It was fancy as hell. She should be enjoying it, not freaking out.
She closed her eyes again. Maybe, if she tried very hard, she could relax.
“Prreeep?”
Oh god.
A tiny, prickle-footed weight landed on her lap. She took a peek, and huge, luminous golden eyes filled her vision.
“Hi, Maggie.”
“Pree!” Maggie straightened, preening, as Carol smiled nervously at her.
“I thought you were having a nap with Keeley?”
“Pree-oo,” the little dragon whistled dismissively.
Carol couldn’t help smiling wider.
That was a mistake.
Maggie was about the size of a housecat. And, like a housecat, she was curious and agile and had sharp claws. She flexed those claws now as her glowing eyes fixed on Carol’s mouth.
“Pree peep?”
Darn it. Carol pressed her lips closed and whispered, “Not now, Maggie.”
“Eep!” One front claw extended and tapped at her lips. “Eepeep!”
*Not now.* Maybe telepathic speech would be more convincing than whispering?
Nope.
“Preepeepeep eep,” Maggie insisted. She tapped Carol’s mouth again, and an image wavered into Carol’s mind: double rows of jagged, sharp teeth.
Carol’s ribs tightened.
“Everything okay over there, Zhang?”
“Sir?” She snapped her attention back to the cabin.
Her boss, Lance MacInnis, was looking at her with a concerned expression on his face.
Lance wasn’t the only one looking at her. Across the aisle, in his own luxury chair island, Mathis Delacourt was watching her with careful blue eyes. The pale scars on his face stretched as he gave her the sort of reassuring smile that big scary shark shifters weren’t supposed to need.
Lance leaned forward. “Maggie’s not bothering you, is she?”
“No, sir. All fine here,” she said quickly, and pressed her lips tight over her teeth before anyone could see them.
This wasn’t a vacation, even if the transport was more luxurious than any vacation she’d ever been on. This was work, and today’s job was returning little Maggie to her only remaining family: dragon shifter Julian Rouse, who’d gone missing almost the moment they went looking for him.
They’d thought he was safely secured. Literally. Julian Rouse had been one of Gerald Harper’s captives. Harper had tricked his way into Julian’s trust, and then used that trust to attack Julian’s home. He had murdered the other dragons and stolen a clutch of dragon eggs—all that remained of Julian’s family.
And then he had threatened to destroy the eggs if Julian didn’t obey his every cruel whim. He’d used Julian as an enforcer to keep his other victims in line.
Now that Harper was in prison, some of those former victims wanted their revenge on Julian, instead. And the years of captivity had been hard on him. Lance had arranged for him to recover in a remote safehouse. He’d been making slow progress.
And then the safehouse had literally blown up—because of a gas leak, if anyone believed that—and Julian had fled. Alone. Possibly injured. And without knowing that one of that precious clutch of eggs had hatched. His niece had been born.
