“Calm down, Mori,”Preston said over our twin link.“Calm down because I’m not having the baby right now. I just needed to buy her some time. They’ll look me over and say Braxton Hicks contractions. If she took Jon’s head, it’s because he did something to Nic to deserve it. I haven’t even met my baby yet and I’d kill over him. I’d headbutt Frost himself in the nuts if that was the only way to save my baby.”
What had I stumbled into and what had Preston picked up on that I missed? He’d met Jon. Well, sort of. He was hiding in the shadows when Jon tried to hire Crilus. He hadn’t liked the cheetah. As far as I knew Nic was the only one who ever had liked him.
Nurses helped Preston into a wheelchair, and he squeezed onto my hand for dear life as they wheeled him toward the elevator.
Chapter Eight
Nic
The Other World
I clung to my mate’s back. I didn’t even know his name. I wasn’t even sure he was the giant cat who had snatched up the body parts of my ex and his crony, but he had to be, right? I’d never read an aura wrong before except for--- Well, except for Jon. So maybe that gift wasn’t all that reliable after all. I wasn’t sure of anything except I was never letting my mate go again. London had passed in a blur as I clung to him, feeling more like a baby sloth than I cared to admit. We slipped inside the Other World gateway as if we did it every day of our lives.
“You’re safe,” he whispered to me.
“Yellow really isn’t your color, Beal!” a man lounging in a tree a few yards away called out. “Though, wearing a dragon as a backpack suits you! Who did you kidnap?”
“Raiel! Aren’t you working?” Beal called back to the man in the tree, a grin tugging at his words.
Beal. The name rolled around my brain. I’d never heard of him before. Raiel, I knew by name. Unless there was a second man named Raiel.
“Crilus gave me the day off. Something about labor rights,” Raiel laughed.
Yep. That he was one of the bartenders at the Raven’s Perch. Was he also a giant cat who could sever limbs and tails in a single blow?
“Single blow?”My dragon chimed off into my thoughts.“We don’t know that it’s a single blow.”
“Look at the size of his hands. Look at those forearms. I bet it’s in a single blow. Once little slice and tug and the body parts are just….”I stopped myself because part of me couldn’t let go of the fact it was Jon. I wasn’t even surprised that he’d be willing to try to kill me to get money. He was like some money-hungry gremlin. It’s too fucking ironic for words. If he’d loved me like a fiancé was supposed to, I’d have given him the world. I’d have sliced up the earth itself and fed it to him on crackers in my bed.
“He never was that guy,”my dragon reminded me.
“I know and it doesn’t matter now,”I said to him and nuzzled my cheek against Beal’s shoulder.
While I was off in my own head space speaking with my dragon Beal had filled Raiel, who was his cousin, in on what had happened. The elf-lion bartender didn’t even look surprised. He sort of shrugged at me like ‘what else can one do when peons threaten to kill your mate?’
“Do you think Clarence will come looking for you?” Raiel asked, turning the conversation to what he clearly thought were more important matters than a couple lost limbs from two dead beat shifters.
“Probably not. He’s not that well versed in the Other World. I think Nic will be the first dragon on our world in a long time. Probably not ever but in a long damn time,” Beal said. “He might try but I doubt he could find it. Once things cool down and I get Nic’s third gift, we’ll have to figure things out. His mother is still back there. His friends too. His family has a glittery face empire.”
“Makeup and other cosmetic items,” I chimed in.
“Yeah. Shiny Butt Cosmetics.” Raiel nodded. “Everyone knows who you are, Nic.”
“Even over here?” I blinked.
“Well, not over here.” Raiel laughed, jumping down from the tree. “I know because I work on Earthside. I’m waiting it outat Crilus’s bar because that’s where I’m going to meet my true-mate.”
“Maybe there. He was never told the name of the bar in the prophecy,” Beal said. “He’s a hopeless romantic, though. I always thought I was practical until I was hunting down Jon and taking his paw.”
“Umm… Can we talk about my third courting gift? Can I suggest flowers or chocolate or even a tie? I don’t wear ties, but I don’t think I can handle another severed body part in the morning.”
“Don’t you want the head or hide of Tops?” Beal asked, trying to look at me over his shoulder.
“I don’t want him to kill me or anyone else, but I don’t need to keep a souvenir.”
“They haven’t let you keep any of your courting gifts,” he frowned.
I tried to inhale his scent to discern what he was feeling but he still smelled like a damn coconut.
