“That’s pretty cool.”
He followed me into Alix’s sparse kitchen where she boiled water in a kettle and set out cups. He sank into a chair with a sigh, his eyes watching my every move. Alix brought the cups to the table and studied him with a critical eye.
“I have a salve for those cuts, too. If you’d like.”
“They’ll be all right. Thanks.”
I knew the marks from a dragon’s talons. “Who’d you fight?”
Magnus’s upper lip curled, and his eyes darkened. “My old man. And yours is a shit.”
“Tell me about it.”
We continued to look at one another, suspicion uppermost in both of our minds. I saw it in his tense expression, just as he surely saw it in mine. Alix glanced between us, then went back to her tea making.
“So what do you want?” I asked.
“I came to protect you.”
“Guess what? I don’t need you. I escaped that prison without your help. And how do I know you aren’t looking to turn me over to him?”
Magnus’s feral smile didn’t reach his eyes. “That warehouse you were in? I caved the entire thing down on his head.”
Alix half-turned. “Oh, great. You’re a dragon, too. How many of you beasts are there?”
“Too?” His eyes widened. “She knows?”
“I had to fly her into the storm to hide from your pop’s goon,” I answered sharply. “He’d have shot us both.”
“I see.”
“I still want to know why you never told me, Jade,” Alix complained as she poured hot water into a ceramic pot. “You could have trusted me.”
“Humans aren’t supposed to know we exist,” Magnus answered quietly. “There are enough of us to take over the world if we tried and wanted to risk lives. We don’t want that. Should the military learn we exist, their rockets would take us out. We like hiding in plain sight.”
Alix poured hot water into the cups containing the tea. “That true, Jade?”
“Yeah. Except most of us don’t want to rule the planet. That’s too big of a responsibility. We’ll sit back and let you humans kill each other, then we’ll carry on with our lives.”
Alix sat. “Ah, got it. Lemon with your tea?”
Magnus took lemon. I refused.
“So what now?” I asked after we three took several careful sips. “I don’t need your protection. Alix and I will depart in a few days. That’ll be the end of it.”
“No. It won’t.”
I watched him over my cup’s rim. “How so?”
“Arnaud will have cops, TSA, humans, and dragons looking for you. He has far too many people on his payroll for you to simply walk onto an airplane and fly to Madrid.”
“Not nice,” Alix murmured, sipping. “He must have the bucks.”
“And connections,” Magnus said. “People who owe him favors. He has very long fingers, and he’ll find you.”
“Then I’ll shift, put Alix on my back, and fly away anyhow,” I said firmly. “Who needs an airplane to fly?”
Alix stared at me in horror. “Oh, no, I can’t. I about died up there tonight. Of sheer panic, terror, fright, and any other excessive emotion.”
