Page 11 of Forked Tongues Are Fun
“What if I refuse to be queen?” I asked, faking fascination with my steel-toed boots rather than show them my tears.
“Then you refuse Léas’s power she would bestow upon you,” Vance said.
Tavis folded back the sheets and stood, completely naked and not giving a flying fuck. “It’s a lot of power, Yara.”
“I don’t want power. I want my brother back.”
Calhoun jutted his chin to stare at me down his perfectly symmetrical nose. “Think about this for a second. How did you think you were going to sneak into the dragon shifter stronghold tonight and steal away your brother? No offense, but you’re a human. Did you honestly think you, all by yourself, could’ve gotten in there and successfully gone up against a legion of dragons?”
Well, he’d found me out, the gorgeous bastard. I had no plan, wouldn’t until I staked the place out. Still, his lack of faith in me was disheartening. “I got into your house just fine.”
“Only because we let you in, sweetheart,” he said.
Tavis pulled on his pineapple T-shirt, tousling his blue hair, and gazed at me with a sly grin on his face. “You were too hot to turn away. Literally melting.”
Calhoun slid him an annoyed look. “It’s not just that you’re hot. It’s mating season for dragon shifters, and you were the first person who wasn’t wearing a bathrobe, who didn’t smell like piss, and who wasn’t asking if we’d seen a pussy running around the neighborhood.”
I shook my head and snorted as I hiked my backpack onto my shoulders.
Tavis’s grin grew wider. “In other words, we thought you were hot.”
“I feel so much better knowing that you judged my character on how hot I am and that I don’t smell like cat pee,” I said on my way out the bedroom door. “Really. I’m flattered.”
“We can tell that by your tone,” Calhoun said, following after me. “We speak fluent sarcasm.”
“Okay, well, do you speak car theft? Because I’m going to need one. The last time I tried, I beat the cops in a footrace, and I don’t have time to do that again.” I beelined into the kitchen and grabbed the few refrigerated vials Bad Mama January had given me and an almost empty jar of peanut butter, pretty much the only food I had here. I also snatched up a few rocks Asa had painted because... Well, I just needed them. With no idea what exactly I would be dealing with tonight, I would take everything plus the kitchen sink.
Vance leaned against the countertop, the sunlight angling in through the window giving his white-blond hair a halo. He didn’t seem to mind the food wrappers, empty cans and bottles, and Asa’s art supplies crowding much of the kitchen. “No, but we do speak fluent wants and needs. You were so closed off at our house, so secretive, that Calhoun and Tavis turned on every one of their charms, but you resisted. You wanted something from us, and it had nothing to do with selling us an Isbon Mack vacuum.”
“Yeah, I know this already,” I said, brushing past him into the living room where Calhoun and Tavis waited, watching me. “I took what I needed, and now you have it back.”
Calhoun grazed my arm as I turned to the front door, a fleeting touch that stole my breath. “Except you’ll want to have even more from us if you’re going to survive the dragon fire you spilled. You have to sleep with all of the royal harem to survive the dragon fire since the dragon it belonged to was right in the middle of mating season.”
The purr in his voice wound a hot, torturous current deep inside me, triggering my fingers to scratch involuntarily at my clothes to tear them off. But I didn’t. This was getting old as shit. I had to save Asa and stop thinking about fucking all the time. I crossed toward the door.
Vance rubbed his chin, a slight smile on his face. “We’re coming with you.”
I froze, my hand halfway to the doorknob, and turned. “Huh?”
Vance slid in next to me, his hard body pressed to my side, his breath shivering a long path up my neck, and something about the way he looked at me made me think he’d lost his halo between the kitchen and here. “If you are our queen, then as Her Majesty’s harem, we go with you for protection.”
“What aboutyourprotection?” I asked. “I was by far the nicest visitor at your house today. Who were the others?”
A grim expression tightened his features, and he pulled back some. “That seer I told you about? She wasn’t the only one who saw tonight’s full-moon ritual’s importance all those years ago. All the other dragon shifters know who we are, know who our mother was, and they don’t want us to be the royal harem anymore. Since the harem and queen are bonded for life, you take out the harem, you take out the—”
“Queen.” I nodded.
Calhoun pulled down the sleeves of his black Henley and shook the hair out of his face when he glanced up at me. “Pretty sure the cat shifter next door had something to do with giving away our location.”
“Maybe because I rubbed her fur the wrong way,” I muttered.
Tavis elbowed Calhoun in the ribs. “I knew she was a bad pussy.”
“No.” Calhoun crossed his arms and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “Just no.”
“What if I’m not your queen?” I asked, addressing the three of them. “You guys seem pretty confident about what’s going to happen tonight, but what if you’re wrong about your goddess choosing me as the new dragon shifter queen?”
Tavis grimaced and shook his head. “We would never admit to being wrong. Not before the fact. These two wouldn’t anyway.”
