“You don’t ever have to worry about that with us, Bridget,” Apollo said and offered her the basket of bread. “We are magicians. The more random the facts, the more we enjoy it.”
“What’s your last name? Are you sure you don’t have magicians in the family?” Cosimo asked her.
Bridget quickly drank more wine. She felt a light brush behind her eyes, and Bas said into her mind,If you aren’t comfortable talking about it, I’ll get them to stop.
Thanks, Bas, but I’m okay. We will still have the torte and rum conversation, but I can handle this.
Bas nodded, and the tingle of his presence left her. Bridget was touched that he would ask at all, knowing that talk of family made her nervous.
Bridget said, “My surname is Hawkyns, but I picked that myself. My mother was a narcissistic gold digger, and I never knew who my father was. Depending on how much she had drunk, he would be an F1 driver from Monaco or a sheik from Dubai, but he could have been a waiter at a party for all I know. She was white, so I know he must have been brown. I always hung out with the Desi and Somali kids at school, and I just told them my dad was dead. No one really asked further questions.”
“Bas mentioned you turned into a hawk, is that the reason for the name?” Valentine asked. None of them looked like they cared about her fucked up parentage at all.
Bridget nodded. “Yeah. I have always loved hawks. They are always so free and fierce. When I got to choose a name, I went with that. I wanted to feel as free and fierce as they looked.” Again, she felt like she had said too much.
Valentine only said, “Do you know hawks mate for life? Dragons do the same.” Bas shot his brother a glare, and Bridget grinned.
“And we are back to dragons. Bas refuses to tell me about this place’s dragon fetish.”
As one, the Greatdrakes men all turned to glare at Bas. “What? I needed there to be some mystery to get her to come and stay here.”
“Oh, I’m definitely here so I can have a crack at your library.” Bridget sipped her wine and asked innocently, “Would any ofyoulike to tell me about dragons? Because I have questions.”
“Ask away,” Valentine said, grabbing some more bread. “We are dragons.”
15
Bas set the lasagna dish down before he dropped it or hurled it at his brother’s head.Val, shut the fuck up.
No. She needs to know Bas. She’s not going to be scared off. If she’s your mate...
Bas immediately cut the connection off between them. He couldn’t hunt monsters and think about the fact Bridget could be his mate.
While it would explain his dragon’s irrational reaction to protect her, he couldn’t consider it just yet. And he sure as hell didn’t need his family telling her about their mating for life habits.
Dark fucking gods, he hadn’t even kissed her yet. Something he really needed to rectify because watching her talk to his father about Ficino had done weird things to his insides. She fit with them, and that would make it harder to let her go when the time came.
“What do you mean, you are dragons?” Bridget asked, looking at Bas.
He quickly got busy cutting the lasagna.
“We have a dragon in the bloodline, and with the return of magic in the last year, we might even be able to shift,” Cosimo explained. He told Bridget a condensed family history while Bas plated food and tried not to have a panic attack. He couldn’t lose Bridget when he had only just found her.
“That explains why you turn into a dragon in the astral plane!” she said, sending a smile at him that was so beautiful and triumphant his toes curled in his boots. He was definitely overdue to kiss her. “I thought you were just turning into a dragon to show off.”
“Oh, he definitely would have been showing off,” Apollo said.
Bas’s cheeks heated. “I like flying.”
“Me too. That’s why...hawks,” Bridget said, taking the sting out of his brother’s teasing.
“Aren’t you two sweet,” Apollo said, fluttering his lashes.
“Have any of you shifted in real life yet? Is that a thing? How do you know where all that dragon goes when you shift back?” Bridget asked.
Cosimo chuckled. “All questions for Taranis, I think. He’s the one who seems to think we will have the ability now.”
“Woah, as inKingTaranis?” Bridget said, eyes bugging out.
