Fredrick pulled himself up to his full height, which had his head brushing Chelsie’s low ceiling. “It’s not proper. You are the Heartstriker. She is—”
“My partner,” Julius said pointedly. “And my trusted ally who probably knows a lot more about this than I do.” He kept walking. “Relax, it’ll be fine.”
Fredrick looked the opposite of relaxed, but he didn’t say anything else as Julius turned the corner to the library where he could smell Marci sleeping. She was right where he’d left her, too, splayed out on Chelsie’s old couch. But when he smiled and stepped over to gently touch her shoulder, his fingers hit something freezing cold.
Stop.
Julius froze, shaking his head to clear the icy word from his mind. When he looked again, Ghost was sitting protectively on Marci’s shoulder, his glowing eyes bright and disapproving.
She is mortal,the spirit said, the words scraping through Julius’s mind like little cat claws.Mortals need sleep. Do not wake her.
“I don’t think she’d agree in this case,” Julius said quietly. “She’d never forgive me if I went to meet the undersecretary of magic without—”
Do not wake her.
The order hit Julius with surprising force and an even more curiously familiar bite. It almost felt like dragon magic, but the freezing burn was pure Ghost. It was the same grave-like cold he’d felt in the wind that had risen around Vann Jeger, and now as then, it chilled him to the bone.
She is mine,the spirit said, lashing his tail.I protect what is mine. She needs rest and recovery, not more of your problems.He turned up his nose.Go away, dragon.
Julius gritted his teeth. Hereallydidn’t want to do this without Marci, but he didn’t want to push Ghost, either, especially since the spirit was probably right. Between the fight in the throne room, getting hurt, and an afternoon spent drinking with Amelia, Marci probably wasn’t up for an early-morning diplomatic meeting with anyone. Heck, Julius was barely up for it himself, and he was a dragon. Marci, on the other hand, was mortal. Painfully so at the moment, too, with the deep circles under her closed eyes. She’d never been a particularly sound sleeper, but Julius was standing right next to her, and she hadn’t even stirred, which was enough to make him back off with a sigh.
“Okay,” he whispered, pulling out his phone. “I’ll let her sleep. Just let me send her a message so she knows what—”
No phone,the spirit hissed, glaring harder than ever.Hers is in her pocket. The buzzing will wake her.He bared his little cat fangs in disgust.Nasty, always buzzing thing.
Julius understood where Ghost was coming from, but there was no way he was leaving Marci alone in a strange place without at least telling her where he’d be. He was about to say screw it and text her anyway when he spotted a small, neat pile of scrap paper on the bookshelf right next to an ancient cup of ballpoint pens.
“Here,” he said, grabbing a paper off the top. “I’m going to write her a note telling her where I am and that she’s welcome to join me any time. When she wakes up, will you make sure she gets it?”
Ghost’s answer to that was a slow blink of his glowing eyes, which Julius decided to take as a yes. He still took care to make sure he wrote out exactly what had just happened before placing the paper prominently in the center of the battered blanket-trunk-turned-coffee-table. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said, putting up his hands as he backed out of the room. “Don’t forget to tell her.”
Again, the spirit didn’t answer, but his glowing eyes stayed locked on Julius the whole way down the hall as he returned to Fredrick. “Change of plans,” he said, grabbing the blindingly white Oxford shirt the dragon held out. “We’re going alone.”
“Excellent choice, sir,” the dragon replied, smiling as he held up the rest of the stupidly-expensive looking suit. “Shall I help you dress?”
“I think I got it,” Julius said awkwardly, taking the offered suit and hurrying back into the room where he’d slept to finish getting ready.
The moment his back was turned, Ghost whacked the note with his paw, sending the little scrap of paper wafting under the couch before resuming his watchful perch on Marci.
***
Ten minutes later, Julius and Fredrick were halfway up the mountain, stepping out of the service stairs (which was apparently how the Fs went everywhere) into the elegant atrium of Heartstriker Mountain’s diplomatic floor.
For Julius, at least, this was a new experience. As the world’s largest dragon clan, the Heartstrikers were always hosting some important dignitary or another. Since he hadn’t been part of the decision-making core of his family before yesterday, though, Julius had never actually set foot in the part of the mountain Bethesda kept set aside for human guests who needed to be impressed but weren’t actually important enough for the throne room.
Like every other part of the mountain designed with humans in mind, the diplomatic floor was beautiful in an expensive, corporate-chic kind of way with oversized, marble-tiled halls, multiple potted plants, and artistically arranged glass lighting installations hanging from the high ceiling at regular intervals. It was also uncharacteristically empty of dragons, save for one notable exception.
“Thereyou are.”
The angry growl made Julius jump right before Justin, who must have been waiting directly outside the stairwell door, pounced on him. Literally.
“What part of bodyguard do you not understand?” he snarled, grabbing his brother and yanking him up by his lapels. “I’ve been looking for you for hours! I only knew you’d be here because your pet F had the decency to call me.”
“You’re welcome,” Fredrick said stiffly, giving Justin a sour look, which the other dragon ignored.
“I didn’t know you were waiting on me,” Julius said apologetically. “I thought you were fighting a duel.”
“Notall night.There were only four of them, and the idiots didn’t even put on a good show. The whole thing took me an hour, tops. I called Chelsie right after to let her know I was good to take over again, but she didn’t answer, and you were nowhere to be found. I looked all over the mountain! I couldn’t even smell you, and youknowhow good my nose is.” His eyes narrowed. “Where were you, anyway?”
