Page 3 of Seducing the Dragon
The dragonman’s eyes turned hard. “As you can see, the boy is happy. When I find the right family for him, then he’ll have a permanent home, not before.”
She didn’t like his dominant tone, but she was experienced enough to keep her voice level. “The contracts signed between you and the late Caitriona Belmont clearly stipulates that in the event of her death, you have six months to place the baby in a permanent home or we will assign him one. It’s been five months already, so time is running out.”
Bram hugged the baby close and Murray stopped moving to stare up at Stonefire’s leader. Bram’s voice was as dominant as ever when he replied, “Maybe you should remember we’re living beings with feelings too. Would you want your child fostered to a random person or placed with someone who will love him or her?”
Evie resisted a frown. “Of course you have feelings. I never claimed otherwise. Now who’s being judgmental?”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Evie regretted them. Somewhere between the door and this moment, she’d fallen on her DDA training instead of her supposed seductress persona.
Shit.She might’ve just bollixed this up.
Bram silently stared at her until little Murray started crying. He broke her gaze to look at the boy as he said in a gentle tone, “Sssh, lad. Nothing is amiss.” The boy’s cry increased in volume and Bram looked back to her, his expression once again neutral.“I need to see to Murray’s care. We’ll continue this discussion tonight over dinner. Dacian will escort you back here around seven p.m. and you can report to me what you find today.”
A snippy reply was on the tip of her tongue, but she managed to hold back. Things had devolved quickly and some time apart would not only allow her to cool down and regroup, but to also find out a little more about Stonefire’s leader from the human sacrifice she was here to visit, Melanie Hall.
“Fine, I’ll come round about seven p.m.” She stood up and held the manila folder against her chest. She wanted to walk out without a word, but after working with Marcus, Skyhunter’s leader, she decided to fall back on the other clan’s protocol to avoid angering Bram further. “May I be dismissed?”
Something she might call amusement flashed in his eyes. She clenched her jaw and wondered why following protocol would be funny.
Then, despite her slowly simmering temper, she forgot about everything else as Bram stood up, filling her vision with a broad chest and strong, muscled arms cradling a crying baby.
She finally forced her gaze up to meet the tall dragon-shifter’s light blue eyes, but his expression was back to that bloody unreadable one. He nodded. “You may go, Evie Marshall.”
She blinked. He did know her name after all, and she sort of like how it sounded in his Scottish accent with a hint of Northern English. Maybe one of his parents was Scottish and the other English. That would explain it.
Get it together, Evie.She wasn’t here to get to know the man; at least, not until she’d secured her safety.
Evie nodded. “Right, till tonight then.”
She turned before Bram could say anything else and decided what the hell; she should make an impression. She carefully swayed her hips as she made her way across the floor. It wasridiculous, but she swore she could feel his eyes on her quite sizable arse.
Maybe, despite the rough start, she had a chance after all.
Chapter Two
If Evie’s newfound hope at maybe succeeding with Bram wasn’t enough, she didn’t stumble or trip over her heels the entire way to Melanie Hall’s house.
Even if she had, it wasn’t like her assigned guard would have noticed. After asking to see Melanie, the dragonman had just kept walking, expecting her to follow. But he looked young, maybe twenty, and all dragon-shifter males were broody and irritable at that age. After all, according to her textbooks, that was when their inner dragons started demanding sex on a more regular basis.
Dacian stopped in front of a two-story stone cottage with what she assumed were bushes in front of it. Having spent a good chunk of her life in London, Evie was no gardener, but the vegetation was definitely wild.
Since her brain always did that, fluttered about from one topic to the next, she merely brushed it aside and knocked on the door. A few seconds later, it opened to reveal yet another tall, muscled dragonman holding a baby.
Really, did all of the dragon-shifter males around Stonefire go around carrying babies?
As he glared down at her, the male patted the small baby’s back, as if he were burping the little one, and growled before saying, “I don’t know who you are and I don’t like it.”
The dragonman’s accent was purely from the North, unlike Bram’s. “I’m Evie Marshall with the Department of Dragon Affairs. Your clan leader should have notified you of my upcoming visit. Is Melanie around?”
“Melanie is busy. You can wait out here until she’s done.”
If she thought Bram had stoked her temper, this man had done it with a handful of sentences. Luckily, she didn’t need to try to seduce him, so she put on her take-no-shit attitude and said, “Look, I get that you might not like me. Most dragon-shifters don’t like the DDA, but it’s my job to make sure Melanie Hall is well and I’m not leaving until I see her. Now, where is she?”
Before the dragonman could reply, a female voice drifted down the stairs behind him. “Tristan, who’s there? Is it the DDA?”
So, he’d known full well who she was. Well, if he was going to play games, so would she. She shouted loud enough that the woman would be able to hear her. “Yes, I’m Evie Marshall. Can you tell your dragonman to let me in?”
There was a snort from Dacian’s general direction, but when she glanced over, he had the same expressionless face as before.
