Page 75 of Her Dragon Daddy Disaster
Levi
Both our heads craned upward at the noise.
“Back for round two, is she?”
I glared at Sarah, ignoring the hotness of her comment. “Grow up. You know damn well nothing like that happened. You’re just too scared to admit it because you’re scared of what that might mean about how you feel about me. Now, stay here while I find out who it is. There’s more than one dragon up there.”
In fact, there were more than two. Which meant it wasn’t Lydia returning with Malakai. So, who could it be, and why were there so many? It was hard to tell through the stone roof, of course, but if I had to guess, I would have said it was nearly half a dozen distinct touchdowns.
Could the sovereign have discovered our plans?
The air around me grew cool at the thought, a chill settling over me. If it were, then things were about to get very bad indeed. Perhaps I could figure out a way to shield Sarah from the blame.
It would be hard. Many would say that, as a human, she would want the sovereign deposed more than anyone else. It wouldn’t shock me to hear some call out her name as the ringleader of it all.
That couldn’t be allowed to happen.
I beat whoever it was to the door, closing it behind me as I stared up at the stars shining in the night sky. I thought about locking it, but if I had to do something drastic, I wanted all options open to me.
And just what the fuck sort of drastic thing are you going to do? If it’s the sovereign and her palace guard, you don’t actually think you can take them on, do you? You’re outnumbered.
Maybe I couldn’t take them on. But I might be able to get Sarah and Levi to safety. That was all that mattered now. Protecting those who mattered most to me.
As I cleared the stairs, however, it wasn’t the uniformed soldiers of the palace waiting for me.
“Malakai.”
“Levi.” He stared at me coldly, his eyes devoid of the warmth of friendship they’d held for so many years.
He knew.
My jaw tightened. “What do you want? Did you move up the attack to tonight?”
There was always the chance Lydia had kept her mouth shut, saving that information for later as some sort of bargaining chip.A sword to hang over my neck in case they needed to threaten me into submission. I doubted it, however.
“Did ‘I’ move it up?” Malakai cocked his head. “Interesting choice of grammar, Levi, from someone who’s been with me since the start. Who, it could arguably be said, was the one who first had this idea. Now you act as if I’m the only one who cares.”
“I do care,” I said, meaning it. “I want it to succeed. That has never wavered.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“You act as if you know things I don’t.”
Malakai laughed. “There’s very little I don’t know. Even less after tonight.”
My blood turned to ice, flowing with glacier slowness as Malakai confirmed my deepest fear.
“A son,” he said thoughtfully. “And with that human whore, no less.”
“Yes.” I would not deny Jakub. Not now. “Though she’s no more a whore than the one at your side. The one you sent to my house to seduce me.”
“And it’s a good thing I did send her!” Malakai snarled, confirming my suspicion that Lydia’s visit had been planned by them. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have learned about your child. A half-human bastard.”
I stepped forward with a snarl, scales decorating my arms as my dragon howled with fury.
“How long have we been friends?” Malakai said, ignoring my outburst. “Twenty-five years? Thirty? All this time, and you would keep this from me? I’m hurt.”
“Go away,” I said more calmly, noting how the quartet of other dragons behind my friend reacted when I stepped forward.
