Page 35 of Queens Ride Horny Dragons
He nodded, his face falling a little.
"I'll get them back," I promised. "And then we'll do rock painting, the five of us."
His mouth twisted into a skeptical frown. "Calhoun will never go for that."
"Good point," I said, my chest tightening at how much I missed him. How much I missedallof them. They’d been a constant source of support, and now to have that gone made me feel even more like I didn’t know what I was doing. "I'll be back before you know it."
When I opened the door to my bedroom, I stopped short, my pulse erupting in triple time. A very pretty woman, maybe a few years older than me, sat on my bed, but she was unlike anyone I'd ever seen before. Her eyes were like the deep orange of a sunset, and her long blonde curls had been tucked into a bun on the top of her head and speared through with a curved white thing that looked suspiciously like some weird bone. She wore a shirt with a yellow sponge on it, jeans, and leather boots she swung over the wooden floor below.
"Belle Harrison," I guessed.
Her curious expression while she stared at me sagged some before she smiled with a little too much teeth. "Just Belle, pLéase. I take it you're Queen Yara?"
I nodded. "Just Yara."
She smiled, a real one this time."Are you not human? Because you look human."
"I was, but now I have a touch of dragon fire. Are…you human?"
She hopped off the tall bed and landed gracefully. "Vampire slash slayer slash fae slash pirate. It's a bit of a long story."
"Fae?" My muscles coiled, the broken Queen’s Cross and Titanosaur taped to my thigh flashing through my head.
She raised her hands as if to ward me off. "Hold up. Relax. I'm the sunshine kind of fae, not the dark kind you're dealing with."
"How do I know that for sure?" I spat, my hands twitching toward my weapons.
"You can…smell me?” She shrugged. “Or you can just take my word for it. If I wanted you dead, you’d already be dead, a lot.”
My gaze strayed to a black sword on the bed that glittered with magic, a sword she'd tried to hide by sitting in front of it. I gritted my teeth. Dragon fire or not, I doubted I could take her, what with her being all those things she’d listed.
She followed my gaze then turned back to me with a quirked brow. "You can trust me, Yara. Vance explained everything."
I backed away from her, putting the poisoned dress still on the floor between us. "I'm still wondering how he did that. I know everything, and evenIdon't want to help me."
"He focused on you and your little brother mostly, your relationship, how you went to the ends of the earth to save him. I understand that kind of love, and the way Vance described you…” She smiled and gave me a knowing look. “Well, I can tell he cares a great deal about you."
My chest pinched, feeling almost like it was caving in on itself. "They all do," I croaked. "My harem. Even though I'm not sure I deserve it."
She nodded, watching me carefully. "We're more alike than you know, Yara. I heard you out there declaring war against the fae and also the part about you already getting what you needed from Vance, Calhoun, and Tavis. Lies, that last part anyway, right?"
My eyes watered, totally giving me away. "I just want them safe," I admitted, my voice cracking.
"That's all anyone wants for their harem," she said softly.
"You too?"
"Eddie, Jacek, and Sawyer," she said with a wistful smile. "I didn't even try to resist, and then soon enough, they'd kissed their way into my heart so far that I was also doing whatever I could to keep them safe. So I get it. I do."
I swiped at a stray tear, hating that I was this vulnerable in front of a strange woman I still didn't trust but who I was starting to like—just a little bit. A huge feat for me.
"I'd show you their pictures on my phone, but they're vampires, so…" She shrugged.
"Mine are dragon shifters,” I said, eyeing her sword again. “But I guess you already knew that."
"Do you often tell them to stop dragon your panties around?" she asked, totally serious.
"Um."What?
