrugged just enough for Charlie to feel the motion. “Not really the kind of thing you can do over the phone.” She knew Auntie Jane wouldn’t agree. Auntie Meredith, Auntie Gwen, and Auntie Carmen—Roland’s grandmother—had called Roland and Charlie’s mother and two of Charlie’s sisters had called her. Both phones were now buried inside bags of frozen peas in the freezer. Katie had sent a brief and profane text message. Someone had to have called David.
A familiar shadow flickered along the street, a darker gray now the sky had begun to lighten. Charlie’s arms tightened.
“There’s been a flyby about every forty minutes,” Allie told her. “I was lying there in the dark, and I could feel them passing—or maybe it’s just one of them, I don’t know. I got up to see if I was imagining things but I wasn’t. Obviously. Can you…?”
“Feel them? No. Probably a second circle thing.”
They turned together to look at Roland, the light spilling in from the street enough to see him lying on his back, one hand tucked up under his chin, a silvered line of drool rolling toward the pillow.
“Maybe,” Allie allowed. She thought of the anger and the burning and the vast weight of personality she’d touched. “Maybe not.”
“So, Graham’s ex-boss; you figure he’s going to get involved.”
“He’s going to have to. He can’t run because the Dragon Lords will take him out. He can’t stay hidden because she’ll find him no matter where he is. The way I see it, he has two choices—get to Jack before she makes it through, or take her out during that moment of disorientation right after she arrives.”
“You think she’ll have that moment?”
“How would I know?”
“You have to have more info than we do, sweetie. Or you’d never have called in the aunties.”
“I keep forgetting you’re smarter than you look.”
“I’d kind of have to be.”
“She’s…” Allie took a deep breath and watched it fog the window as she exhaled. “Remember Auntie Gwen right after the change? Scarier than that.”
“Wow. Okay, you think Adam and the dragon brothers up there are actually standing guard over Jack?”
“I think…” Allie went over everything she knew about Adam and the Dragon Lords, which was less than she knew about their sister. “… I think they’re easily bored and angling for a front row seat.”
“So, Graham’s ex-boss…” The words were the same, but the tone had become frankly speculative. “… I have to say, sex with a dragon, that’s impressive. Still, unless he gets his trousers made to measure, that must make him a grower not a shower.”
Allie rolled her eyes. “He was in a very expensive suit; probably tailor made. Plus, he had burn scars.”
“Ouch.”
“No, Katie’ll be staying here, but I’ve booked six rooms at the Fairmont Palliser for the aunties.”
“The big fancy hotel by the convention center?” Joe tried not to look relieved as he wiped down the glass countertop. It wasn’t a significantly successful attempt.
“That’s the one. It has a spa; they’ll be thrilled. The aunties are big on getting what they feel they’re entitled to.” Allie took a deep breath as a minibus pulled up in front of the store. “Case in point; I had to talk them down from a fleet of airport limos.” She suspected they hadn’t actually wanted the limos, that it was just Auntie Meredith attempting to wrest some control of the situation from Auntie Jane, but that hadn’t shortened the phone call—proving that the cell service along the 401, all the way from Darsden East into Pearson International Airport in Toronto, was excellent.
Joe nodded toward the rental. “Good thing Michael had a license for driving that rig, then.”
“He didn’t. He had Charlie.”
“And she’s the driver?”
“No. She’s the Gale girl.” Right on cue, Charlie jumped out and beckoned from the sidewalk. “Okay, this is it. Hold the fort.” Throwing her messenger bag up over her shoulder, Allie took a deep breath. “Wish me luck.”
“Aren’t they on your side?”