Page 54 of Never Feed a Dragon

Guilt had me hitting the button to call her back. I lifted the phone to my ear while it rang.

She didn’t make me wait long.

“What the hell, Vi?” she yelled into the phone.

Her panic caught me so off guard, I literally jerked away.

“I’m video calling you. Answer,” she ordered, then hung up the phone.

I blinked down at it.

It lit up a moment later, and I hit the button to accept.

Randa’s face filled the screen, her cheeks pink and her forehead creased. “What the hell?” she yelled again. “I thought you were making a peace offering, then Mom told me you and Eli were pretending to be mates to keep women away from him. Then I hear from Elodie that you guys are in heat, and fully mated, but your apartment’s empty, and Eli’s cabin is too, and?—”

“Breathe, Randa,” I commanded.

She sucked in a deep breath.

Jasper murmured something on her side of the line, and she flashed him a dirty look before focusing back on me. “What’s really going on here?”

I sighed. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“I’ve got nothing else to do. I’m currently sitting on the porch of the cabin Jasper secretly bought for us in Scale Ridge, since my attempt at finding you failed.”

My eyes widened. “He bought the honeymoon cabin?”

“Yes.” She sighed, like that was some hardship.

“Were the pictures he showed you real?”

“Mmhm.”

I leaned forward. “Then why are you not jumping with joy right now? Or having sex on one of the balconies?”

“That’s what I said,” Jasper grumbled.

“I didn’t need another place to live!” Randa exclaimed. “And… well, okay, I’m happy about it. I am. It’s gorgeous, and it’s fairly close to Elodie’s, and Eli’s, which is apparently now yours, and—we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you! Why didn’t you call me immediately? I can’t believe you texted Elodie instead of me. That’s just…” she huffed, too frustrated to finish the sentence.

“I wasn’t going to interrupt your wedding night,” I said. “And it really wasn’t planned. I gave Eli the spaghetti at your reception, and he admitted that he’d told the other women we were mates to get them off his back. I was shocked, but played along. Mom caught us during that, so what we told her was true. But one thing led to another, and he went home with me. While we were hooking up, heat started, which sealed the bond before we had a chance to fight it or walk away or whatever. So, we’re mated.”

Randa’s eyebrows were high on her forehead. “Holy shit.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“Where are you guys now?”

“Switzerland,” I admitted. “Eli doesn’t want to tell me why he flirts up a storm and sleeps around while most other dragons don’t, so I agreed to let him keep the secret for a few weeks if he took me on vacation.”

Randa’s forehead creased. “Eli doesn’t sleep around.”

Mine creased too. “What?”

Jasper murmured something I couldn’t hear.

My gaze jerked to Eli, who was staring pointedly at the ceiling above us. My eyes narrowed, but he didn’t move.

So, I looked back at Randa. Her lip was between her teeth, and the look on her face told me she was about a minute from making a run for it.

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