Page 11 of Magic Forsaken

It only made me more anxious to make my exit. I needed to get out of this room before I did anything else to annoy or attract the suspicion of the clearly irritated shapeshifter still looming too close for comfort.

“I should go get a broom,” I insisted. “And ask Irene to remake your order.”

“Don’t worry about the mess,” Kira scoffed. “You’re hurt. And if I know Irene, she probably hasn’t noticed how long you’ve been working. Have you taken a break yet?”

I hadn’t, but there was zero chance I was going to complain about it on my first day.

“There’s no need,” I began to protest, but the third man finally opened his mouth.

“Might as well give up and do what she says. She won’t quit until you do.” He offered me a lopsided smile, and honestly, it should have been patronizing, but it wasn’t.

“I’m Declan,” he told me, with a simple warmth that caused my annoyance to ebb and my tension to ease before I even realized what was happening. How did he do that? And why had I almost forgotten he was even in the room?

He was nearly as gorgeous as Callum—tall and auburn-haired with that weirdly familiar smile—and my brain finally decided they must be related about the same time Callum growled, “Sit.”

My entire body tried to rebel against that one-word command, but I somehow managed to throttle the impulse to punch him in the throat.

I needed to keep this job. Needed not to arouse any extra suspicion. So when I couldn’t think of a solid reason not to, I sat. But first, I stepped all the way around the table to put as much space between me and the annoying shapeshifter as possible. It might not help with these wayward inclinations towards glaring or stabbing, but hey, it was worth a try. Especially when the vantage point also allowed me to watch for whoever else might come through the door.

Kira pulled up a chair, sat next to me, grabbed my hand, and began dabbing off the blood with a napkin.

Callum just watched her, his gaze still sharp and fierce with suspicion.

“Be careful, Kira,” he warned. “You have no idea what she’s capable of.”

“But I do know whatI’mcapable of,” she retorted. “Just because you’ve moved up in the world doesn’t mean I answer to you, brother dear.”

I couldn’t quite hide my startled assessment of that endearment. Kira saw my expression, caught my eye, and winked.

“Yes, the grumpy giant over there is, in fact, my brother. Callum-ro-Deverin. Long on responsibility and paranoia, short on flexibility and humor. He’s officially been king of the shapeshifter court for all of a few months, and suddenly he thinks he can tell me what to do.”

He waswhat now?

I’d just been trading glares with theking of the shapeshifters?

The realization hit like a landslide, leaving me with no response except a strong desire to slap myself for near-criminal levels of idiocy.

The man I’d just considered punching was literally the last person in the world I should be antagonizing—a respected, influential leader, with thousands of shapeshifters at his beck and call. Lethal, intelligent, and professionally suspicious. More than capable of snapping my head off.

I might not know much about shapeshifter politics, but I did know that their court only respected power. The strongest among them always held the most authority, which meant that they had always and forever been ruled by… dragons.

For most of the past fifty years, their court had been led by the queen of the dragons—Tairen-li-Corva. But after she became personally involved in the downfall of the fae queen, ElayaraElduvar, the other courts had demanded a change in leadership to maintain balance. Once Tairen stepped down to make way for a new dragon queen, the shapeshifter court had chosen to crown her son as their new king.

Shane had mentioned the upheaval in shapeshifter politics after my escape, but I’d been too busy trying to survive to pay much attention. So while I technically knew the shapeshifter court had recently come under new management, I hadn’t known his name until now.

Callum-ro-Deverin. My newest adversary and first on my list of people to avoid. He might be wildly good-looking, but he was also the one person on Earth who possessed both the innate ability to determine exactly what I was and the authority to do something very permanent about it.

Add to this that the woman currently holding my injured hand was basically a princess.

As if oblivious to my reaction, Kira added, “And in case the family resemblance wasn’t obvious enough, Declan is also my brother. But I’d say it’s pretty clear he got all the chill in the family.”

While Callum got all the glaring, squinty-eyed suspicion.

“I’m her favorite,” Declan murmured with a grin and a wink. “At least, that’s what she claims whenever I see her. Personally, I’m convinced she likes Ryker better than me. And”—he shot a strangely pointed glance at his brother—“I’m also convinced that no one in this room is a threat to Kira. Or the Symposium.”

The two dragons shared an oddly intense stare, a frown pulling at Callum’s lips while an easy smile tugged at Declan’s.

After a few more moments, Declan shrugged, and before things could get any more awkward, Draven returned with the first aid kit.

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