The Dans. She’d met them a few times, which was a few times more than she’d met most of the sprawling Blackburn clan, and largely due to the fact that they had a habit of showing up where they were least expected.
Like now.
The last time she’d seen them, they had been chasing her and Tomás through the night.
Her arm tightened around Tomás.
“What are you doing here?” she repeated, her voice brittle.
“We’re here to congratulate—hey!” Aedan half-turned, his expression turning furious. “Stop pushing, dick!”
“Get out of the way, then!”
“You get out of the way!”
“I’mbehindyou, you enormous prick—” Braeden lunged at his brother.
Behind them, Caedan, the third brother, raised his voice. “Both of you move before yougetmoved!”
Braedan—half a head taller than Corin and built like a string bean—got his arm around Aedan’s neck and grinned at Maya. “Hi, Miss Flores!”
“…Hi?” She waved weakly.
This was not what she’d been expecting.
Felicity jogged into sight outside, looked at the door completely blocked by three jostling dragon shifters, and gestured to Maya that she would go around the back.
She came in through the service door a moment later, surveying the three Dans with an expression of extreme doubt.
“And I’m regretting letting them in already,” she sighed. “I’m sorry, Maya, they looked so well behaved up the hill.” She hurried up to Maya and put an arm around her waist, giving her and Tomás a quick hug. “I can have them out of here quick as anything. Just say the word.”
“Hey, lady, we’re not going anywhere until—”
“That’s thehearthstone dragon’s mate, you absoluteprune!” Caedan growled, and smacked the back of Braedan’s head. His chin clonked into Aedan’s skull.
“Oi! Watch it!”
“Theyarethe guys from the night you arrived, right?” Felicity whispered, staring at the trio suspiciously. They still hadn’t managed to get through the doorway.
“I admit, they seem less terrifying in the daylight,” Maya murmured.
“And they’re … grown men? This isn’t someThirteen-going-on-Thirtything?”
“Corin always said they were frustrating.”
“You’re sure he said ‘frustrating’ and not ‘a pack of dumbasses’?” Felicity shrugged. “Hey! You lot! You said you had something important to pass on. Maya’s here now, so shoot, before I get bored and slingshot you back the way you came.”
“We, uh—” Caedan’s eyes flickered to Maya, then away with suspicious quickness. “Important. Yeah.”
“Did Corin send you?” Maya asked.
“Corin isn’t here?”
“No. He’s gone.”
All three triplets stared at her. “Oh, shit,” one of them muttered. “That’s not…”
“You said he would be here!”
