Page 42 of Hungry Like A Dragon
“Before Talia brought Ruby to the colony and told Gabe she was his, I still kind of held out hope that I could become reeve some day. He had been so determined not to take a mate before he fell for Talia, which meant, theoretically, that he’d never have an heir, either. But then he decided to declare Ruby his heir, and I sort of panicked.”
“How so?”
“I figured out Ruby’s biological father was a Rojo dragon. I let him know Jasmine had taken his daughter to our colony. The guy didn’t give a shit about Ruby from a fatherly perspective, but you know how dragons are. None of us like our possessions taken away from us, and that’s exactly how he saw both Ruby and Jasmine. I figured he’d go to Detroit and convince Jasmine to bring her daughter back here to New Orleans. Instead, he beat her unconscious, went after Ruby, and nearly killed Talia in the process.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that you made a bad decision, but that dragon attacking Jasmine and Talia wasn’t your fault. You didn’t tell him to do it. He did it all on his own. You had no way of knowing how he’d react. And I’d wager if you had, you never would have told him about Ruby in the first place.” He canted his head. “Do you balance all this self-blame with self-appreciation for all the good things in your life?”
She snorted.
“Your glass really is half full sometimes, you know.”
She glanced at her phone. “We need to go.”
“Gabe’s on his way here. We need to wait.”
She started shaking her head before he finished speaking. “No way. If we show up with a bunch of dragons in tow, she’ll hurt Sadie.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You don’t know she won’t. I’m not willing to take that chance.”
“Petra, I really don’t want to go meet that lady in the middle of the night without backup. It’s too dangerous.”
“She has our daughter!”
“I know, but—”
A rapidtap, tap, tapcut off whatever he intended to say. After tossing a furious glare at Petra, he stormed into the living room and flung open the door without thinking.
And came face-to-face with the gargoyle who had followed them from the antique shop. The dark-skinned man had closely cropped hair and a thin black mustache and goatee, wore a pair of cotton pants and a gray ribbed tank top, and while he was obviously in human form, his body was thick and sharply defined, as if he hadn’t quite been able to shake off the stone.
Noah tried to slam the door closed, but the strong-as-stone man pressed his hand to the wood and kept it from moving.
“I am not your enemy,” the gargoyle said in a heavily accented voice. He sounded French with a dose of southern.Creole.
Noah waited for him to provide more information.
“I am, however, under oath and cannot speak ill of my employer.”
“Delilah,” Noah guessed.
“Yes.”
“So why are you here?”
The gargoyle inclined his head once. “You were right earlier when you guessed that we have exceptional hearing. And your woman is right that you cannot show up to the plantation with other dragons. You must go alone.”
“I’m not—”
Noah cut her off. “We’re supposed to trust you? You just said you work for the woman who kidnapped our daughter.”
“She is my employer, yes. But it is not my choice. If you go to that plantation and learn the secrets she keeps there, perhaps you can free me.”
Well, if that wasn’t cryptic as all hell…
“Time to go,” Petra said. She was standing just over his shoulder with two suitcases perched on either side of her legs, a keychain dangling from her fingers.
“What about Gabe?” Noah asked.
