Page 14 of Destiny of the Dragons

Mia pulled up short. Jace stepped in front of her, frowning for once.

“Are you okay?”

Mia looked over her shoulder. She was too far away to hear the griffin realistically, but it felt like she could. “Yeah.”

Smoke frowned. “You’re upset.”

Mia forced herself forward. “There’s nothing I can do about it now.”

“You sure?” Jace curled an arm around her, pulling her beside him. “What happened?”

She leaned into him. She couldn’t help it. “It’s complicated.”

“Food?” Jace looked down at her. “There’s a really great Indian place down the street.”

Mia nodded. She wanted to sit and eat, and being in between two powerful dragons made her feel better.

Jace led the way down a small Indian restaurant tucked in between a derelict potion shop and a wand vender. They took a table outside, and Mia slid in between the two dragons.

She ordered a chai. Smoke angled himself away from the table so he could watch the street, and Jace charmed their waiter for some appetizers.

She should have figured out how to leave with the mini griffin. What if the mini griffin annoyed Cross too much and he killed her?

Jace’s fingers brushed the top of her hand. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m okay.” She forced herself to focus on Jace. He really was gorgeous, damn him. Perfect, sculpted face, like some Greek god come to life. His wings were still out, and they were flame red and almost translucent. She wondered how big his actual dragon was. She’d never seen a dragon in real life.

Smoke didn’t have his wings out. He wore tight blue jeans, and a basic black t-shirt tucked into his pants, nearly the same thing he wore yesterday. Mia had never envied a t-shirt before, but stretched across Smoke’s chest wouldn’t be such a terrible place in life.

Jace grinned. “You’re checking out Smoke, so clearly you’re going to make it.”

Smoke turned to look at her, surprised, and she looked down at her cup.

“My familiar. The last client had her.”

“Taking a witch’s familiar is grounds for a fight,” Jace growled.

“No, I didn’t know I had one until I saw the mini griffin.” Mia hugged herself again. “I’ve never had a familiar before.”

“He won’t give it to you?”

“Mini griffins are illegal,” Smoke muttered.

“He wants a lock of my hair.” Mia pulled her hand through a strand of her hair. “I wasn’t okay with that, but I would have…but then he wants half a million dollars, too.”

Jace frowned. “He’s assuming a lot of risk keeping a live animal like that. He should be glad to offload it.”

Mia sighed. She waited until after the waiter dropped off their food, but then told them everything, about the psychic onslaught, the threat of taxidermy.

She left the part about the blood magic out. She looked at her food. She’d ordered tikka masala, her favorite, but she couldn’t taste anything.

If they knew she did blood magic, they wouldn’t be asking for a date.

“Damn the timing,” Jace grumbled and looked at Smoke. “We just invested our nest egg into a real estate thing.”

Mia blinked. “I wasn’t expecting you to have that sort of money lying around, and give it to me.”

“What kind of dragon doesn’t have a hoard at his disposal?” Jace was back to smirking.

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