Page 68 of The Ruby Dragon's Unconventional Mate

“Whoa.” Bryant took a step back. This wasn’t Slippy. Slippy was all gray and black. “Who are you?”

The weasel came to put a paw on his boot, and he heard it in his head as clear as day. “Andine? Your name is Andine.”

The tiny creature chattered at him, squeaking, and he blinked.

“Okay. Well, hey there, Andine. What can I help you with?”

He got a chaotic jumble of images. Slipknot. His brother. Lars. A pair of rainbow twins. Sadness that he and Andine weren’t there with them. A picnic.

“That’s all very well and good, Andine, but I don’t trust them.” He turned on his heel so he could walk back inside.

The little weasel popped around him to put her front paws on his leading leg as if to hold him outside. Then she scolded him. Loudly.

“Nope.” He stepped over Andine, ignoring her as he went back inside. Well, except he waited for her to come back in before he shut the door. “Look. I appreciate you coming to be my familiar and Slippy’s mate. I do. But I’m not ready to make nice. I told Lars how I feel about?—”

“But did you listen to how he felt?”

Holy fucking shit, Bryant almost had a damn heart attack right there, thinking that Andine was talking to him in a man’s voice from his own living room.

Or that someone had snuck inside to try to kill him.

Neither was the case; it was Logan, sitting on his couch.

“Shit, Logan. If I keel over dead, it won’t matter if I have or not.”

“Eh, you’re not that easy to kill.” Logan grinned. “I tried hard enough when we were in college together.”

“Yeah, yeah. What do you want?”

“Well, now I want to meet your familiar. Hi, Andine.” Logan held out a hand, and the little weasel ran right up his arm.

Traitor.

Andine chittered away at Logan, and he nodded as if he understood. “Uh-huh. I agree. He’s being a dick to my pregnant brother.”

Andine heaved a huge sigh, then turned to stare at him as if to say, see? I told you.

“Et tu, Andine,” he griped.

“Come on, man. You’re being seriously unreasonable.” Logan held up his hands. “And I even get why. But you have to trust your mate.”

“I do trust him.” Bryant wasn’t doing this with Logan.

“Lying is unattractive.” Logan blinked at him. “Try again.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said lying is unattractive, try again.” Suddenly, it was absolutely, perfectly clear who exactly the boss was in this wing. Not only that, Logan knew it, and damn, it pissed Bryant off.

“You don’t get to be my boss and tell me what to do about my mate!”

“One, I can do pretty much what I want to as long as I’m a decent dragon and protecting my people. Two, you’re my people. Three, I’m not being the boss. I’m being the brother—the older brother, which means I’m the boss, of course. And not only that, you’re just wrong. I have my reasons. Yes, no one’s argued that what happened to you sucked, but that dragon who hurt Lachlan was not a keeper.”

“How do you know? You can’t just say Simon said. This isn’t a children’s game.”

“Simon went to his elders and asked. They have no reason to lie. Someone wanted your brother dead, but you and I both know when the line ends, the Keepers die. Their entire focus is to support the line. One generation after another. If you meet this new Keeper, and you don’t like him, you don’t trust him,thentalk to Lars. Discuss it with him.” Logan was petting Andine like they weren’t even fighting. “He’s not angry at you because you don’t want a Keeper. He’s angry at you because you made an ultimatum, and you’re not his boss; you’re his mate. That’s not how it works. You talk about things. Did he ever once say to you, absolutely, this person is coming to live at our house?”

“Yes.”

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