Page 19 of Her Dragon Daddy Disaster
“Kind of hard since it’s not.”
He licked his lips, looking ready to continue the argument, but a gentle clearing of a throat from Malakai stopped him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, locking his eyes firmly on mine.
Then they were gone, all three of them up to the roof and taking to the air. Leaving me in a dragon house. In a dragon town. In a dragon world.
Alone.
Chapter Seven
Levi
Malakai and Lydia’s place wasn’t far. I followed them, unhappy to leave Sarah behind. My best friend had been firm, however, in insisting that onlyIwas to accompany them.
Now, Lydia flew at my side, while Malakai led us onward. I restrained from glancing over at the sleek cobalt-scaled dragon. After all those years, I knew full well what she looked like in either form.
Thrusting those thoughts from my head, I followed my best friend since childhood down to the landing pad on the roof of his house. Unlike me, he lived on the outskirts and had his own place.
The instant I was standing on two legs, he was practically in my face, blue eyes flashing with lightning.
“Where have you been?” It wasn’t a snarl. Not quite.
I met his eyes, tilting my head ever so downward to do so. “Back up,” I said firmly, not appreciating the sudden aggressiveness.
“You disappeared after the last rally,” Malakai growled. “We had no idea where you were. Now, you come back without telling me, and I find you with ahumanof all things?”
“I didn’t disappear,” I said. “The sovereign’s guards picked me up before I could go to cover. Someone must have fingered me as one of the speakers because they tossed me in the dungeons right away. Like they knew it was me.”
Malakai didn’t seem entirely convinced. I fixed him with a long, unimpressed look. “You know me, Malakai. Don’t give me this shit. I did what I had to do to get back here.”
That wasn’t strictly true, but I also wasn’t about to betray our cause either, which was what he seemed to assume.
“How can I know for sure she hasn’t turned you?”
I almost spat. “You think the sovereign got to me? Somehow made me side with her? Are you joking? Who else has been there since day one besides me? And Lydia, I suppose. Nobody, Malakai. Nobody. It was you and me who realized the sovereign has to go. That we can’t continue to let her dilute our culture with this human nonsense.Me, Malakai.”
I let some of my anger seep through, hoping he could see it in my eyes, knowing full well they were burning with brown-orange fury at being dragged from my home and accosted like I was some nobody, instead of his right-hand man.
“Where did you go?”
There was no acknowledgment of the rudeness of his accusation, no apology to his best friend. But that was Malakai. Always business. I couldn’t expect him to change now.
“Messenger fucking duty.”
Lydia stirred, leaning closer to Malakai now, resting one long, smooth, toned arm on his shoulder. She didn’t speak. Justpressed herself closer. I gritted my teeth at the sight. Nothing she did was random.
“For whom?”
“Who do you think? The sovereign. The royal highness herself. She gave me an offer. Either I rot in her jail for an undetermined amount of time, or I go on a little mission for her. So, she packed me up and sent me off to meet with the human president. I got to walk right into the middle of them and risk my own hide to deliver the peace terms to them.”
Malakai grunted. “That bitch. She wanted you to know just how expendable you were.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I gritted through clenched teeth, tearing my eye off Lydia’s exposed leg as she flexed it, reminding myself those days were over. “Why send one of her own when she had someone like me to do it for her. SheknewI hated her push to get closer to humans despite what they did to her son, kidnapping him like that.”
“Vicek was weak if he let himself get caught,” Malakai growled. “No dragon should be so meek.”
“Rumor is he was wounded, unconscious when they came across him,” Lydia put in.
