“You know of him?”
“Not so much him, but I love his wife’s web serials.”
Apollo cracked up laughing. “Auntie Quinn is going to love you too. I don’t suppose you remember her writing any with Mpreg by any chance.”
“Come now, not at the dinner table,” Cosimo groaned. He got up to help Bas with the plates.
He touched Bas’s mind,She’s gorgeous, Bas. Quick mind. Lots of magic. Can you imagine her with some training and a loving family to give her some confidence?
She’s not a stray cat, Dad. We can’t just keep her.
Can too...if you get your act together.
Oh my god, can you not? We need to find and kill this dream monster.
Cosimo gave him a pointed look.You are a brilliant and talented magician, son. Use some of those skills I taught you andmulti-task.Either you seal the deal, or I will in a different way. I could use an assistant to help me with my work. Especially one who is so pretty. I’ll be fighting the Italian magicians off her every time we go there.
Bas narrowed his eyes at his father.Try it, and I’ll set you up a profile on every dating app I can find, including Grindr. Besides, Marge would never let her go.
Cosimo only smiled at the challenge.You don’t think I’d be able to handle Marge Whitmore?
Bas growled, low, deep, and possessive. Cosimo laughed in delight and started putting plates of lasagna down on the table, serving Bridget first. Bas served his brothers before taking a seat beside Bridget.
“What was that all about?” she whispered.
“Dad’s being a dick.”
“I am not. Now, Bridget, tell us all about this dream monster that you two are meant to be chasing,” Cosimo said.
Through bites of lasagna, Bridget and Bas updated everyone on what they had learned that day from Kenna and Bridget’s experience with the creature’s hooks in her.
“It doesn’t sound like any creature I know,” Valentine said with a thoughtful expression. “If it is something that has only just awoken, I would head to the old myth section of the library. It’s got to be something obscure because it hasn’t been hunting for centuries.”
“Kenna couldn’t find anything in the Ironwood library, so it must be obscure. There isn’t much that the Ironwoods haven’thunted,” Cosimo added. “I suppose the biggest question, after what it is, is how to kill something that lives in dreams?”
Bas had thought a lot about that too, but it was Bridget who jumped in to answer.
“If it has been sleeping or dormant for centuries, it must have some sort of physical manifestation, or it wouldn’t have needed to. It would have just kept feeding off people. If that’s the case, then it would need to have somewhere to hide in Dublin if it’s hunting here,” she said and ate another forkful of lasagna. “Maybe we need like a big map of the city so we can plot out where all the victims live, and we can find a common area where it might be hiding.”
“Good idea. I can make sure you have something to work with tomorrow,” Cosimo said, lifting his wine to his lips.Brilliant and beautiful, Basset. A rare woman.
Mine,Bas’s dragon, growled back. Cosimo’s eyes shone animal bright at the challenge.
Bridget looked between them, a frown on her face. “Are you two okay?”
“Of course,” Bas said with a wide smile as he kicked Cosimo under the table. “I hope you all saved room for gelato.”
After dessert,Bas escorted Bridget back upstairs. He had watched her win over every member of his family without even trying. They were dragons and magicians—both knew treasure when they saw it. Bas’s hands clenched into fists. He had found her first. She was his, and he wouldn’t let any of them take her.
“You okay? You look like you were going to murder all your brothers and father at least once during that meal,” she said, ateasing smile playing on the corner of her lips. “And now, for that matter.”
“That’s because I did want to murder them. They love to tease, and I don’t want them to scare you away because they don’t know when to keep their mouths shut,” Bas replied honestly.
His dragon’s tail had been flicking like an angry cat since his father had said he was going to offer her a job as an assistant. The rational part of his mind knew his father was just playing with him, but his rational side wasn’t even remotely in control when he was around her. It was getting worse.
Bridget tucked her hair behind an ear. “You know, I’ve never had a family dinner like that before. They didn’t do anything to upset me. It was kind of a relief to not have to censor myself as much as I normally do.”
“So they didn’t scare you away? Not even about the dragon thing?” Bas asked.
