Page 31 of Forked Tongues Are Fun
Vance placed his hand on my chest. “Loves with her entire heart.”
That was definitely true, at least for those worthy enough to love.
We climbed out and grabbed some fresh towels neatly folded on a nearby seat.
“But surely there’s another dragon shifter female better suited for the job?” I asked, pulling on my royal blue gown again. I’d need to get some clothes soon for Asa and me. Unless the castle had those too? If it did, I hoped there would be clothes Asa could grow into since all of his pants were too short.
Vance shook his head, already dressed in his jeans and white flannel with a snap of his fingers. Dragon shifters were clearly experts at time-saving. “I don’t think so, and Léas didn’t either. With the shifter females I know, it’s all about what the crown can do for them, what the money and power can do for them. They don’t care about anyone but themselves.”
“Well, they sound delightful,” I said with a sigh. “This will be so easy.”
We circled back to the video game section, where all was quiet and Asa was passed out cold next to Tavis. Calhoun sat opposite them, watching me with a slight smile as I gently folded myself underneath Asa so I could hold him tight.
“My opinion?” Vance said as he sat next to Calhoun. “You were chosen because you have nothing, you came from nothing, and that’s not a knock on you at all, Yara. Quite the opposite.”
I looked down at Asa, sleeping so peacefully, and who was getting too big for my lap. “But Idohave something though.”
Vance nodded. “His survival is evidence that you have a heart.”
“All of this hardly makes me queen material.” I smoothed Asa’s hair back and frowned. “What if I can’t do it? Or what if I just tell Léas ‘nah, I’m good’?”
Calhoun grunted. “At one point, the chosen queen did back out, because of super swanky bribes with no work required to get them. She dropped dead the day after. Pretty sure Léas struck her down.”
Great story. So basically I was fucked. “And you said the previous queen was killed a hundred years ago?”
Tavis sighed hard enough to make his blue hair flutter up off his face. “Yeah, but—”
“You’re not any previous queen,” Calhoun said simply, but it was anything but.
“No, I’m a human, even more breakable than shifters are.”
“After the coronation, you’ll have the dragon shifter queen’s power,” Vance said. “So you won’t be breakable, now or then.”
Power that I didn’t even want. And what would I do with it? Turn into a dragon myself? I couldn’t process that right now, not after everything I’d been through to get Asa. What I wouldn’t do for a couple of stiff Red-Headed Sluts right about now. And then sleep for fifty years.
“Will Asa still be in danger if I’m queen?” But I knew the answer as soon as the question was out of my mouth. Of course he would. The dragon shifters already despised me, and they’d already taken Asa from me once. They knew my Achilles’ heel because I’d announced it when I stole Asa back. They could take him again. My breaths seized in my throat, and I clutched Asa harder. “Oh god. I think I’m going to be sick.”
Vance leaned forward. “No. Stop. Listen to me. We can add Asa to our treasure trove, and he won’t be hurt.”
“The same treasure trove that was destroyed when your house was attacked?” I squeezed out.
Vance shook his head. “Items in treasure troves are never destroyed, even after the dragon owner’s death. We carry our trove like we do our magic. It’s always with us.”
“Even now.” Calhoun reached behind him to roll down the divider window at his back. “See?”
I did see, but I had no idea how I was seeing it. On the other side of the divider was their treasure trove, the very same one I’d broken into that morning, laid out the same with each item neatly labelled on little white cards and perfectly set in the middle of the rows of shelves. I could just make out the top lip of the haunted Ming Dynasty vase from where I was sitting.
“But...but I stole the pocket watch from you,” I said.
A low chuckle came from Calhoun as he shook his head. “It’s not stealing if we let you take it, now is it?”
“You let me?”
He nodded. “I saw the Mack written on your vacuum when you went to the bathroom, but with the attack, we were a little distracted. We let you have the watch so we could find it—and you—later.”
“Really, though, we just followed the smell of the dragon fire burning through your veins.” Vance gave me a searing look that melted heat in my lower belly. “No watch required.”
I cleared my throat, trying my best not to think about sex. With these three, though, that was hard. A bad pun goes here obviously, but instead, I said, “But Asa... He’s not an object. Can he still be added to a treasure trove?”
